He glanced at his attorney general, who nodded his assent.
Mellon’s offer had first been made a year ago. The building would cost between $8 and $9 million. Mellon’s own art collection, valued at $20 million, would become its nucleus. Other quality works would also be acquired and displayed, the idea being that Washington, DC, might become one of the principal art capitals of the world. Mellon would endow the institution with $5 million, the income from which would be used to pay the salaries of the top administrators and to acquire more works. The government would perpetually pay for building maintenance and upkeep. There’d been months of behind-the-scenes negotiations to iron out the details, all leading up to this final gathering. Attorney General Cummings had kept him informed, but there’d been little give-and-take. Just as in business, in art Mellon drove a hard bargain.
One point was still troublesome, though.
“You have specified,” he said, “that all of the funds for the building, and for the art, will come from your charitable trust. Yet it is this trust that we contend owes the people of this country over $3 million in back taxes.”
Mellon’s stone features never flinched. “If you want the money, that’s where it is located.”
He could tell he was being played. But that was all right. He’d asked for this encounter. So—
“I wish to speak to Mr. Mellon alone.”
He saw that his attorney general did not like the idea but knew it was not a request. Both Cummings and Finley left the room. He waited until the door was closed and said, “You do know that I despise you.”
“As if I care what you think. You’re insignificant.”
He chuckled. “I’ve been called arrogant. Lazy. Stupid. A manipulator. But never insignificant. I actually take offense to that one. I fancy myself to be quite relevant to our current economic predicament. One, I might add, you bear some responsibility for creating.”
Mellon shrugged. “If Hoover had listened, the Depression would have been a short one.”
It was going on seven years since that fateful Friday in 1929 when markets crashed and banks failed. Hoover was gone, but the Republicans lingered, still in control of Congress and the Supreme Court, enough that his New Deal policies were being dealt one legal blow after another. He’d confronted so many obstacles that he’d decided to make peace with his enemies, which included this devil. But not before he had his say.
“Let me see if I recall. As secretary of Treasury you advised Hoover to liquidate labor, stocks, farmers, and real estate. Purge all of the rottenness out of the system. Once done, according to you, people will work harder and live more—how did you put it—moral lives. Then you said that enterprising individuals will pick up from the less competent.”
“That was sound advice.”
“Coming from a man worth hundreds of millions I could see how you would feel that way. I doubt you’d have the same attitude if you were starving and out of work, with no hope.”
He was actually surprised by Mellon’s physical appearance. The face had drawn gaunt, the tall frame even thinner than he recalled. The skin was pale as lead, eyes tired and longing. Two heavy furrows ran at angles from the nostrils to the corner of the mouth, obscured partially by the trademark mustache. He knew Mellon to be eighty-one years old, but he looked over a hundred. One fact was clear, though—this man remained formidable.
He plucked a cigarette from the box on the side table and slid it into an ivory holder. The sight of its soft tip between his clenched teeth, held at a jaunty forty-five-degree angle, had become a sign of presidential confidence and optimism. God knows the country needed both. He lit the end and savored a deep drag, the smoke heavy, each inhalation producing a comforting ache in his chest.
“You do understand that there will be no change in our position relative to the matter presently pending in the Board of Tax Appeals. Your gift will have no affect on that litigation.”
“Actually, it will.”
Now he was curious.
“The National Gallery of Art will be built,” Mellon said. “You cannot, and will not, refuse to do this. My gift is too much to ignore. Once opened, the gallery will become the premier place for art in this nation. Your petty tax trial will be long done. No one will ever give it another thought. But the gallery—that will stand forever and never be forgotten.”
“You truly are the mastermind among the malefactors of great wealth.”
“I recall that quote of yours, describing me as such. I actually took your words as a compliment. But coming from a professional politician, interested only in votes, it matters not to me what you think.”
He said, “I am saving this country from the likes of you.”
“All you’ve done is create a blizzard of new boards and agencies, most overlapping already existing departments. They do nothing, other than bloat the budget and increase taxes. The end result will be disastrous. More is never better, especially when it comes to government. God help this country when you’re done with it. Thankfully, I won’t be here to see those wretched consequences.”
Roosevelt savored more tobacco before noting, “You’re right, to refuse this gift would be political suicide. Your friends in the Republican Congress would not take kindly to that. And, I’m told, since the gift is yours you may set its terms. So your grand national gallery will be built.”
“You weren’t the first, you know.”
He wondered what the old man meant.
“I did it long before you ever thought of it.”