As violence grows in the United States, congress also entered into more and more heated debates. Up on the table, with the support of the Progressive Party and the Democratic Party, is the possibility of a coalition between them and the Republican Party for the next presidency. President Hoover asked his party to avoid such misuse of the political system: “We are not a country of cliques, we are a democracy, our people know who to elect, and who will lead them forward to prosperity. Do not treat them as sheep, but as rational citizens of a country of liberty.” But his hold on his own party was tenuous at best and the three parties made a deal behind closed doors, ignoring the President’s call. A coalition would be formed against the threat that the SPA and AFP posed to the American system, ‘until instability died down’. By the 10th of February, the deal was signed between higher ups of the three parties, with Hoover disapproving every step of the way.
Two days later, Hoover proposed that the Democrats begin another vote on the Garner-Wagner Bill, a series of reforms on unemployment benefits, saying he was now willing to pass it through congress and sign it. Critics spoke from both extremes, some mentioned the high costs related to benefits for unemployment, others called out that the bill was not nearly enough to help the workers who lost their wages during so many years in the crisis. Both AFP and SPA complained that the ‘establishment political cliques’ were in cahoots, and had superseded the authority of the President. Hoover, meanwhile, refused to comment on the situation.
For the next two weeks, the AFP and SPA both became outspoken critics of the bill endorsed by whom they called the ‘establishment triumvirate’, complaining it was not enough to relieve the American workers from the economic crisis they were facing. Debates raged on in congress as the parties struggled to get their views across and find supporters for each of their sides. During this time, it is believed that Hoover started to see how the establishment was actually struggling to hold onto power in congress and the senate. The AFP and SPA were growing more and more demanding, often petitioning to have their strict views enforced instead of reaching compromises, the triumvirate grew more reticent to negotiate as time trottled along.
Meanwhile, Father Charles Coughlin continued his radio broadcasts filled with anti-semitism and generalized racism towards blacks. Another cause of contention, condemned by all parties but the AFP, who asked Huey Long to ‘reconsider who he called his allies and who he didn’t’. Congress voted in favor of having the broadcast sanctioned and banned. After the ban, Minutemen units loyal to Coughlin escalated violence for a few weeks, even going so far as attacking Military Police dispatches in the South.
As March entered, good news for the democratic world reached the ears of the U.S. government. The Australasian confederation, which was under an ironfisted authoritarian rule after a Syndicalist revolt in 1924 due to the economic plights brought in by the Great War’s lost generation and the collapse of the Commonwealth, was finally returning to a democratic system. William Birdwood, governor general of Australasia, relented and allowed elections to be held although with Syndicalist parties barred from participating. The United Australasian Party led by the conservative Stanley Bruce won the elections, and pressures mounted on the Confederation to relent on rulings which encroached upon the liberties of the average Australasian, mostly on those related to the Freedom of Press and the constant state of Martial Law the country was in. American foreign minister Henry Lewis Stimson was sent to Canberra to visit the newly elected leader of the Confederation in The Lodge, there, both men reaffirmed their compromise towards a ‘democratic future’ for both nations and a renewed hope for economic recovery.
Stanley Bruce was a war veteran who participated in the Gallipolli campaign and had earned the respect of Birdwood throughout his authoritarian rule. He is expected to enact liberal economic reforms and expand on Australasia's dwindling social rights.
A few days later, a Cuban delegation arrived in Washington to discuss the tariffs on non-American goods imposed on the nation, which crippled the economic freedom of the island country. Hoover, a firm believer in the free market, reassured the Cubans that the sanctions would be lifted and that ties between the US and Cuba would hopefully be maintained.
President Rafael Trejo González was elected in the '36 general elections of Cuba and, after Cuban labour riots were dispersed harshly by the army, engaged in talks with the strikers' leaders in order to appease them. Seeking further independence from the US was one of the demands of the strikers.
After the Cuban deal was struck, debates resumed on the G-W Bill, as it was now commonly referred to after weeks of intense arguments. The establishment senators now vehemently refused to strike any deals with the AFP and SPA, chief among them being Robert Wagner, one of the drafters of the bill, who mentioned that the anti-establishment parties had made requests that were ‘wholly un-American and unsuited to the continued tradition of this American government’. The AFP and SPA, meanwhile, had similar views on the changes to be made to the bill, but refused to ally with each other on the matter. Hoover was called to intervene and make the final decision. Fearing the increasing strength of both the AFP and SPA and unable to go against the establishment triumvirate, he joined with the triumvirs to further support the draft of the bill.
The extremist parties both criticized the decisions of the camera, asking them if they ‘truly represented the will of the people, or rather the will of their lobby-backed establishment’. Criticism which was echoed again and again throughout what remained of March. And when the vote finally came in April 8…
Hoover was awestruck by the fact that the triumvirate was not able to garner enough support amongst itself to get the bill through. The power of the AFP and SPA had now been set in stone deeper than ever before, and it seemed that former establishment senators were now switching sides as days passed while riots in the cities spread and grew more intense.
The White House struggled as they pondered on what to do next. The perspectives for the future were internal dissent and violence leading up to a contentious election which may decide the fate of the United States for years to come. All fuelled by the presence of the two extremist parties in American politics, who were even arming their own paramilitaries under the counter. President Hoover, with a heavy heart, called for War Plan White to be dusted off in April 12; the plan to deal with domestic insurgencies.
“There are some principles that cannot be compromised. Either we shall enforce a society based upon ordered liberty and the initiative of the individual, or we shall have a planned society that means dictation no matter what you call it or who does it. There is no half-way ground. They cannot be mixed.”
-President Hoover during the White House meeting in which he approved the Executive Order to call upon War Plan White.
War Plan White established how the United States would fight against political violence at home. During the past years, General MacArthur, who was in the Philippines but held an iron grip on affairs of the armed forces at home, had begun redrafting the plan to deal with the SPA and AFP troublemakers. Among the proposals of his reformed plan was expanding the war industry in the Midwest, an area with little AFP and SPA presence, and dedicating production to infantry equipment, artillery guns, production of the P-26 fighter and the A-17 CAS plane. This plan was supposed to take around two to three years to come into fruition with pre-Black Monday conditions.
When MacArthur returned to the US after the call for War Plan White to be put into motion, he apparently spoke with President Hoover in the White House, and complained that the plan should’ve set in motion earlier. Saying: “The situation at home is so dire that we may face a war in our own soil, between Americans, and we have but eighty thousand soldiers in the field. ”
Hoover meekly nodded. Wondering just how deep this situation would go.
“No man is entitled to the blessings of freedom unless he be vigilant in its preservation.”
- General Douglas MacArthur
Other news:
Political gridlock in France after the elections for the Comité de Salut Public of 1936. The most important elections for the Commune leave the country in indecision. During the next few years, it is expected that the Commune will enter negotiations as factions within the Bourse Generale du Travail (BGT) will seek to bring their own into the new government that will form the CSP.
This did not stop Paris from hosting the First International Congress however, where influential syndicalists from all around the world gathered to discuss the direction of socialism for years to come after a lengthy military parade that showed the world the might of the French Communard army. Chief amongst the issues mentioned by Chairman Benoit Frachon were the situation of North America, Spain and colonialism, along with the processes for accepting new nations into the military alliance of the third internationale, currently composed of the Commune, the Union of Britain and the Socialist Republic of Italy. Leading the talks along with Frachon were Chairman Philip Snowden of the UOB, President Palmiro Tagliatti of the SRI, and, as a surprise for most, British Exchequer Oswald Mosley.
Afghanistan surrendered to British-Indian troops on March 14, 1936, after around a month of war. Unwilling to add another unruly territory under its dominions, the British were content with taking the lands of Quetta and Peshawar as a buffer zone between Afghani troops and the mainland of the Dominion.