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Questions and Solutions
Questions and Solutions
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“[A] mob is coming to hang the other ninety-five of you damn scoundrels and I'm undecided whether to stick here with you or go out and lead them.”- Huey Long to the U.S. Senate.

The general strike by the CSA and Long’s southern rally halted much of the work in the Steel belt and across the South. Together, the two events threatened to prevent any possible recovery and to undermine the federal government. The use of the military to break up the strikes as Garner suggested was quickly ruled out by the cabinet. Using the army to crush the strikers would inflame the situation and possibly incite Reed and Long to rebellion. There was also some concern over the army and the National Guard’s loyalties. While most of the standing army was loyal, there was real questions to the loyalties of the National Guard units in the CSA and AFU dominated states if the order to federalize the guards came down from Washington D.C. No one in the American government had forgotten that the British government’s attempt to break the coal miner’s strikes in Wales with the British army had kicked off the 1925 British Revolution. So other ideas were considered by the cabinet. Vice President Roosevelt floated the idea of using the army to take over the factories and run them temporarily instead of breaking the strikes much as his father had threatened to do so if it was needed in the 1902 coal strike to force negotiations between the unions and owners. The cabinet decided the political atmosphere was too charged to try such a thing or even threatened to try to do so in 1937. Curtis kept tabs on America’s political climate in his daily letter reading. Curtis’s self-imposed daily reading of letters send by common people had become quite unpleasant. The CSA general strike was a sit-down strike and the militant strikers threatened to shoot anybody who tried to remove them. Besides, the CSA was no longer merely interested in workplace reform anymore. They wanted extreme political changes as well. Long’s secret proposal to the White House to send unemployed southern AFU supporters as strikebreakers was rejected for similar reasons to rejecting Roosevelt’s proposal. It was clear that accommodations with the CSA and AFU were necessary to end the crisis. The question was how to even start the talks and with whom to talk to?
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Use of military force to crush the strikes and rallies was swiftly rejected despite it being the go-to tool of many other governments.

President Curtis and his team had to either try to bring Reed and Long together for a grand deal or to try to deal with them separately. A grand deal was a tempting option. It would be great if one big meeting in the White House could save America. However, Curtis eventually rejected this option as a mere fantasy. Curtis had been one of the best dealmakers in Congress but even he believed it would be impossible for him to control two men with hot tempers, big egos, armed supporters, who were radically far apart on the political spectrum, and had promised armed revolt if the other won the election to peacefully agree to a grand deal. Instead, Curtis hoped to divide and conquer the men. He would cut one deal pleasing to Reed and another deal pleasing to Long hoping get the two men to swallow their pride and allow the other’s deal to pass to get what they wanted. Now, the choice was which man to talk to first? Pick one and the other would object and feel snubbed. Curtis would have to pick the man who would easier to convince to accept a deal because if he failed with the first man, then the attempts to get with talks with the other would certainly fail. So who to pick?
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To meet with Reed first or to meet with Long first? That was the question.

Curtis and Roosevelt decided to talk to Reed first for various reasons. Firstly, Reed had more influence over America’s industry due to his control of the Steel belt which was much more industrialized than Long’s South. Secondly, Curtis and Roosevelt had a better feel for Reed and the CSA. While Reed had a distrust of all capitalist politicians, progressive Republicans and Democrats got surprisingly well with the socialist representatives and senators in Congress. Roosevelt had also crossed paths with and debated with Reed’s VP candidate Norman Thomas in his political career and the two had developed a degree of respect for the other. Huey Long was a less appealing option to talk to. While Long’s rhetoric was slightly more within American political norms, he was considered a dangerous egotistical demagogue by the political establishment. While a tiny handful of socialist legislation managed to pass through the Democratic and Republican controlled Congress, not one of any of Long’s motions, bills, or resolutions passed in the Senate in Long’s time there as either a Democrat or AFU member. A senator sneered to Long that “I do not believe you could get the Lord’s Prayer endorsed in this body.” Thirdly in favor for Reed, Vice President Roosevelt had carefully read over Reed’s life story and discovered a pragmatic streak in Reed even in his most radical days. Reed had occasionally worked with capitalist and non-socialist newspapers and businesses to get what he wanted in the 1910s. Fourthly, Curtis and Roosevelt believed or at least hoped that Reed had moderated since his days as a firebrand and politically intolerant journalist in Soviet Russia. Reed, since getting an elected office as a senator in the early 1930s, had expressed a better opinion of liberal democracy than during the Great War and Bolshevik Revolution although many critics charged Reed of simply using democratic elections as a mere bus to the dictatorship of the proletariat. While Reed’s election platform was rather extreme, he did not advocate for a dictatorship of the proletariat in the 1936 election. Finally, in any case, the CSA’s political influence in the state and federal government was primarily managed by the social democratic wing of the CSA. These social democrats were vital to running Reed’s political and election machine. Some believed revolt was the absolute final option, others were pacifists, but they all greatly preferred to achieve reform without revolution if it was possible and Reed needed to make some attempt at peaceful reform to make them happy. Thus a meeting with Reed in Chicago was set for January 31, 1937.
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Strikers amused and entertained themselves by creating bands and orchestras as they waited for a deal to be made.

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Sorry for the delay. I have returned to college.
I think you guys are being a little unfair to Hoover. A numbnut would not have been able to help feed millions of people. Hoover was a prisoner of his own beliefs and his politics. By the time he realized that laissez-faire free market policies were not working, he had run out of political capital with the public and party both in real life and Kaiserreich to change things around. Nevertheless, Hoover served his country much better outside the White House and presidency than in it. The same thing happened to R.B. Bennett in Canada in the OTL.
 
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Still think Hoover was a numbnut, but fair point.
 
Jaw Jaw Jaw is better than war war war as the saying goes.

Also, politics is the art of the possible.
 
Let's Make a Fair Deal
Let's Make a Fair Deal
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“Is there anything left to us but to organize and fight?
For the union makes us strong.”
-Solidarity Forever

The meeting with Reed was tense as expected. Security was tight but it was still not as tight as it is for a modern president in times of calm today. The negotiations between the Secret Service, Chicago police, and the CSA’s paramilitaries for the security was tortuous in of itself. The meeting took place inside the CSA controlled Chicago City Hall. The President and the Vice President did not truly know what to expect. Of course, they had researched the CSA’s election platform carefully but they did not know which parts of Reed’s platform were simply political red meat for the socialist base and which parts were non-negotiable to Reed. There was also the delicate matter of the Soviet-style paramilitaries working openly in the streets of the Steel belt cities. Curtis was determined to reestablish federal control over the Steel belt but he had to find a way to do to while placating the distrustful Reed and saving face for everybody. When the teams met before the official start of the meeting, Curtis had the chance to see Reed for the first time since the election. Mr. Reed’s health, always poor, had clearly worsened since November. He had gained a fair amount of weight and he moved slowly than before but he could still walk. The stress of the election and possible civil war was harming his health. His ability to talk remained unchanged and fiery as ever. On the January 31 Meeting, Reed and his team laid forth their demands for the end of the general strike to Curtis and his team. The demands of the CSA were numerous. The demands ranged from the reasonable by modern standards to the intolerably radical. The first demands were for a nationwide minimum wage and the old union promise of the 40 hour and five day workweek be made federal law. Reed also demanded an unemployment relief and welfare system be created. There were many more smaller demands of a similar nature. Reed’s demands later in the meeting were much harder for Curtis and Roosevelt to accept. Reed demanded that the federal government force the business owners of the Steel belt factories to recognize the unions of the CSA as the representatives of workers of the factories. Curtis quickly saw that the Supreme Court might strike down such actions as a violation of a business’s freedom of association. Reed also wanted protection of the civil liberties of socialists and protection of the rights of minorities. Curtis and Roosevelt had already foreseen the problems with these demands. Reed’s final demands was simply unacceptable to Curtis. Reed wanted official recognition of the worker’s councils as legitimate governments. These councils or soviets unofficially controlled parts of the Steel belt. Reed was proposing essentially a dual power system like the system in Russia during the provisional period before the Bolshevik Revolution. Long would certainly rebel if Curtis accepted this proposal and no one had forgotten how Lenin had undermined the support for and the authority of the provisional government with the Russian soviets in preparation to overthrow the provisional government in his revolution. Curtis could sense the tension in the room skyrocket when Reed made this proposal so he asked Reed for a one-day break to cool tensions and to allow both sides to review their notes. Also sensing the tension, Reed decided to accept Curtis’s suggestion.
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The location of the famous talks. In the 1960s, it was decided that the room where the negotiations happened would be preserved as a historical site. The room contains wax figures of the people present at the talks and copies of the notes of both sides. It is a modestly popular attraction today in Chicago.

The break day on February 1 was meant as a day of backroom reviews and that would happen but it was also interrupted by Senator Long demanding a seat at the talks to prevent “the honorable and senile old President Curtis from handing over our beloved country to those damn reds.” Everybody at the talks knew putting Long and Reed in the same room would destroy the talks altogether. Curtis knew the two men could not stand the other and a public spat in the newspapers might incite a fight between their supporters. So the White House issued a short statement saying that “the issues that are being discussed with the Combined Syndicates are separate issues from the issues of the America First Union and President Curtis welcomes Senator Long to discuss the issues important to him in a separate meeting at a later date.”
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Senator Long was enraged by the decision of the White House to exclude him from the talks and regularly questioned the motives of negotiators in public. The President's team gambled that it was still a better choice than letting Long and his supporters enter Chicago City Hall to face Reed.

Curtis went back to discussing the negotiations with his team. Several members of Curtis’s team questioned Reed’s sincerity to negotiating an end to the strike and suggested that Reed had no intention to make peace with the federal government. They argued Reed was only holding talks as a token gesture to the pacifists and social democrats of the CSA before launching his revolution. The talks were useless or were a socialist plot to capture the federal leadership and they should leave immediately. Curtis and Roosevelt ignored these suggestions. Curtis noted that Reed had started with his less extreme demands and sounded like he might be willing to pull back on his more extreme demands. Roosevelt argued in his experiences showed to him that the average American union worker and CSA supporter only wanted a stable job and decent working conditions. The Great Depression had dragged long enough for the union workers to be willing to fight for those things. He doubted the average American union worker was radical enough to fight for vaguely defined and conflicting revolutionary socialist ideals if he and his family had food on the table and a well-paid good job. The violent diehard anarchists, syndicalists, and totalists were simply a loud minority. Curtis and Roosevelt had to trust in the sincerity of their fellow Americans for peace. Through several more days of patient diplomacy, an acceptable compromise was created. Reed would have his workplace reforms, his workweek, and a basic system of social security to be set up with potential to expand at a later date. The federal government would encourage and pressure companies to recognize the unions of the CSA as representatives of their workers. Not doing so would mean the government not doing business with them. However, the companies would not be forced to do so. While these parts of the negotiations were the relatively easy parts, both parties would not consider the constitutionality of these reforms beyond a surface look. This would mean trouble later. The issue of soviets had almost destroyed the talks. Curtis decided while the federal government would not forcibly disband the soviets, the government would not recognize them. The federal government would manage the Fair Deal programs and do business with solely the constitutionally provided state and local governments. While Curtis had desired to totally disband the CSA militias, he knew Reed would not accept a complete disarming. So he asked that the CSA surrender all their foreign weapons at a time shortly after the start of the Fair Deal and not accept any more weapons from the foreign syndicalist powers in the meantime. Areas that failed to do so would have their local Fair Deal programs be suspended. Reed reluctantly accepted this demand. The deal contained no previsions on the rights of minorities. Both the federal team and Reed have been criticized for basically selling out minorities by later generations. While both sides personally supported better rights and conditions for minorities, it was a sad necessary concession to Garner's Southern Democrats because the grudging acceptance of the Southern Democrats was vital for any deal to pass Congress. Truthfully despite the efforts of the more radical CSA leadership to change it, the average white union worker did not really care about the ideals of egalitarian socialist solidarity with non-whites and they were more than happy to sell out their black comrades in order to get a better deal for themselves. On February 5, a tentative deal was made public. Curtis and Reed would have the challenging task of selling the agreement to their respective sides and the American public.

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2,000 Views. Thanks guys. Leave any questions or comments you wish.
 
Eh. I the New City Hall building looks too stale. Should have had more arches and statues than being a giant white marble block. :p

Poor Kingfish. Not ever really a kingfish. :p
 
The picture is from 1914 when the building was brand new. As for the Kingfish, he is not the president and Curtis is. Long's efforts to become "Conducator Long" of America as his enemies might mock him as in the Kaiserreich timeline instead of "Der Kingfish" of OTL depended a lot on being the president. Now, a little rebellion might be needed for Long to get what his ego demands.
 
Well, it seems Reed did wish for a more peaceful resolution - one wonders if he hasn't just ensured a death sentence like happens sometimes to radicals who go for peace rather than war, or accepts peace with less than the totality of their demands.

Or perhaps Reed has some steel and intends to use this to strengthen himself against the more violent elements of his own movement as well.
 
Its a long while off right now but there will be a whole chapter devoted to the internal conflicts within the CSA in response to the deal. Remember the internal differences under the apparent front of unity I mentioned earlier? Right now in the story, the CSA is mostly united behind in the general strike and preparing for the Second American Revolution. It is going to get ugly for the CSA if the deal actually passes. In terms of CSA unity, a civil war would be the best thing for them. Not so much in terms of human lives of course.
 
Well, I'm definitely enjoying this much more than the typical background posts for American Kaiserreich. The president has to walk a careful line here with people who may be negotiating in bad faith.
 
Reaction and the Reactionaries
Reaction and the Reactionaries
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“With nothing of learning, knowledge nor experience to lead us through a labyrinth that has perplexed the minds of men since the beginning of time... These two men are raging up and down this land preaching not construction, but destruction-not reform, but revolution!” -General Hugh S. Johnson on Huey Long and Father Charles Coughlin.

The news of a possible successful agreement with the CSA to end the strike in exchange for water-downed but still relatively sweeping reforms shocked and relieved the nation. Progressive Republicans and Democrats were pleased by the deal and promised to pass it through Congress as soon as possible. The reactions of the socialists in Congress was mostly positive but some believed it did not go far enough for their liking. Nevertheless, even the socialists in Congress who were disappointed believed it was enough to halt plans for revolution and that the CSA should try to work to expand it by democratic means in the future. The reactions of the other CSA leadership will be covered in a later chapter. The reactions of most of the conservative Republicans and Democrats was muted. They were appalled by the proposed amount of federal intervention in the economy but they realized that conservatism was currently weak in America and this deal was the best chance to halt radical revolution. They decided to bid their time and to try to repeal the deal as soon as the radicals were weak. However, people really wanted to know Long’s reaction. They would soon get a earful.

Long’s reaction on February 6 was absolutely venomous. In front of a massive crowd of supporters, he publicly accused President Curtis for selling out to the socialists and declared that the deal would destroy the very fundamentals of the American free market economy. The southern rallies increased even more in size. Long and his supporters pledged to filibuster the deal with the CSA to death. Long’s critics accused him of great hypocrisy. Long’s “Share Our Wealth” also threatened the free market. Historians are still not sure of Long’s motives for his actions. Some believed that Long felt that Curtis and Reed were stealing his thunder. The CSA deal and other parts of the Fair Deal were similar to the platform of the AFU. Many years later, Quentin Roosevelt admitted that he and Curtis had wanted to steal Long’s support away by taking the better ideas of the AFU platform. For example, Social Security was a response to Francis Townsend’s popular old age plan.
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The America Firsters claimed that the Fair Deal was only the first step to a syndicalist takeover and the destruction of America.

There are more strange theories to the motives of Long. The historian T. Harry Williams has argued that Long never expected to win the election of 1936. Instead, Long wanted to split the progressive vote to ensure a conservative candidate like Garner would win. Then Long would run to win in 1940. Long’s behavior after the 1936 election was in response to his secret plan failing. He suggested Long was trying to sabotage the Fair Deal because a successful Fair Deal would have undermine his base of support and make him redundant. Others suggest that Long’s massive ego and desire for power had finally gotten the better of him. They argue that Long was trying to incite a second American civil war by destroying the Fair Deal. They claim by this point, Long had convinced himself that he was the only man that could save America and now was the time to whip his fanatical supporters into an army to overthrow a corrupt system and destroy the socialists. In response to Long’s criticisms, President Curtis gave public assurances to Long. In light of later events, a third group of historians believe Long’s behavior and rhetoric was an attempt to prevent an internal party coup by elements that believed Long was too weak and moderate to lead the AFU party anymore. Father Charles Couglin, William Dudley Pelley, Charles Lindbergh, and even Francis Townsend were plotting to remove Huey Long and Gerald Smith for failing the party. Of the pretenders to the throne, Pelley was the most dangerous because he had the Silvershirts who were a group of supporters loyal only to him. In time, these divisions would destroy the AFU.

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Sorry for the lateness and short update. Thanks again audience members.
Note: The Williams theory is a modified version of a real theory by T. Harry Williams about Long's supposed plan to sabotage FDR's 1936 reelection with a third party run to pave the way to a 1940 Long victory. FDR and the Democrats were seriously concerned that Long might do that before Long was killed.
 
Well Long's reaction is not surprising, and the rhetoric matches the times. But it sounds as if he has to keep an eye looking over his shoulder.
 
The Kingfish Falls: The Death of Huey Long
The Kingfish Falls: The Death of Huey Long
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Classified”


On February 7, President Curtis was back in Washington D.C. to rally support for the deal with the CSA and the Fair Deal. Curtis hoped to find the votes to override Long’s planned filbuster if the planned meeting with Long on February 14 in Atlanta failed. Curtis was also going to have his security briefing with General MacArthur on the situation in America. The meeting was one on one and the details of the proceedings would die with the two men and a small chain of conspirators in the FBI. Even Vice President Roosevelt and the cabinet would never learn of the discussions. General MacArthur was going to made his second highly illegal and unconstitutional proposal to a president in just a few months. This time he would not fail and he had carefully prepared his arguments and a mountain of evidence to support his arguments. First, MacArthur discussed the situation with the CSA with President Curtis. He congratulated Curtis on his successful negotiations with Reed. MacArthur said “I am pleased and shocked you managed to talk some sense into Mr. Reed. I honestly did not believe anybody alive could have pulled off those talks and create a bill that could please the syndies and pass on Capital Hill. I will be frank with you. I do not like your deal with Reed but we all must make sacrifices to save our nation. Our intelligence reports suggest a reduction in the militancy of the Steel belt areas since the announcement of your deal. The average union worker is feeling cautiously hopeful about the situation. Our spies are reporting quite a fuss in the backrooms of the CSA. The hardline communists, totalists, syndicalists, and anarchists are calling the deal treason to the revolution but most are listening to Reed’s pleas to give one more chance for peace. Apparently, I was wrong about Mr. Reed. You can read the transcripts if you want sir. However, if the current deal fails, I predict the militancy would shoot to uncontrollable levels from a sense of your administration betraying them. Tread carefully, Mr. President. Now sir, the real problem now is Huey Long and his America First Union. You will not be able to compromise with him. I know I said that about Reed but listen to me, sir. Our spies have evidence that Senator Long will repudiate your assurances as mere appeasement and call for armed attacks against the government and Reed’s followers in one day unless you rip up your agreement with Reed at his next speech in Atlanta in a few days. You are between a rock and a hard place sir. You can’t make both Reed and Long happy. It is an impossible equation, Mr. President. You have already managed to figure out to somehow make Reed happy so the answer is to remove Long from the equation.”

President Curtis was taken back by the suggestion. He objected that killing Long was illegal and the blame for the killing would certainly fall on the government or Reed’s followers and that would cause the uprising they were trying to prevent.

MacArthur had foreseen this objection. He said “I knew you would say that but please be patient with me. Long has a big problem and it might also be our solution to him. Despite the name of the party, the AFU is not united in their cause. Most of the leaders in that party hate each other’s guts. Long is the only man who is charismatic enough to hold the party together. But as you said, killing Long is not enough. The party leadership would make us or Reed into the common enemy to drive their rebellion. However, there is a way I believe to cause the party faithful to turn on each other instead of the government or the reds. You know of William Dudley Pelley and his Silver Legion? Apparently, the madman is secretly plotting to overthrow Long and claim control of the party and country if the America First rebellion seizes control. We can speed up Pelley’s timetable for his plot ourselves. Our boys in the FBI have infiltrated Pelley’s Silver Legion and has a small degree of influence there. They can fabricate orders from Pelley to some particularly gullible minions of Pelley to kill Long at his next speech and allow Pelley to try to seize power. We will ensure that the local police discover the membership of the assassins and the orders. These fake orders and the real plot will damn Pelley. Yes, this is entrapment, sir. However, the agents will be gone and with new identities. The Minutemen and the Silvershirts will kill each other in the streets of the South and bloody riots will certainly happen. The AFU leadership will enter a vicious power struggle. However, bloody riots are preferable to an organized uprising led by Long. Even if uprisings occur, they will be disorganized and likely hostile to each other as well as the government. The southern governors and the southern National Guard units would rather remain loyal instead of joining a disorganized and overgrown mob. You might ask why not simply expose Pelley’s plot and let them fight each other. I am sure that Long is clever enough to see the knife Pelley is preparing but Long still needs Pelley for now. If we tried to expose the plot now, both men would repudiate the government’s claims as lies to divide them. My plan is the only way you can get rid of Long and keep the syndies in line. Finally, if the government’s involvement was somehow exposed, I would gladly fall on my sword to protect you and the White House. I would claim I alone was the mastermind of the Long killing and you the President had no knowledge of this planned killing.” MacArthur’s arguments managed to win over the reluctant President and Curtis secretly sent his approval. Long’s next speech would be his last.
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One of many of February 10’s headlines.

“Huey Long killed in front of Atlanta City Hall. Silvershirt Plot Exposed”

“Shocking news out of Atlanta, Georgia today. Shortly before noon, the infamous Louisiana senator and former Governor Huey Long was shot twice and died during a speech to his supporters criticizing the policies of President Curtis. Long reportedly cried out “God, don’t let me die. I have so much to do” before succumbing to his wounds. Long was declared dead on arrival at Atlanta General Hospital. The two assassins were killed at the scene. Five other people were killed and seven more were wounded when Long’s Minutemen bodyguards fired into the crowd in an attempt to stop the assassins. The scene quickly devolved into a massive riot around the city. Similar riots started around the South and Midwest. Atlanta police managed to retrieve the bodies of the assassins and identified them as Irving Burden and Carl Stanton. These men were members of the Silver Legion of America or the Silvershirts. Their private writings and letters detail a plot from the Legion’s leadership to kill Long to allow the Silver Legion’s leader, William Dudley Pelley, to assume control of Long’s America First Union party and launch a so-called “Silver Revolution” to take over the United States. Pelley was not available for comment on these allegations. The Silver Legion’s headquarters in Los Angeles was raided late afternoon today by federal authorities after the discovery of the papers of the assassins. William Dudley Pelley is wanted by federal authorities in connection to the killing of Huey Long and the public is urged to report him to police if they see him.”
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Wanted Posters of Pelley were common in the aftermath of the Long killing. The ruins of the Silver Legion headquarters today.

Excerpts from a 1965 interview with former President Quentin Roosevelt (1941-1949).

Reporter: Sir, what do you make of the conspiracy theories claiming you and your predecessor Charles Curtis was involved in the killing of Huey Long back in 1937?

Roosevelt: The government had nothing to do with the death of Senator Long. As vice president, I did not attend the secret security meetings as was the custom at the time. As for President Curtis however, I am absolutely certain that he could never order an illegal killing like these people have suggested. Curtis was one of the finest politicians I ever had the pleasure of working with. Curtis was a great man who took great pride in saving the country without resorting to the extralegal or unconstitutional measures many said was necessary to do so. Many people believed he was too weak to do what was necessary to save the nation. He saved the country without throwing out the constitution and America’s most important values. These theories are nonsense and I should not have wasted my breath addressing them. Let us move on.

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A nice update you fellows. I greatly expanded the process of Long assassination event chain. Did any of you catch the my reference to All the King's Men?
 
Well, as the saying goes, there is more than one way to skin a cat. Or catch a bird, and Long is was well and truly snagged.
 
All the king's horses and all the king's men, couldn't put the Kingfish back together again.

I always think of Sean Penn whenever I think of Huey Long. It's all about spectacle. :p
(Terrible movie btw.)
 
This is a very nice story here. I have never read any AAR with Quentin Roosevelt in any prominence, and it is rare to find such an intriguing narrative around the Curtis-Reed deal. You are a fairly good author, and I will be subscribing. Good luck, if you haven't already played far past your current year!
 
The House of Cards
The House of Cards: The Fall of the America First Union.
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Patronage, in all its forms, deprivation of perquisites, economic pressure, political coercion in one form or another, and now and then outright thuggery... Long commanded the intense loyalties of a substantial proportion of the population... [Supporters] came to believe that here was a man with a genuine concern for their welfare, not one of the gentlemanly do-nothing governors who had ruled the state for many decades.”-V.O. Key. Jr. on Long’s hold on his supporters.

The Long assassination riots were the worst wave of civil unrest in U.S. history since the American Civil War and not even the unrest during the civil rights movements of the 1960s would surpass the scale of the Long riots. Police around the South and the Midwest were quickly overwhelmed by the scale of the riots and many formerly rebellious pro-Long officials begged for the aid of President Curtis and the federal government. Diehard supporters of Long and Pelley killed each other in the streets and looted the businesses of the supporters of the other. Many innocents were also targeted and caught up the wave of violence. Blacks and Jews were particularly at risk of being harmed. President Curtis federalized the National Guards to attempt to stop the violence and MacArthur prepared the army for possible uprisings. Prayers for peace were held at the Washington National Cathedral. Strict orders to not fire on rioters were enforced to try to avoid inflaming the situation even if it took longer to suppress the riots. The few CSA affiliated unions in the South were also targets for angry Southerners. Curtis sent a private message to Reed begging him to not interfere and to let the government to handle the situation in the interests of peace. Reed decided to merely release a statement condemning the killing of Long and the riots. The killing of Long was apocalyptic for the America First Union party. The seemingly unified front of leadership collapsed within hours of Long’s death. With the Silver Legion discredited and Pelley on the run, the other factions of the AFU attempted to seize control of the party leadership and each faction’s supporters clashed with each other outside the AFU headquarters. Gerald Smith’s followers attempted to claim and rally around the legacy of Huey Long. However, Smith’s lack of charisma and association with the Silver Legion undermined Smith’s attempts to seize Long’s legacy. Father Coughlin and his supporters also attempted to claim Long’s legacy. The charismatic Coughlin had more success but Coughlin’s Catholicism and abrasive nature limited the size of the base of his supporters. Turned off by all the post-Long violence, many AFU members looked to other factions for leadership. The moderates Charles Lindbergh and Francis Townsend attempted to gather these members in a bid for the AFU chairmanship. While Townsend was widely respected in the AFU, his single-issue nature prevented him from having serious prospects of claiming the chairmanship. Lindbergh quickly claimed these turned off AFU members. Lindbergh promised to carry out the populist policies within the democratic process and without the help of the now out of control paramilitaries. He begun to seriously challenge Smith and Coughlin for the leadership position. Meanwhile, the two traditional parties did not simply sit on the sidelines during the riots. They both attempted to snap up disillusioned members of America First. The Republicans added more provisions in the Fair Deal to aid economically depressed areas of the South and provisions to rebuild areas damaged by the riots. The riots proved great political fodder for Garner’s “law and order” conservative Southern Democrats. They appealed to Southerners disgusted by the violence and the growing anti-Long elements. Other Democrats would add the less extreme parts of the AFU platform to their own platforms.
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These men all tried to seize the throne of the fallen Kingfish.

It would take one and a half weeks for the government to halt the riots. Over 200 people were dead, over 4000 were injured, and over 23,000 people were arrested at some point in the rioting. Huey Long’s funeral was originally supposed to be public but fears for public safety caused it to be a private service led by Gerald Smith as the minister. Charles Lindbergh won the power struggle and assumed the chairmanship of the party but he was unable to repair the AFU’s ruined reputation. The inner party power struggles that had led to public bloodshed alienated the public. Long had constructed a house of cards that only he could hold together and no one else had the talent to rebuild the fallen house. Lindbergh proved completely incapable of rebuilding America First. It was doubtful even Huey Long if he could come back from the dead, could have rebuilt the party. Lindbergh and his family was endlessly hounded by the press and federal investigators. Lindbergh was a strongly private man and he greatly disliked all the public attention. The mailbox of the Lindberghs was flooded with death threats. On April 4, 1937, Americans woke to the news that Lindbergh had resigned the AFU chairmanship and had secretly fled to Canada with his family by train the night before. Vice President Roosevelt, despite some sympathies for his fellow aviator, publicly hoped that Lindbergh would not return for a very long time. The America First Union party dissolved shortly after Lindbergh’s resignation and flight to Canada. While the individual leaders of the AFU party continued to be active in American politics, never again would they seriously threaten the political establishment and pose the risk of causing a civil war. The AFU’s collapse left the CSA as the only surviving major non-traditional political party. While the Combined Syndicates of America were celebrating the implosion of their mortal rival and their political victory of their deal with the federal government, that very victory had started forces that would tear the CSA apart.
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Lindbergh and his wife Anne. Time has dimmed America's memories of Charles Lindbergh's time in America First and most Americans prefer to remember his time as a universally admired airmen than as head of one of America's most divisive organizations in the country's history. But for people who do remember, it is a serious black mark on his reputation.

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Soon next is the effects of the Curtis-Reed deal on the CSA.
Audience! A question. Do you think the highly illegal assassination of Huey Long by Curtis and MacArthur in an attempt to prevent the Second American Civil War as the right and moral thing to do? The President and MacArthur did manipulate a few people to committing a extrajudicial killing of an American elected politician and framed an still innocent if loathsome man for ordering the act. On the other hand, Long was about to incite mass rebellion against the federal government and the CSA with his speech but he was killed before he could do so and Pelley was planning to kill Long anyway.
 
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Lindbergh is, I think, an almost Speer-like character in some respects. By that I mean not a thug, yet seduced by thugs. Not sure if that explains it, but I hope it does.
 
Audience! A question. Do you think the highly illegal assassination of Huey Long by Curtis and Long in an attempt to prevent the Second American Civil War as the right and moral thing to do? The President and MacArthur did manipulate a few people to committing a extrajudicial killing of an American elected politician and framed an still innocent if loathsome man for ordering the act. On the other hand, Long was about to incite mass rebellion against the federal government and the CSA with his speech but he was killed before he could do so and Pelley was planning to kill Long anyway.

I feel bad for saying this but it did prevent a bloody civil war which would've killed millions more