The Legacy by Howard Fast Read Free Book Online

had refused.
    Left to himself, Carson went over the Morning World’s story with a fiercely remorseless blue pencil. In 1948, when Barbara had appeared before the House Un-American Activities Committee and had refused to supply the names of a group of people who had joined with her to send medical supplies to aid Spanish Republican refugees in the south of France, the editorial writers of the Morning World had attacked her unmercifully. They had denounced her as a tool of communism, as a dupe of communism, as a traitor to her class and to the country. Los Angeles journalism of that period was described by some as primitive and by others as right-wing and irresponsible, and indeed all of these descriptions had a firm basis in fact — a situation which Carson Devron was determined to change.
    In the midst of the obituary, following a paragraph which described Dan Lavette’s achievements as a shipbuilder during the war and his award of merit from President Truman, the writer bemoaned the fact that his daughter had betrayed him: “Unhappily, his life was marred by the trial and imprisonment of his daughter, Barbara, for contempt of Congress when she refused to give the names of her coconspirators in a front organization.”
    Raging, Carson called the rewrite man into his office. The man’s name was Hank Dudly. He was fifty-two years old, twenty-five of them with the Morning World, gray, slack-bellied, bent and defeated. He cringed helplessly before Devron’s anger.
    â€œWhat in hell do you mean by this?” Carson demanded coldly. “‘Unhappily’ — did you ever ask Dan Lavette whether he was happy or unhappy with what his daughter did? It just happens that he supported her, right down the line. Who said his life was marred? And what the devil is this about coconspirators? She was not accused of conspiracy. And how do you know it was a front, as you put it? Three errors of fact as well as interpretation in one lousy paragraph — and you’ve been with us how long?”
    â€œSince ’thirty-three.” He felt hurt, put upon. He could remember when Carson had been led through the newsroom as a small boy. “Now wait a minute, Carson, I was just following policy and presenting the facts —”
    â€œLike hell you were! You wouldn’t know a fact if you saw it.” Carson ripped the copy. “Tell Joe to put another man on this.”
    â€œWhat?”
    â€œYou heard me! If you don’t like it, hand in your resignation. I’ll shed no tears. Now get out of here!”
    The San Francisco papers, on the other hand, carefully omitted all mention of Barbara’s prison sentence, merely observing in passing that Dan Lavette was survived by his wife, Jean, his daughter, Barbara, and two sons, Joseph, a physician in the town of Napa, and of course, Thomas Lavette, chairman of the board of GCS, which was possibly the most potent financial empire in Northern California.
    All observations that the press made on Dan Lavette’s death were tempered by the fact that his son Thomas ruled GCS. It was common knowledge around town that Dan and his son had not spoken to each other for years, but since the bitterness between them was a family matter, made public only by rumor, the newspaper writers trod a fine line, avoiding the unpleasant gossip that had swirled around the Lavettes for so many years. Indeed, the Chronicle ran an editorial headed “The Last Giant Passes,” in the course of which the writer observed that “with the passing of Dan Lavette, the last of a mighty breed steps into the pages of history. He was one of the giants who made this city unique and splendid, setting a ladder against the sky and daring to climb it…” The prose was effusive. Dan Lavette might have read it with more annoyance than appreciation, but on the other hand it was a bestowal of honor and respectability. America forgives its dead, whatever their