Mandrake: Call of the West
The election of 1873 was decided the moment Maximilian Mandrake announced his candidacy. Mandrake was a national hero in the north and west, where most votes were. The Libertarians crashed and burned as spectacularly as the Republicans had only four years earlier, grabbing a few states on the coast, including Massachusetts. The New Democrats once again secured the Southern vote with the animosity much of the South held toward Mandrake.
However, animosity was not enough to stop the landslide victory of the Republican Party. The former general-in-chief of the US Army was catapulted straight into the White House with the largest amount of votes ever recorded for a candidate. For the first time since Washington, a general-in-chief held the Presidency.
1. Results for the Election of 1873.
Mandrake’s first move was to lower tariffs from the previous 10% to 5%, which caused a dip in federal earnings, that it took an entire year to make up for. Nevertheless, trade to the United States continued to expand at an ever-increasing rate, although scholars continue to debate whether the slight drop in tariffs had anything to do with it.
In accordance with his promises, Mandrake also raised the pay for soldiers, and initiated the Mandrake Plan, which would expand the United States navy by almost 100 ships. There was much criticism over the reduction of the army by 15,000 men however, as a mere month later; the Confederate Call to Arms became the largest since 1864.
The army was sent in, and more than 520 soldiers died quelling the rebellion. It seemed as though Northern units would stay in the South forever, until Mandrake approved the Landerman plan. The plan, created by Congressman Samuel Landerman of Minnesota as a solution to the problem of policing the South, would remove the United States Army from the Southern states permanently. The Southern states, in return, would each create a trained force of 3,000 men to deter answering to the calls of the Cuban Confederates.
Mandrake, eager to clean his reputation in the South, approved the plan without hesitation. He did this with the approval of the Republican Party, because the 3,000 man units would not be paid for by the federal government. Reconstruction had seemed to finally come to an end.
Yet for Mandrake, the great question was not the South, or even the Anarchists, who had stepped up their campaign of terror after regaining their numbers since the “Little Anarchy”. For the 1870’s, and much of the 1880’s, were defined by the “Wild” West. The lawlessness and adventure of the areas west of Texas that have become ingrained in the American consciousness were reaching their height when Mandrake came into office. When he left, the West would have created some of the most enduring icons of Americanism.
2. American “Cowboys” and Native Americans, c. 1875.
The nation’s attention first turned decisively Westward in the Mexican-American War, but since then, the center of attention had become the East again, thanks to the slavery debate. When the Civil War ended, the eastern states had been devastated by the war, and the state governments had been forced to exert more authority in order to wage it. The allure of the wide open prairie and the Rocky Mountains became irresistible to many.
The first tales of traditional Western derring-do arose in the late 1860’s with the hunt for the one Jesse James, an outlaw and veteran of the Civil War. James operated all through Colorado and Nebraska, eluding the recently founded FBI at every turn, until on February 3rd 1870. On that day, in Cold Springs, Colorado, agents Thomas Anderson and Jeremiah Pitt found James in his sleep at an inn they had stopped at. Pitt and Anderson shot James 12 times, and the first Western icon was born.
As settlers further took advantage of the promise the Homestead Act gave them, they came increasingly into contact with the Native American tribes. The friction between the locals and the Sioux tribe came to a head in 1874, when Colonel George Armstrong Custer led his unit deep into Sioux territory. The local chiefs decided that Custer, who had long been testing the patience of the Native Americans and the federal government with his wild forays into Sioux land, had gone too far.
Custer was ambushed near Little Bighorn, and his entire force was wiped out. An American settlement of 200 people then met Custer’s fate a week later. The President was now forced to decide whether revenge was necessary, or to uphold the uneasy truce that the Native American Citizenship Bill had created. Eventually, Mandrake ruled that, despite denouncing Custer’s actions [1], the federal government would not stand violence against it. The Sioux War of 1874 cost the lives of some 1,000 US troops and 6,000 Sioux before the Native American surrender and acceptance of the loss of their lands.
3. The Battle of Little Bighorn.
The Native Americans continued to fight a slow losing battle against the settlers until the mid-1880s, creating the indelible image of the cavalry arriving to save the surrounded convoy. However, no single confrontation would kill as many people as the Sioux War. The Native Americans did gain some propaganda victories in the form of support from certain parts of the True American movement [2], who saw the struggle as reflecting their struggle against an oppressive government.
The facet of the West that the 1870s had that 1880s did not, was the number of politicians who chose to reinvent themselves out west after the creation of an equilibrium of sorts in Washington left little room for change. Ex-Colonel Vandrove of the Marxist-Vinogradists was one of the first to go west. Vandrove was eager to bring the working class of the West to socialism. Between 1874 and 1878, Vandrove visited every major city on the West Coast, and even spent time as a cowboy.
However, only one politician became a Western icon during his stay. In June 1875 James Harrison, formerly ambassador to Japan, was forced to step down from his position as Senator for Pennsylvania when accusations arose of unfaithfulness being the reason for his recent divorce. To get away from his shame, Harrison joined on a cattle run from Ohio to Washington. In Montana, he left the group and headed south. He spent the next year meandering his way through the West and numerous jobs, including a stint in the 7th Cavalry in Nevada.
After another year on his trek back east from Los Angeles, Harrison wrote the book “Call of the West”. It became the first book to surpass sales of Uncle Tom’s Cabin in the US. With it, he cemented his reputation as a Western hero and further strengthened the allure of the West. Outlaws, cowboys, cattle, sheriffs and roaming heroes had come to the fore of the national consciousness.
4. Two “Cowboy Politicians”, Eric Vandrove (left) and James Harrison (right).
Outside of the West, industry continued to grow at the exponential rate of previous administrations, although the end of government subsidies to less vital industries resulted in mass unemployment in Nebraska. The President was forced to remedy this with the Nebraska Aid Act of 1876, which provided the first real unemployment benefits in American history. The great event in Washington, which reflected the influence the West was having, was the fall of the Libertarian Party, and the rise in its place of the Federal Party.
The Libertarians fell decisively apart after the electoral disaster of 1873. Bryan announced the party’s official disbandment on August 12th 1874. The most successful socialist party of its time was gone. No other party of its kind had come so close to holding top office in any nation on earth. The New Democrats and Republicans however, could not breathe any easier, as the Federal Party stepped into the Libertarians’ shoes.
The Federal Party, or the Federals as they were sometimes known, was created by politicians from California, Oregon and Washington who felt that the Federal Government had too long been an Eastern institution. They were an odd bird. The Federals wanted to extend the powers of the FBI, but curb the powers of the federal government in general, enact further welfare, but delegate it more and more to the state governments. In 1876, they were finally ready to attempt to get the presidency.
[1] – The official stance on Custer has shifted with the times. Lately, the pendulum of opinion has swung back in favor of the Sioux, after staying with Custer for much of the 20th Century.
[2] – The True American movement was a branch of the Republican Party that believed in the rolling back of the welfare state and minimal government intervention.
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Exceptional Situation(s):
I admit it. I stole Teddy. I pray for your forgiveness.
In other news, Anti-monopoly bill goes to vote, so does the patriot act. Primary sign-up is open. Parties are: Republican, New Democrat and Federal.
In case you need to know, the Federals are between the ND and Reps in isolationism/expansionism. They believe that once everything’s good in the US, anything’s possible.
Also, ACAs are back. [thread=562822]Here.[/thread]
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