expected to be in it.”
She chuckled. “Nor did I. Especially on this side of this desk. Let’s get to
work.” She held up a book. “Recognize this?”
“Eh?” He looked startled. “Yes, Ma’am, I do. I should.”
“You should, yes.” She opened to a marked page, read aloud: “‘-I have
learned this about engineers. When something must be done, engineers can find a way
that is economically feasible.’ Is that true?”
“I think so, Ma’am.”
“You’re an engineer.”
“I am an obsolete engineer, Ma’am.”
“I don’t expect you to do the job yourself. You know what I did about fusion
power plants.”
“You sent for the one man with a perfect record. I’ve seen the power ship
moored off Point Sur. Brilliant. Solved an engineering and a public relations
problem simultaneously.”
“Not quite what I mean. I consulted the Admiral, yes. But the job was done
by his first deputy, the officer he has groomed to replace him. And by some other
Navy people. Now we’re working on ways to make the key fission-power people-safety
control especially- all former Navy nuclear submariners. But we have to do it
without stripping the Navy of their Blue and Gold crews. On things I know nothing
about-most things, for this job! I consult someone who does-and that leads me to the
person who can do it. Since I know very little about how to be President, I look for
advice on almost everything.”
“Ma’am, it seems to me-and a lot of other people- that you were born for the
job.”
“Hardly. Oh, politics isn’t strange to me; my father held office when I was
still a girl at home. But I did my first television commercial at fourteen and I was
hooked. If I hadn’t been ‘resting’ between contracts, I would not have had accepted
the Governor’s appointment-I was just his ‘exhibit coon’ but the Commission’s work
did interest me. Then I was still an ‘exhibit coon’ when he saw to it that I was on
his favorite-son slate. Then, when the three leading candidates deadlocked, my late
predecessor broke the deadlock in his favor by naming me as the other half of his
ticket. I went along with it with a wry grin inside, figuring, first, that the ploy
wouldn’t work, and second, that, if he did get nominated, he would find some way to
wiggle out-ask me to withdraw in favor of his leading rival or some such.”
She shrugged. “But he didn’t-or couldn’t. I don’t know which; he rarely
talked to me. Real talk, I mean. Not just, ‘Good morning,’ and, ‘Did you have a
comfortable flight’ and not wait for an answer.
“I didn’t care. I relished every minute of the campaign. An actress
sometimes plays a queen. . . but for four months I got to be one. Never dreaming
that our ticket would win. I knew what a-No, de mortuis nil nisi bonum, and we must
get back to work. What would you do about pollution of streams?”
“Eh? But that one has already been solved. By one of the Scandinavian
countries, I believe. You simply require every user to place his intake immediately
downstream from his discharge of effluent into the stream. In self-protection the
user cleans up his discharge. It’s self-enforcing. No need to test the water until
someone downstream complains. Seldom. Because it has negative feedback. Ma’am,
complying with a law should be more rewarding than breaking it-or you get positive
feedback.”
She made a note. “We could clean up the Mississippi that way. But I’m
fretted about streams inside states, too. For example, the Missouri, where it is
largest, is entirely inside the State of Missouri.”
“Ma’am, I think you’ll find that you have jurisdiction overall navigable
streams.”
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I do?
“Ma’am, you have powers you may never have dreamed existed. A ‘navigable
stream’ is one only three feet deep, I think. You may right now have the power to
order this under law already on the books. If there is a paragraph or even a clause
on placement of inlets and outlets, you almost certainly can issue an executive
order right away. Today. The boss of the U.S. Engineers would know. General