Not until late in the spring of his second year did Burbank find a trace
of gall in his wine.
From the night of his election parasites and plunderers and agents of
plunderers had imprisoned him in the usual presidential fool's paradise.
The organs of the interests and their Congressional henchmen praised
everything he did; I and my group of Congressmen and my newspapers, as
loyal partizans, bent first of all upon regularity, were silent where we
did not praise also. But the second year of a President's first term is
the beginning of frank, if guarded, criticism of him from his own side.
For it is practically his last year of venturing to exercise any real
official power. The selection of delegates to the party's national
convention, to which a President must submit himself for leave to
re-submit himself to the people, is well under way before the end of
his third year; and direct and active preparations for it must begin
long in advance.
Late in that second spring Burbank made a tour of the country, to give
the people the pleasure of seeing their great man, to give himself the
pleasure of their admiration, and to help on the Congressional campaign,
the result of which would be the preliminary popular verdict upon his
administration. The thinness of the crowds, the feebleness of the
enthusiasm, the newspaper sneers and flings at that oratory once hailed
as a model of dignity and eloquence--even he could not accept the smooth
explanations of his flatterers. And in November came the party's
memorable overwhelming defeat--reducing our majority in the Senate from
twenty to six, and substituting for our majority of ninety-three in the
House an opposition majority of sixty-seven.
I talked with him early in January and was amazed that, while he
appreciated the public anger against the party, he still believed
himself personally popular. "There is a lull in prosperity," said he,
"and the people are peevish." Soon, however, by a sort of endosmosis to
which the densest vanity is somewhat subject, the truth began to seep
through and to penetrate into him.
He became friendlier to me, solicitous toward spring--but he clung none
the less tightly to Goodrich. The full awakening came in his third
summer when the press and the politicians of the party began openly to
discuss the next year's nomination and to speak of him as if he were out
of the running. He was spending the hot months on the Jersey coast, the
flatterers still swarming about him and still assiduous, but their
flatteries falling upon ever deafer ears as his mind rivetted upon the
hair-suspended sword. In early September he invited me to visit him--my
first invitation of that kind in two years and a half. We had three
interviews before he could nerve himself to brush aside the barriers
between him and me.
"I am about to get together my friends with a view to next year," said
he through an uneasy smile. "What do you think of the prospects?"
"What do your friends say?" I asked.
"Oh, of course, I am assured of a renomination--" He paused, and his
look at me made the confident affirmation a dubious question.
"Yes?" said I.
"And--don't you think my record has made me strong?" he went on
nervously.
"Strong--with whom?" said I.
He was silent. Finally he laid his hand on my knee--we were taking the
air on the ocean drive. "Harvey," he said, "I can count on you?"
I shook my head. "I shall take no part in the next campaign," I said. "I
shall resign the chairmanship."
"But I have selected you as my chairman. I have insisted on you. I can't
trust any one else. I need others, I use others, but I trust only you."
I shook my head. "I shall resign," I repeated. "What's the matter--won't
Goodrich take the place?"
He looked away. "I have not seriously thought of any one but you," he
said reproachfully.
I happened to know that the place had been offered to Goodrich and that
he had declined it, protesting that I, a Western man, must not be
disturbed when the West was vital to the party's success. "My resolution
is fixed," said I.
A long silence, then: "Sayler, have you heard anything of an attempt to
defeat me for the nomination?"
"Goodrich has decided to nominate Governor Ridgeway of Illinois," said
I.
He blanched and had to moisten his dry, wrinkled lips several times
before he could speak. "A report of that nature reached me last
Thursday," he went on. "For some time I have been perplexed by the
Ridgeway talk in many of our organs. I have questioned Goodrich about
it--and--I must say--his explanations are not--not wholly satisfactory."
I glanced at him and had instantly to glance away, so plainly was I
showing my pity. He was not hiding himself from me now. He looked old
and tired and sick--not mere sickness of body, but that mortal sickness
of the mind and heart which kills a man, often years before his body
dies.
"I have come to the conclusion that you were right about Goodrich,
Sayler. I am glad that I took your advice and never trusted him. I think
you and I together will be too strong for him."
"You are going to seek a renomination?" I asked.
He looked at me in genuine astonishment. "It is impossible that the
party should refuse me," he said.