Literary Views And Reviews A NEGRO PRESIDENT

Press, Volume CIV, Issue 30793, 3 July 1965, Page 4

Literary Views And Reviews A NEGRO PRESIDENT

The Man. By Irving Wallace. 760 pp. Cassell.

The Constitution of the United States of America. Article n, Section 4, reads: ‘•The president . . . shall be removed from office on impeachment for, and conviction of, treason, bribery, or other high crimes and misdemeanours.”

It is appropriate to review or read this novel with a copy of the Constitution close at hand for it is a political ■work which weaves an impressive drama from the cc Id, legalistic prose of that Constitution. It concerns one of the greatest political issues of the 20th century, the American Negroes' struggle for full emancipation, and yet it is not a polemical novel. Mr Wallace has achieved a sometimes startling insight into the emotions and ambitions of the conflicting streams of the American polity—the entrenched hatred of white Southerners, the frantic violence of Negro extremists and the idealistic liberalism of many of those in between. But the author is reluctant to espouse the cause of any faction and his book is a plea for moderation, for tolerance and for progress by gradual compromise. “The Man” is perhaps the best contribution yet in fiction to the Negroes' dilemma, a refreshing attempt to see a vast social issue in all its many complexities. It is a long novel, in the contemporary American manner, but for once the greatness of the theme justifies every word. For the “Man” of the title is someone still in our future—the first Negro to become President of the United States. A series of accidents brings Douglass Dilman, the widower Negro Senator, to the White House. Rut once there the events which crowd in upon him, domestic and international, are often far from

accidental. Wildly delighted Negro extremists prepare for an inverted racism, Southern whites make ready to run up the old Confederate flag, and throughout a nation caught unprepared and bewildered [sweeps a feeling of terrified I uncertainty. Around the President, the Cabinet of the former chief executive, who has died in an accident, prepare to continue the same policies as before. They believe that in Dilman they have a quiet, unassuming man, woefully uncertain in his new office, who will be content to act as a figurehead. But at an increasing tempo the new President evolves a policy of his own and refuses to condone what he believes to be injustices to America’s allies abroad as well as Americans at home, regardless of race. This uncompromising honesty earns him the respect of a few, but too many are ready to proclaim, often violently, that Dilman is not President by the will of the people. Accidental succession gives him no mandate to initiate policy and as his enemies increase. Douglass Dilman becomes the second President in American history to be impeached by the House of Representatives before the Senate for “high crimes.”

It is Mr Wallace’s theme that Dilman’s “crime” is his colour and the drama of a man on trial for his race sweeps through the lives of all around him. Dilman’s suave Secretary of State, the next in line for the presidency, turns against him; his beautiful social secretary accuses him of attempted rape; his son, secretly a member of a subversive organisation, is part of a Negro college mob which attacks the president: and above all there is a woman the President loves yet dare not marry.

On occasion there is contrivance in Mr Wallace’s work. Too many factors are stacked up against the Negro President. But the author is never clumsy and he moves through

the complexities of American government with an enviable ease. The trial itself is magnificently handled. There is only one precedent, the impeachment of President Andrew Johnson in the 1860’s, and from this Mr Wallace has [evolved a twentieth century counterpart. All the paraphernalia of mass communications media surround the event and after the tension and suspense the climax is as moving and enthralling as it is bizarre. As the trial ends the 100 Senators rise one by one to vote “guilty” or “not guilty” on their President and the changing totals are presented to the world by radio and television commentators like election returns—or baseball scores.

“The Man” richly deserves the wide audience and popularity it must quickly achieve.