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Florentyna had wanted a quiet funeral. As she stood by the grave with her son and daughter on each side of her, listening to the words of Father O’Reilly, she realized that she could no longer hope for privacy, even in death. As the coffin was lowered into the grave the flash bulbs continued to pop until the earth had completely covered the wooden casket and the last of the Rosnovskis was buried.
During the final few weeks before the Presidential election, Florentyna spent more of her time in Chicago, leaving Janet in Washington to run the office. After Representative Wayne Hays admitted paying a member of his staff $14,000 a year in salary even though she could not type a word and did not answer the phone, Janet and Louise asked for a raise.
“Yes, but Miss Ray is supplying a service for Mr. Hays that I have not yet found necessary in my office,” said Florentyna.
“But the problem in this office is the other way around,” said Louise.
“What do you mean?” asked Florentyna.
“We spend our life being propositioned by members who think we’re a Capitol Hill perk.”
“How many members have propositioned you, Louise?” said Florentyna, laughing.
“Over a hundred,” said Louise.
“And how many did you accept?”
“Three,” said Louise, grinning.
“And how many propositioned you?” said Florentyna, turning to Janet.
“Three,” said Janet.
“And how many did you accept?”
“Three,” said Janet.
When the three women had stopped laughing, Florentyna said, “Well, perhaps Joan Mondale was right. What the Democrats do to their secretaries, the Republicans do to the country. You both get a raise.”
Edward turned out to be accurate about her selection; she had been unopposed as the Democratic candidate, and the primary for the Ninth District was virtually a steal. Stewart Lyle, who ran again as the Republican candidate, admitted privately to her that he now had little chance. “Re-elect Kane” stickers seemed to be everywhere.
Florentyna looked forward to a new session of Congress with a Democratic President in the White House. The Republicans had selected Jerry Ford after a tough battle with Governor Reagan, and the Democrats had chosen Jimmy Carter, a man she had barely heard of until the New Hampshire primary.
Ford’s primary battle against Ronald Reagan did not enhance the President’s cause and the American people had still not forgiven him for pardoning Nixon. On the personal front, Ford seemed incapable of avoiding naïve mistakes such as bumping his head on helicopter doors and falling down airplane steps. And during a television debate with Carter, Florentyna sat horrified when he suggested that there was no Soviet domination of Eastern Europe. “Tell the Polish people that,” Florentyna said indignantly to the small screen.
The Democratic candidate committed his share of mistakes as well, but in the end, it seemed to Richard that Carter’s image as an anti-Washington evangelical Christian, when viewed against the problems Ford had inherited from his links with Nixon, would be enough to give Carter the election by a small margin.
“Then why was I returned with an increased majority?” Florentyna demanded.
“Because many Republicans voted for you but not for Carter.”
“Were you among them?”
“I plead the Fifth Amendment.”
Chapter
Twenty-Eight
Richard wore a smart dark suit but was sorry the President had insisted that no one wear a cutaway. The Kane family watched the new President deliver a speech that lacked the charisma of Kennedy or the wisdom of Roosevelt, but its simple message of Christian honesty above all else captured the mood of the moment. America wanted a decent, homespun man in the White House and everyone was willing him to succeed. President Ford sat on his immediate left and President Nixon was conspicuously absent. Florentyna felt the tone for Carter’s Administration was set with the words:
“I have no dream to set forth today, but rather urge a fresh faith in the old dream. We have learned that ‘more’ is not necessarily ‘better’ that even our great nation has recognized limits, and that we can neither answer all questions nor solve all problems.”
The Washington crowds were delighted when the new President, the First Lady and their daughter Amy walked down Pennsylvania Avenue hand in hand to the White House, and it was obvious that the Secret Service was quite unprepared for such a break with tradition.
“Dancer is on the move,” said one of them over his two-way radio. “God help us if we are going to have four years of spontaneous gestures.”
That evening the Kanes attended one of the seven People’s Parties, as Carter had named them, to commemorate the inauguration. Florentyna was dressed in a new Gianni di Ferranti gown of white faintly threaded with gold, keeping the camera bulbs flashing. During the evening she and Richard were both introduced to the President, who seemed to Florentyna to be as shy in person as he was in public.
When Florentyna took her seat on the floor of the chamber for
the start of the 95th Congress, it felt like returning to school, with all the backslapping, handshaking, hugging and noisy discussion about what the members had done during the recess.
“Glad to see you won again.”
“Was it a hard campaign?”
“Don’t imagine you’ll be able to select your own committees now that Mayor Daley is dead.”
“What did you think of Jimmy’s address?”
The new Speaker, Tip O’Neill, took his place in the center of the podium, banged his gavel, called everyone to order and the whole process began again.
Florentyna had moved up two places on the Appropriations Committee, following one retirement and one defeat since the last election. She now understood how the committee system worked but still feared it would be many years and many elections before she made any real headway for the causes she espoused. Richard had suggested she concentrate on a field in which she could gain more public recognition and she had wavered between abortion and tax reform. Richard counseled against too close an association with abortion and reminded her of how her colleagues referred to Elizabeth Holtzman as “Congressperson Holtzperson.” Florentyna agreed in principle but was no nearer deciding what her special subject should be when the subject chose itself.
A debate of the Defense Appropriations bill was taking place on the floor of the House, and Florentyna sat listening as the chamber casually discussed the allocation of billions of dollars on defense spending. She did not sit on the Defense Subcommittee on which Robert C. L. Buchanan was the ranking Republican, but she was deeply interested in his opinions. Buchanan was reminding the House that Defense Secretary Brown had recently asserted that the Russians now had the capability to destroy American satellites in space. Buchanan went on to demand that the new President spend more money on defense and less in other areas. Florentyna still considered Buchanan the worst sort of conservative fool and in a moment of anger rose to challenge him. Everyone in the chamber remembered their last confrontation and knew that Buchanan would have to allow her to put her case.
