The Lacuna
Page 116
Tommy vamped a few bars of “I’m Just Wild About Harry,” with jazz hands.
“It’s true, Tommy. If you read something besides the Echo, you’d know that.”
“Fine, down with it. Harry Truman gets two votes.”
“I don’t vote. I never have.”
“Really? Conk me. I had you down for a Henry Wallace type. The rise of the common man and all that. All the reviewers say so.”
“Politics in this country are never quite what they seem. I don’t quite feel…what? Entitled.”
He looked genuinely amazed. “Entitled. Cat, this is America, they let anybody vote. Crooks, wigs, even cookies like us. Dogs and cats, probably. Don’t take Fido to the polls, he might cancel you out.”
“Well, that’s the thing, it’s all too much. Too fast. I need to brood on things.”
He cocked his head in a sympathetic pout. “Sad stranger in the happy land.”
The New York Times, September 26, 1948
Truman Is Linked by Scott to Reds
Special to The New York Times
BOSTON, MASS., SEPT. 25—Hugh D. Scott Jr., chairman of the Republican National Committee, told Massachusetts Republicans today that the Communist party endorsed Mr. Truman for Vice President in 1944, with the result that the President now shows “indifference to Communist penetration at home.” Delivering the keynote address at the party’s state convention, Mr. Scott assailed the President’s reference to spy investigations as a “red herring” and said the explanation for this attitude could be found in history.
“The New York Daily Worker, the official Communist organ in the United States, endorsed Mr. Truman cordially in the issue of Aug. 12, 1944,” he said. “The endorsement was signed by Eugene Dennis, secretary of the Communist party, who recently was cited for contempt of the House of Representatives for refusing to testify concerning his subversive activities in this country.”
Mr. Scott quoted Mr. Dennis as writing, in connection with the Democratic Party’s 1944 candidates: “It is a ticket representative not only of the Democratic Party but of important and wider sections of the camp of national unity.”
Another link between the President and The Daily Worker was claimed by Mr. Scott. This is a letter written on Senate stationery and signed by Harry S. Truman, August 14, 1944. This communication to Samuel Barron, public relations director of The Daily Worker, expresses thanks for the copy of an article that appeared in the paper.
Calling for an all-out drive on subversives in Government, Mr. Scott said: “Once the Dewey-Warren administration takes over we will see the greatest housecleaning in Washington since St. Patrick cleaned the snakes out of Ireland.”
Senator Henry Cabot Lodge Jr. was chairman of the convention, which adopted a platform making no mention of controversial state referenda on birth control and labor unions.
November 1
This strange day. Early snow, and a visit from the FBI.
The snow fell in huge, leisurely flakes, piling itself carefully on everything, even twigs and telephone wires. Putting white caps on the hydrants, covering the mud puddles and buckled sidewalks. A Benediction for the Day of the Dead. Or perhaps last rites, this weary world with all its faults consenting to lie down with a sigh and be covered up with a sheet. “Holy is the day”—I had just thought those words when he came tramping tiredly up the walk, leaving behind a trail, the impressions of his leather shoes. At the curb he’d hesitated, turning this way and that before coming up my walk. It looked like an Arthur Murray dance diagram.
Myers is the name. I made sure to get it this time, Melvin C. Myers, special agent from the Federal Bureau of Investigation. Not the same man who was here before, right away I knew it was a different voice. This Myers is a man of rank, evidently, but he seemed almost apologetic. Too old for a fight, sorry that life has come to this.
I could hardly let him stand out there getting a snowdrift on his hat. I had a fire on the hearth and coffee made, prepared for a solitary day. Mrs. Brown is kept home by the weather, her bus line canceled. So I brought Myers his coffee on the sofa and poked up the fire, to all appearances entertaining a guest. We joked about the elections coming up, how Truman will soon be looking for a new job. Three magazines lay on the coffee table, the week’s editions I’d purchased from the newsstand, all of them with President Dewey on their covers, his bold new plan for the nation outlined inside. Chisme and Chispa weren’t fooled by the friendly patter, they rose from their pool of warmth by the hearth, hissed inaudibly, and slunk away. I should have done the same.
He believes I have a very large problem, does Mr. Myers. Things really do not look good regarding my position with the State Department. I’m about to be in the same boat with Truman, he said. Hunting a new job.
“Oh, well, it’s too bad. A lot of it going around.” I decided to play it contrite, to satisfy this fellow. No need to tell him I hadn’t worked for the State Department in years, and had no intention of ever doing so again.
“Except for us gumshoes,” he said with a chuckle. “Our job security is A-okay.”
“I’ve heard that. Snakes out of Ireland, and so forth.”
He was eager to show me his portfolio of evidence against me, and I was curious, especially about the photograph. Harrison Shepherd and wife, Communist party meeting 1930. It was a puzzling disappointment, not one thing in the picture I could recognize. No person I’d ever known, no place I had been.
“Is this the noose around my neck? I can’t even guess which one of those men is supposed to be me. I was fourteen that year, living in Mexico.” I handed back the photograph, and he took a great deal of care to put it inside a folder and settle it in the correct compartment of his briefcase.
Then said, “That photograph is a piece of garbage. I realize that.”
The man was so shabby and earnest, I almost hated to let him down. Probably people habitually responded this way—shop clerks slipped back his change, the butcher put an extra ounce of chuck on the scales. Probably I’d let him in the door because of some vague sense he was a man of Artie’s ilk. A short, bald, gentile Arthur Gold. A widower, judging from his clothes, and the long, scant hair combed over his bald head, no one to tell him that was a bad idea. He had none of Artie’s cleverness but seemed to carry the same torch. Searching for an honest man and fed up with the whole shmear.
“It’s true, Tommy. If you read something besides the Echo, you’d know that.”
“Fine, down with it. Harry Truman gets two votes.”
“I don’t vote. I never have.”
“Really? Conk me. I had you down for a Henry Wallace type. The rise of the common man and all that. All the reviewers say so.”
“Politics in this country are never quite what they seem. I don’t quite feel…what? Entitled.”
He looked genuinely amazed. “Entitled. Cat, this is America, they let anybody vote. Crooks, wigs, even cookies like us. Dogs and cats, probably. Don’t take Fido to the polls, he might cancel you out.”
“Well, that’s the thing, it’s all too much. Too fast. I need to brood on things.”
He cocked his head in a sympathetic pout. “Sad stranger in the happy land.”
The New York Times, September 26, 1948
Truman Is Linked by Scott to Reds
Special to The New York Times
BOSTON, MASS., SEPT. 25—Hugh D. Scott Jr., chairman of the Republican National Committee, told Massachusetts Republicans today that the Communist party endorsed Mr. Truman for Vice President in 1944, with the result that the President now shows “indifference to Communist penetration at home.” Delivering the keynote address at the party’s state convention, Mr. Scott assailed the President’s reference to spy investigations as a “red herring” and said the explanation for this attitude could be found in history.
“The New York Daily Worker, the official Communist organ in the United States, endorsed Mr. Truman cordially in the issue of Aug. 12, 1944,” he said. “The endorsement was signed by Eugene Dennis, secretary of the Communist party, who recently was cited for contempt of the House of Representatives for refusing to testify concerning his subversive activities in this country.”
Mr. Scott quoted Mr. Dennis as writing, in connection with the Democratic Party’s 1944 candidates: “It is a ticket representative not only of the Democratic Party but of important and wider sections of the camp of national unity.”
Another link between the President and The Daily Worker was claimed by Mr. Scott. This is a letter written on Senate stationery and signed by Harry S. Truman, August 14, 1944. This communication to Samuel Barron, public relations director of The Daily Worker, expresses thanks for the copy of an article that appeared in the paper.
Calling for an all-out drive on subversives in Government, Mr. Scott said: “Once the Dewey-Warren administration takes over we will see the greatest housecleaning in Washington since St. Patrick cleaned the snakes out of Ireland.”
Senator Henry Cabot Lodge Jr. was chairman of the convention, which adopted a platform making no mention of controversial state referenda on birth control and labor unions.
November 1
This strange day. Early snow, and a visit from the FBI.
The snow fell in huge, leisurely flakes, piling itself carefully on everything, even twigs and telephone wires. Putting white caps on the hydrants, covering the mud puddles and buckled sidewalks. A Benediction for the Day of the Dead. Or perhaps last rites, this weary world with all its faults consenting to lie down with a sigh and be covered up with a sheet. “Holy is the day”—I had just thought those words when he came tramping tiredly up the walk, leaving behind a trail, the impressions of his leather shoes. At the curb he’d hesitated, turning this way and that before coming up my walk. It looked like an Arthur Murray dance diagram.
Myers is the name. I made sure to get it this time, Melvin C. Myers, special agent from the Federal Bureau of Investigation. Not the same man who was here before, right away I knew it was a different voice. This Myers is a man of rank, evidently, but he seemed almost apologetic. Too old for a fight, sorry that life has come to this.
I could hardly let him stand out there getting a snowdrift on his hat. I had a fire on the hearth and coffee made, prepared for a solitary day. Mrs. Brown is kept home by the weather, her bus line canceled. So I brought Myers his coffee on the sofa and poked up the fire, to all appearances entertaining a guest. We joked about the elections coming up, how Truman will soon be looking for a new job. Three magazines lay on the coffee table, the week’s editions I’d purchased from the newsstand, all of them with President Dewey on their covers, his bold new plan for the nation outlined inside. Chisme and Chispa weren’t fooled by the friendly patter, they rose from their pool of warmth by the hearth, hissed inaudibly, and slunk away. I should have done the same.
He believes I have a very large problem, does Mr. Myers. Things really do not look good regarding my position with the State Department. I’m about to be in the same boat with Truman, he said. Hunting a new job.
“Oh, well, it’s too bad. A lot of it going around.” I decided to play it contrite, to satisfy this fellow. No need to tell him I hadn’t worked for the State Department in years, and had no intention of ever doing so again.
“Except for us gumshoes,” he said with a chuckle. “Our job security is A-okay.”
“I’ve heard that. Snakes out of Ireland, and so forth.”
He was eager to show me his portfolio of evidence against me, and I was curious, especially about the photograph. Harrison Shepherd and wife, Communist party meeting 1930. It was a puzzling disappointment, not one thing in the picture I could recognize. No person I’d ever known, no place I had been.
“Is this the noose around my neck? I can’t even guess which one of those men is supposed to be me. I was fourteen that year, living in Mexico.” I handed back the photograph, and he took a great deal of care to put it inside a folder and settle it in the correct compartment of his briefcase.
Then said, “That photograph is a piece of garbage. I realize that.”
The man was so shabby and earnest, I almost hated to let him down. Probably people habitually responded this way—shop clerks slipped back his change, the butcher put an extra ounce of chuck on the scales. Probably I’d let him in the door because of some vague sense he was a man of Artie’s ilk. A short, bald, gentile Arthur Gold. A widower, judging from his clothes, and the long, scant hair combed over his bald head, no one to tell him that was a bad idea. He had none of Artie’s cleverness but seemed to carry the same torch. Searching for an honest man and fed up with the whole shmear.
