Doctor Grayson reached a hand out to his Commander in Chief. “Don’t touch him!” Mrs. Wilson shrieked and grabbed for his arm.
Grayson ignored her and pulled the blanket down to the middle of the president’s chest. He gently placed his hand on the president’s wrist and then his neck. He stood up slowly. His face was pale as he turned to the others.
“Gentlemen, this man is dead.”
Robert Lansing thought that the only thing worse than finding that Woodrow Wilson was a corpse was the fact that Thomas R. Marshall was next in line to be the President of the United States, and would be so for the next five critical months. Marshall was perhaps the most incompetent vice president in the history of the United States, which, he thought ruefully, was saying a lot. He’d been despised by Wilson, who totally ignored him for two terms. Marshall was shy and insecure, and the only quote ever attributed to him was his deathless comment that “what this country needs is a good five-cent cigar.”
What the country really needed, Lansing thought bitterly, was a vice president qualified to fill the shoes of the president in the case of disaster. And now disaster was looming. No, he thought sadly, it was present.
General March and Lieutenant Martel departed, leaving Lansing alone. General March had been dropped off at the War Department and Martel was on his way to a local airstrip. Lansing had his driver take him to the residence of the vice president.
A moment later, the chief justice arrived and they exchanged grim nods. Lord, thought Lansing as he went up the walk to Marshall’s house, what a strange world we live in.
To Lansing’s surprise, Vice President Marshall answered it himself and invited them in. Except for the driver who waited patiently in the car, Lansing and Justice White were alone.
Vice President Marshall looked at the two men in puzzlement as they entered his office. “To what do I owe the honor?”
“Wilson is dead,” Lansing snapped. “You are now the President of the United States.”
Marshall staggered back as if struck. “No, no. It can’t be.”
Let’s get this over with quickly, Lansing thought. The delivery of the message had been intentionally cruel and blunt. Marshall might be a political clown and buffoon but he had a role to play and what was now a farce could not degenerate into tragedy.
“Which can’t be, Wilson’s death or your being president?” Lansing asked. “The chief justice is here to administer the oath so you can begin immediately administering the affairs of state and leading the nation through the coming war with Germany.”
Marshall looked wild-eyed with shock and looked like he was about to cry. “War? What in God’s name are you talking about? I know absolutely nothing about war or any crisis and don’t want to. And I most certainly don’t want to be president.”
“You’re the next in line,” Justice White said sternly, as if talking to a schoolchild. “If you don’t want to be president, you must formally step aside.”
Marshall took a deep breath, gathered himself, and sat down. “Gentlemen, you have surprised me. No, you have stunned me. I may not be the smartest man in the world, but I do consider myself a fairly honest one and a keen judge of my own character. I know myself and I know that I am utterly unqualified to become president of this wonderful country. If the crisis you speak of is so dire, then I should not even be an interim president until the inauguration next March. At that point you will become president, won’t you, Mr. Lansing?”
Douglas answered. “He will. With the elected president dead, the vice president elect will become the president and will be sworn in for a four-year term, but not until March. Whoever he appoints as secretary of state will be the next in succession as there is no constitutional provision to appoint or elect a new vice president. Marshall, your term of office will be extremely brief, only five months. Then you can retire with honor back to Indiana.”
Marshall shook his head. “If the country still exists, that is. Why are the Germans going to go to war with us?”
Lansing sighed. As secretary of state he had researched the contradictory and sometimes bizarre behavior of the Kaiser. Experts said that the Kaiser had been born with an arm that was withered because it had become entangled in his umbilical cord. This gave him feelings of inferiority. How could he be a warrior king with a withered arm? The arm even made it difficult for him to ride a horse, a task he had ultimately mastered through force of will. Other experts said that the Kaiser had also been born with the umbilical tube around his neck, and this had caused a lack of oxygen to his brain, damaging him.
The result was that the Kaiser, now sixty-one, saw that he only had a few more years to ensure his legacy as a conqueror. He’d defeated France, England, and Russia, and only the United States remained.
Lansing was exhausted and exasperated. “They are going to war with us because they are Germans and that’s what they do. Also because they are the strongest nation on the planet and they wish to expand their strength and their empire, and because they despise us for thwarting their ambitions in Europe and in the Pacific. The Kaiser and his government feel Wilson’s intervention ended the war in Europe too soon. And also because the Kaiser is a megalomaniac with delusions of grandeur. I might also add that the world’s growing need for oil is frightening the Kaiser. His warships require it and Germany has none. However, there is sufficient oil in California to fuel the German fleet’s needs for quite some time.”
Lansing felt sorry for the vice president.
“And if I decline to take the oath?”
“Simply declining would precipitate a constitutional crisis,” Chief Justice White said. “You would have to formally step aside, at which time the current secretary of state, Mr. Lansing, will become president until he is sworn in for a four-year term in March by virtue of the fact that he is also the vice president elect.”
“And Congress will not object?” Marshall inquired.
“I do not believe they will,” Lansing said. “The Constitution says that Congress has to appoint a president in the event that neither the president nor the vice president are able to serve. The most recent legislation has identified the secretary of state as the third in line.”
Marshall was not a stupid man and now understood the true meaning of their visit. He smiled at Lansing. “And you believe you are a better and more qualified man than I am?”
“In all honesty, Mr. Marshall, I do,” said Lansing.
Marshall shook his head sadly. “And in all honesty, so do I.” He took a piece of paper from a credenza and began to write. “I assume, Mr. Chief Justice, that you are here to ensure that all is honest and aboveboard?”
“Indeed.”
Marshall finished and handed the paper to Justice White. “I presume this is satisfactory.”
White glanced at it. “It is.” He signed his name as witness.
Marshall nodded sadly, “So much for my ambitions. Every little boy says he wants to grow up and be president of the United States, and if I do what you want, I will go down as the first and doubtless only man in our history who passed on the honor.”
Marshall laughed harshly. “And the dove was quite cunning, wasn’t he? Wilson probably knew he wouldn’t live out his next term, so he selected someone far more qualified than me to be the next in line. The only thing he didn’t count on was dying before the inauguration in March. Wilson was a stubborn, willful, hateful man who despised me and now he has given me this last insult to endure. Well, damn him, I will not play his game, dead or not.”