The Politician

By Erwin Hargrove

Politics comes naturally to John Page, and doors keep opening in his career. The call seems to be clear. But there are choices to be made. How far will he go? And how long will he follow the call?

• Language: English
• Publisher: Erwin Hargrove
• Release date: Aug 1, 2018
• ISBN: 9781732539518

Erwin Hargrove

Erwin Hargrove is a retired professor of political science at Vanderbilt University. The author of several books on the American presidency and a novel entitled American Journeys, A Story of Three Lives, he drew inspiration from a true tale from his own mother’s Parisian life for Danger in Paris.

Book preview

PART ONE

CHAPTER ONE

John Page was a natural politician long before he could give a name to his talents. In the eighth grade, he created football and basketball teams for the Noyes school, and they competed informally on sandlots with other schools. He was a fair athlete but an excellent organizer. About the same time, he learned that he could please others with his wry sense of humor without necessarily being the center of attention. But he did like to lead.

John’s mother had died when he was eight. He had a good father, and they spent much time together on camping trips and riding the horses that they stabled behind their big house. Still, John was alone a lot, and he fought off loneliness through friendships. Friends became important to him, and this continued for the rest of his life.

John was not particularly fond of the stepmother who came along, although he came to like her in time. He figured that problem would be solved by growing up, which he had always wanted to do. He was a good student in high school with lots of friends. He was always popular. He enjoyed acting in school plays. It was fun to be the center of attention, but he did not crave it. He just expected it.

John’s favorite course was American History, which was taught by an extraordinary woman. In later years, he learned of her influence on others as they had passed through her classes. She was a fierce liberal, who would talk with him about injustice in American life using vivid examples. His father was a Democrat, even though he was a successful banker, so John became a Democrat and never regretted it.

The senior John Page was president of one of the oldest banks in the middle-size midwestern city. His mother’s grandfather had created the bank, and John’s father owned it through inheritance. It was always assumed that the son would come into the bank in time, but first he had to go to college.

John chose the small college that his grandfather and father had attended. It was an excellent school, and he did not look further afield. He worked very hard, did well, and became aware that he had a drive to succeed. He decided much later that this drive was a result of his mother’s death. Success was accompanied by a sense of loss. He was not in the lease insecure. But he wanted to do well in order to fight off the feeling that something was missing.

Two years in the army as a draftee in the wake of the Korean War was useful only because of the variety of boys John met from all backgrounds. He liked most of them, even though he felt detached from them. He was acquiring the blend of friendliness and detachment that was to make him an effective leader.

John thought of going to law school after the army, but the bank was inviting. It offered many concrete ways to help people. He had taken the law school exam while in the army, had received a high score, and had been accepted at Harvard law school. Had he followed that path, his career and life would have been altogether different. But it was not just the bank that attracted him. He also liked the city in which his family had lived for five generations. Its population was just under one hundred thousand people, and it had a lively economy built around wheat and milling, cattle and sheep, and commerce. The economy was stable rather than dynamic, but John liked stability and, to be honest with himself, he enjoyed being in one of the first families in town, not for the prestige but for the position it gave him to do good things for others. He could be familiar and still detached.

John found an apartment, bought some suits, shirts, and neckties, and reported for work. He had worked as a teller in the summertime, so he became an assistant loan officer. He made small loans to gas stations, ice cream stores, and a variety of small retail merchants, and in the process, learned about small businesses. He then graduated to larger kinds of firms, but after a time, he was moved to investments. He started at the bottom with municipal bonds, then went into federal securities, and eventually learned about the legal and prudent investments the bank made in more speculative areas. He liked this kind of banking, because it dealt with uncertainty and judgment.

John spent a short time in advertising and public relations and then was sent to the state capitol to learn lobbying from a firm of experts. He also began to learn about politicians and their motives and political needs.

John was promoted to assistant vice president at age thirty, working in investments. Everyone knew that he would run the bank someday, but his style of authority was so easygoing that there was little resentment. He was a good listener, which flattered subordinates. His father ran the bank in much the same way.

CHAPTER TWO

John dated some of the girls in the country club set, an invisible line of demarcation in the city. He had found an old dance card of his grandmother’s from 1890. The names on the card were the same names of some of his current friends, including girls that he knew. A few of them had been snapped up in marriage, but he could not see one that was right for him. He had liked a girl from Chicago who often visited, but she vanished into marriage. He was too cautious and too late.

Then John got lucky. Friends set him up for a blind date in a nearby big city, and although he grumbled, he agreed. When she walked in, it was as if she owned the ground. Her smile lit up a room. She was slender with short, blonde hair, green eyes, and high cheekbones. Good cheekbones were a beauty mark for life. Her name was Julie. She was gentle with a dry wit that matched his. She was an American who had grown up among English people in the Bahamas.

John and Julie began to talk with each other as soon as they met and conversed all night, paying no attention to others. John returned the next day for lunch, and