Questions and Solutions
Questions and Solutions
“[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?
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?
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.
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.
“[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?
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?
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.
Strikers amused and entertained themselves by creating bands and orchestras as they waited for a deal to be made.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
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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