When the Cheering Stopped (26 page)

Two weeks later he went for the first time in seventeen months to the Executive Wing of the White House for a Cabinet meeting, a walk of six hundred yards. He moved very slowly but with little assistance, the right foot going forward first and then, dragging, the left. He allowed the newspaper photographers two pictures and then held up a hand: “That will be enough.” It was now a matter of weeks until it would all be over and he would be a private citizen in S Street. Jessie wrote: “Just one more month now! Isn't it fine—and we shall have you all to ourselves again as in the old days!” But he was still the President, still able to check on prospective appointees to government jobs to find if they were acceptable to anti-League Senators—and to disallow them if they were. He had time now for purely personal matters also—inquiries about the price of installing a safe in S Street, about the location of a woodshed.

George Creel had gone to work for a typical Roaring Twenties mental-improvement mail-order firm and the President asked for a copy of the outfit's printed application form and laboriously filled it out on his typewriter. “Pelmanism,” said the form, “can get more out of life for you.… Ask yourself the cause of failure. Look about you and see the reason why men and women do not get ahead.… Now consider the qualities that have made our most successful men; analyze the characteristics of such men as Edison, Schwab, Hoover, McAdoo, Pershing.” (“Our most successful men.” His name was absent.) “You have within you the same qualities that these men have.… Pelmanism teaches you how to develop
ORIGINALITY
—how to develop
PERSONALITY
—how to build
CHARACTER
—how to strengthen
INDIVIDUALITY. HOW TO SUCCEED
!… All replies absolutely confidential. Is your power of concentration strong or weak?” He typed, “Just about medium, I should say.” “Is your memory good or poor?” “Rather good.” “Do you lack confidence in yourself?” “No.” “Do you suffer much from self-consciousness or shyness?” “A good deal from shyness.” “What is the general condition of your health at the present time?” “I am suffering from nervous exhaustion.” The form explained the Special Enrollment Terms, one calling for $35 in cash to pay for the course,
the other calling for installment payments—five dollars down and seven further payments at 30-day intervals. Below was room for indicating name, address, occupation, age. He typed in his age, 64, but it would have been too fantastic to put down his occupation as President of the United States and his address as 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue, and he put the application away.

February was his last complete month in office; he invited his Cabinet members to come for lunch one by one. Houston came and asked what he thought of Presidentelect Harding's nominees for Cabinet posts. “Who, exactly?” asked the President, and Houston mentioned Senator Fall, who would be Secretary of the Interior. The President spoke about Fall's sickroom visit to the White House—“the smelling committee” which “I think discovered that I was very much all here”—and told of Fall's remark that he was praying for the President. “If I could have got out of bed,” the President told Houston, “I would have hit the man. Why did he want to put me in bad with the Almighty? He must have known that God would take the opposite view from him on any subject.” He walked to the elevator with Houston and put his hand on the Secretary's and said, “Old man, God bless you,” and Houston went out. It was the first evidence of personal affection or emotion Houston had seen in the eight years of their relationship.

Secretary Colby came and asked the First Lady if she would like to visit the State Department to see the Declaration of Independence and other historic documents. She said she would come the next day. When Colby rose to go he said that now that the end was coming he wanted the President to know what an honor it had been to work under him. The President thanked him for his words and asked, “Well, Colby, what are you going to do?” Colby stretched out his arms and said, “Oh, I suppose I shall return to New York and open a musty law office again, which, after this experience, will be a dreary business. But I must make a living.” The President said, “Well,' I, too, must make a living. As I was once a lawyer”—three and a half decades had gone by since then—“why not open an office together here?” Colby leaped forward and leaned across the desk. “Do you really
mean that, Mr. President?” “Yes,” said the President, “I can't face a life of idleness.” Colby later talked with the First Lady and Grayson, both of whom thought it was a good idea, and then began to make plans for a partnership in which the President would not have to do too much. The other Cabinet members were all amazed when they learned of the plan, and one of them said to Daniels, “Bainbridge has vamped Wilson.” But that was not the case at all—as they would find out.

Margaret was with them now, and every day she practiced her singing in a room across the hall from his. One day as she sang Ray Stannard Baker came in and saw a man with a bird cage and some family pictures going out to a moving van parked before the White House and for the first time actually realized that the long years as President were really coming to their conclusion. Furniture stored in Princeton was being shipped down, and the First Lady was getting her things out of warehouses, and they were working together to determine just what gifts should be given members of the White House staff. (Each person got a U.S. Bond of from $50 to $500, and many were also given personal mementos—paintings and such.) Ellen's brother, Stockton Axson, sent the First Lady a graceful letter: “Dearest Edith: This is just a little ‘Goodbye' note to you and the President as you leave the White House. I think the uppermost feeling in your mind will be relief, but there must be a touch of sadness too. I think it was Dr. Johnson (no sentimentalist) who said there is always sadness in doing anything the last time. So much has happened in the White House years that it will not be possible to leave the place indifferently. But, quoting Browning, ‘The best is yet to be'—happy, happy years in S Street.”

On March 1, with three days to go, he held his last Cabinet meeting. It was in the White House Executive Wing. Secretary Houston arrived early and as he waited saw the President painfully making his way to the Cabinet-Room: it was in Houston's eyes a brave sight and a tragic sight. He did not want the President to know that his straining walk was being witnessed, and so he turned away and went into a room nearby and waited there so
that the President might take his seat. Then Houston went in with the others. The President remarked that, come what might, he was going to take part in the inauguration despite his weakness and lameness. There was a brief pause. One of the men asked how he would pass his time out of office. Would he write a history of his Administration? The President said he would not, that he was too near the events and too closely associated personally. One of the men said, “But you must do something! What will you do?” The President thought a moment and said, “I am going to try to teach ex-Presidents how to behave. There will be one very difficult thing for me to stand, however, and that is Mr. Harding's English!”

Again there was silence for a moment. Colby said, “Mr. President, if I may presume to voice the sentiments of my colleagues, I have the honor of saying …” He talked about the inspiring example the President had given them, of how they loved and admired him. “We shall keep watch of your progress toward better health with affectionate interest and shall pray that your recovery may be rapid.” When Colby finished, Houston started to say how much he himself endorsed these remarks, but held up when he saw that the President was trying to control himself and stop his lips from trembling. But it did not work; he could not stop the tears from rolling down his lined cheeks past the quivering mouth. “Gentlemen,” he got out brokenly, weakly, “it is one of the handicaps of my physical condition that I cannot control myself as I have been accustomed to do. God bless you all.” Houston thought to himself that this must be the greatest trial that could come to a Scotch Presbyterian whose whole philosophy was one of self-control. The men got up and each shook his hand. “Good-by, Mr. President. Good-by, Mr. President.” They left and he walked away, trembling and with the marks of moisture still on his face. Joe Tumulty stood watching from his office window and thought, There goes the real hope of the world. “The President finished strong,” said Secretary Baker to Secretary Burleson, and Burleson said that George Washington
also cried at his final Cabinet meeting. The Cabinet members got together and wrote him a letter:

Mr. President:

The final moments of the Cabinet on Tuesday found us quite unable to express the poignant feelings with which we realized that the hour of leave-taking and official dispersal had arrived.

Will you permit us to say to you now, and as simply as we can, how great a place you occupy in our honor, love, and esteem?

… History will acclaim your great qualities. We who have known you so intimately bear witness to them now.

We fervently wish you, dear Mr. President, long life and the happiness that you so richly deserve and have so abundantly earned.

Two days later, March 3, his last full day, the telegrams came in. There were 124 of them, and by order of the President they were all answered by Joe Tumulty.
THE DEMOCRATIC CITY CLUB OF BERLIN NEW HAMPSHIRE SEND GREETINGS TO OUR RETIRING CHIEF. WE WISH YOU HEALTH AND HAPPINESS. WE ASSURE YOU OF OUR LOVE AND LOYALTY AND PLEDGE OURSELVES TO CARRY ON
… The Rotary of Durant, Oklahoma, the Methodist Church of Woodland, Georgia …
HISTORY WILL VINDICATE YOU AND ESTABLISH THAT FOR WHICH YOU FOUGHT
—
THE LEAGUE OF NATIONS. AUTOMOTIVE ASSOCIATION OF CHARLOTTE NORTH CAROLINA
… Five hundred Boy Scouts of Springfield, Illinois …
WE REJOICE THAT YOU MAY NOW HAVE A WELL DESERVED REST AND TRUST YOU MAY LIVE TO KNOW THE LOVE AND GRATITUDE OF THE WHOLE WORLD WHICH IS CERTAIN TO BE YOURS. MR AND MRS HOWARD J BAILEY OMAHA NEBRASKA
…
THE TWO HUNDRED AND FIFTY MEMBERS OF THE COMEBACK CLUB OF COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY DISABLED EXSERVICEMEN TENDER YOU HONORARY MEMBERSHIP AND WISH GODSPEED AND QUICK RECOVERY
… Aerie 85 of the Fraternal Order of Eagles, Dennison, Ohio …
THE DENVILLE VIRGINIA YOUNG MENS CHRISTIAN ASSOCIATION UNITES IN PRAYER THANKING GOD FOR SERVICES AND ASKING GODS RICHEST BLESSINGS
… The Protective Board of the Brotherhood
of Railway Carmen of America … Scores of Sweet Briar College Girls …
TODAY YOU STEP DOWN TO GLORY J J RYAN ZANESVILLE OHIO
.

That day also President-elect Harding came with his wife for the customary pre-inauguration visit. Tea was served to the two couples in the Red Room. Mrs. Harding wore the same hat she had worn when she earlier visited the First Lady. Conversation was strained and difficult. The President-elect sat in an arm-chair with one leg thrown over the arm.

Inauguration Day dawned clear and but slightly windy. The President took breakfast as usual in his room at eight-thirty and then dressed in morning coat and gray trousers. All along he had insisted that he would play his full part in the ceremonies despite a report from the Secret Service man Richard Jervis, who traced out the walking he would have to do and found he would have to go 190 steps from an elevator in the Capitol to the President's Room in the Senate wing, 270 steps from there out through the rotunda to the top of the steps leading down to the temporary stand where the inaugural would be conducted, and down 16 steep stone steps and then 50 steps to his seat—“All in full view of probably 50,000 people and hundreds of motion picture cameras.” The walking, particularly the going down the steps, was completely beyond his strength, but not until after breakfast did he accede to Grayson's pleas and agree to forgo it.

Tumulty came in to see him when Grayson had gone, and together, alone, the two sat in the President's study. Now that it was all ending—the war, the months of difficulty after the fall in the bathroom, the failure of the League—now that it was all ended, really, Tumulty asked the President if he remembered March 4, 1917, the second of his own inauguration days, and how on that day the President had said it would be “great to be free” when once March 4, 1921, came. The President said he remembered well. Now that day had come. They had been together eleven years, ever since New Jersey and the statehouse in Trenton, and the President said, “Well, Joe!” “Well, Governor!” “Well, Joe, you've served me
faithfully through it all.” “Well, Governor, I'm glad to hear you say so.” And Tumulty said he was glad as a Roman Catholic to have shown he could work with a Scotch Presbyterian, and maybe it would open a few people's eyes to things.

Then he mentioned a case in which he was interested, that of an aged Nebraska man who had been convicted of a Federal crime. The old man had asked Tumulty to aid him in getting a pardon from the President, and now Tumulty held out the pardon papers he had made up. The old man had a son and a crippled daughter who idolized him, and he reminded Tumulty of his own father, and Tumulty gave the papers to the President. “Governor,” he said, “let the curtain go down on an act of mercy—the last act an act of mercy. And I know, some way, when you need mercy the last act will be remembered for you.” The President looked at the paper and shook his head and said, “No, Tumulty, no. That case has been reviewed.” Tumulty said, “But it's an act of mercy and your last act, Governor, and there is something in the balance of things.” The President said, “No, Joe, the country needs to see the law vindicated. The country needs the spectacle of a stable, just, and righteous Government more than that old man needs a pardon or I need an act of mercy.” He took a pen and wrote
DISAPPROVED
across the paper in the strongest hand he had written in months.