I wish the new President and the country well. I truly do. I cannot help but think that even more subsidies -- given that needless subsidies of banks got us into this mess -- will extend the Depression, not defeat it, but the American people have spoken.
I am announcing my retirement from politics. The family name will be carried on by my eldest boy, Max.
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New character:
Max von Ritter (although he prefers to leave out the 'von'), born 1890, enlisted in the Army as soon he legally could, in 1906. As a Sergeant, he fought in the Great War, getting wounded in Chile in 1915. He lost his left foot as a result of the injury, and spent the remainder of the war in a hospital bed. After the war, he received an honorable discharge from the Army. He moved to Massachusetts and attended Harvard University, receiving a law degree in 1921. However, his days of fighting were not yet done. Given his father's ancestry and his passionate hatred for Socialism and Communism, Max volunteered to serve in the German Civil War, despite his injury. Desperate for veteran leadership, the German government promoted him to Lieutenant. He served honorably there as well, and at the conclusion of the German Civil War, returned to the United States. After finally passing the bar in 1929, Max started a private practice in Boston, only to lose everything in the Depression. The Army, in recognition of his service, welcomed him back, including giving him his rank of Lieutenant he'd earned in Germany, but after a months of desk duty, Lieutenant Ritter was simply too angry with how things had turned out. He resigned from the Army in 1931, won for an open Senate seat in Massachusetts, and is committed to fighting both Communism and the Depression in Congress.