The governor at first resisted, saying that although Leonard was obviously smart and able, he was too young. His nomination would become a cudgel that the governor's next opponent would use to 'beat me over the head with," denouncing him for cronyism. Finn said that unless the governor somehow changed "Boston Harbor into beer with a good creamy head, and make sure you get the credit, you know just as well as I do you're not going to have a chance against any Democrat two years from now. All he'll have to do to win is stay alive 'til the votes're cast and counted."
Therefore, Finn told the governor, what was important was not whether the appointment of Finn's nephew to the bench would bring resounding cheers from the public. "It's whether you remember who your friends've been, and do the right thing here, nominate my sister's fuckin' kid while you still got the power to do it, 'fore you get booted out on your ass. I don't ask for much from anybody, Eddie, even when I've got every right to ask. But this one I am asking; this one I want from you. So don't go making it hard for me here, all right now? He'll be an excellent judge, and his mother'll be proud of him. I'll even be happy I'll be the one who's grateful to you, 'stead of you being grateful to me. All you got to do here is just get him appointed, while the appointing's good. It's simple; even you can do it without breaking a sweat. And it's not only something I want from you here; it's also the right thing to do. God'll reward you in heaven."
When the governor came back and said his legal counsel told him that the Canterbury District Court judgeship was the best that he could do 'without having them get up a mob to tar and feather me," Finn believed him and told his favorite nephew that if he knew what was good for him he'd 'grab it while I still got it within reach. I dunno how many other sponsors you've got that hang around with guys who want to be governor, or what their chances are, but Eddie is the very first one I've ever had, in my life and I been tryin' a long time, at no small expense to me. Which is why I'm as sorry for my own sake as I am for you to tell you it don't look to me as though he's gonna last, you know? Looks like a one-termer, I'm sorry to say, once Ike retires and plays golf full-time. And I can't promise you I'm gonna have a replacement for him real soon. It doesn't look good at all."
Leonard was filled with consternation. Until then a registered but politically inactive Democrat, he had in his four years of teaching acquired three close friends among the faculty. Two of them were slightly older; the third was nearly twice his age. He asked them for advice. They told him unanimously, earnestly and truly, that they were prescinding from their pronounced Democratic loyalties as they advised him not to accept the nomination. They said that while they fully understood that the temptation to embark upon a judicial career at such an early age was very strong, if he was as smart as they knew him to be he would resist it. They said that while his considerable intellectual powers, maturity of judgment and evenness of disposition satisfied them that his youthfulness was irrelevant to the issue of fitness and judicial temperament, his possession of those qualities at so early an age established him as 'a bright and rising star."
They said it would be only a matter of time, and not very much of that, either, before someone tapped him 'as a non-political prestige appointment. Every politician needs one now and then, to take the stink off the cat and dogs he has to appoint so the public doesn't gag on the payoffs." They predicted confidently that patience would be rewarded within ten years 'at the outside' with a nomination either to an appellate court, 'where by rights you ought to be, with your writing ability and all," or, failing that, 'an important position in Washington.
"What you've got to do is wait," they said. "Don't be in a hurry. Then when you die, you'll be famous, which's really the only way to be dead.
Everyone says so. You wont have all that good a view of it yourself, but everyone who's still alive and knew you will sincerely wish you were also still alive, so you could be around to see it. "What a turnout, my God. What a shame Lennie's dead. Can't you just see him, if he could be here and see this, am I right? What a kick he'd get out of it."
"And these people wont be just saying they're sorry; they'll really mean it. Even if they did think sometimes while you were still alive you seemed pretty full of yourself. Once you're safely dead, they'll stop thinking like that. They'll be in awe, you were so famous. How many people get that kind of tribute, huh? How many people can actually say that, that people were actually sorry when they died.
