Vincent Julien said:
Add to that Hitler's vegetarianism... In the end we could make a decent person out of him...
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Add to that Hitler's vegetarianism... In the end we could make a decent person out of him...
Popular pundit will be proven wrong about Popular Party candidates, I think. And poor Whigs.
Above: Rural poverty in Sequoya, 1932
XXV. The Wall Street Crash and the start of the Great Depression (1929-1932)
In 1929 the Confederate States of America was (in GDP per capita) the third wealthiest country in the world and it was the unshakable believe of Dixie economists that the future was rosy indeed.
Wall Street Crash of 1929 caused a major panic in the Richmond Stock Exchange but over the following weeks the market recovered suggesting the worst of the crisis was over. Optimism returned.
The Smoot-Hawley Tariff Act, signed into law by U.S. President Herbert Hoover on June 17, 1930 was the real disaster, at least as far as the South went. Over a third of Confederate trade went North and the tariffs imposed by the Act had a ruinous effect on Pan-American trade and when President Blease responded with a tarrif wall of his own the Southern economy crashed. Dixie began spiraling into deeper and deeper recession.
The recession bit deep in Virginia (which produced most of the tobacco for North America), Texas (which made millions in oil that drove all the automobiles of Detroit) and in the Cotton producing states. By the end of the year unemployment had trippled to 15% and it would get far worse in 1931 and 32.
President Blease was not entirely oppossed to goverment relief efforts but he was certainly in a minority in the Democratic Party on such an issue. The Democratic leadership, an uneasy coalition of 'Old South' landed Gentry and 'Texocrat' Oil Barons found the idea of state intervention absolute anathema, a point of view widely shared in Whigish business circles. In any case it was Blease who was (perhaps unfairly) widely blamed for the depression.
The collapse of the argarian economy - which directly or indirectly supported the majority of the working population - was a problem for which no easy solution suggested itself. Emigration to the North was no answer as the Depression was causing havoc across the Union too. A huge class of rural poor sprung up across the nation. Not that it was merely the working class that suffered; many middle class families saw their assets completely wiped out in the 1930 Richmond Crash. Southern Airways, the richest airline in North America went into debt and then bankruptcy.
Something, somewhere would have to give.
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Now, who will be the populist candidate, that is the question , not a silly question of which party will win but of which person will win. I'm still betting on Huey Long but we'll see...
I'm thinking that the Depression will probably be a lot worse in the divided American republics than it was in the united one of OTL. I can also see the economic situation very easily catapulting a Populist into power.
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Specialist290 said:
Indeed. Two of the largest economies (I imagine that Great Britain and the United States are immediately ahead of the CSA) trading in great amounts with each other suddenly imposing huge tariffs is not good.
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Above: Huey Long
XXVI. Discontent (1932-33)
Poverty is the parent of revolution and crime. - Aristotle
The Democratic Party of the Confederate States of America faced a bleak future in the winter of 1932/33: soaring unemployment, falling trade and - increasingly - social discontent. No wonder Vice President Neely publicly ruled out running for the White House in 1933 (only the 3rd Vice President in Confederate history to voluntarily do so). With the failure of Blease's emergency policies most Democrats realised that they would lose in 33, and probably lose badly. The poisoned chalice was offered to Arkansas Senator Joseph Taylor Robinson. Robinson as Senate Majority Leader could at least count on considerable political clout if little else.
The Whigs on the other hand were cautiouslly optomistic. While somewhat short on ideas about how to resolve the crisis they could at least smell Democratic blood in the water and stood to benefit more or less by default. In a striking move Mario García Menocal, former Whig Governor of Cuba won the nomination. Menocal would (it was hoped) deliver Cuba and it's 14 votes while siphoning off Democratic business voters with whom he carried a lot of sway (for his role during the Cuban Crisis).
While this was going on a controversial figure was making himself known. Huey Pierce Long, Jr Populist Governor of Lousiana created a new platform towards the end of the year ('the Share our Wealth Society') that aimed at radical (by Dixie standards) redistribution of wealth - or as the campaign slogan stated: 'Every Man a King'. Long, a charismatic figure wildly popular in his native state had revealed these aims in a national radio address that both appalled and enthralled his listeners. He would go on - easily - to win the Populist Party nomination.
If the major parties had begun gearing up for the election some in the Confederacy despaired of normal politics altogether. Communism was a weak force in Dixie: unions were small and feuding, the overwhelmingly rural population prosperous (before 1930) and highly conservative, the overall attitude of the 'Dixie Dream' stated that sheer hard work, talent and drive would be sufficent to success. After the Crash the extreme Left was less successful than in Europe, perhaps because of the major stumbling block of religion which like the North and unlike much of Europe was not automatically seen as part of the Establishment. Still even in Dixie there were masny who feeling abandoned by conventional politics looked to the Left for answers.
The extreme Right had more luck, or perhaps simply more organisational skill. In November 1932 John E. Rankin, Democrat Congressman for Mississippi left the Democratic Party to found a new group: the New America Party.
The New America Party (or Grayshirts from their distinctive uniform) drew much inspiration from the Italian Fascist Party and was mostly composed of disillusioned and unemployed Great War veterans. The Grayshirts quite publicly blamed the Confederacy's woes on African-Americans, Jews, Catholics, Mexicans and so on. Stridently nationalist, anti-communist and corporatist the Grayshirts hated Populists a feeling that was quite mutual. In Biloxi violent rioting broke on the night of Feburary 16/17 after a group of Grayshirts forcibly broke up a Populist meeting. In the ensuing chaos ten people were killed and almost a hundred injured. Scenes such as this would be repeated constantly throughout the pre-election months of 1933.
In this atmosphere you have to wonder what would be more calamitous. If either the Populists or Greyshirts do well they are likely to take violent exception to each other, and if the Whigs win they are likely both to take violent exception to that.
I really have no idea which way you'll turn on this one.
I really have no idea which way you'll turn on this one.
It would be nice if Huey Long ended up as in real life, and the Grayshirts ended up as Sir Oswald Mosley and his british fascists did. But somehow I doubt it.
I'm rooting for Huey, because the Whigs won't solve anything and will likely end up as the receiver of a coup from either the populist of nationalist militias. Therefore I'm rooting for the populists since they are the lesser of two evils.
I thought that was a great post, unoredictable, tense... I am keen for the next one.
Above: The CSA 1933 Presidential Election
XXVII. The Election of 1933 (1933-34)
“I’m for the poor man – all poor men, black and white, they all gotta have a chance.” - Huey Pierce Long
Huey P. Long (Populist) 4,876,548 votes (43.23 %) Electoral College: 105
Mario García Menocal (Whig) 3,599,083 votes (31.91%) Electoral College: 74
Joseph Taylor Robinson (Democrat) 2,112,731 votes (18.73%) Electoral College: 19
Other 689,931 votes (6.11%) Electoral College: 0
Total Votes: 11,278,293 (78.32% turnout)
In late October 1933 famed aviator, motion picture director and business tycoon Howard Hughes finalised his acquisition of Southern Airways. It would be his last personal financial venture in Dixie for some years as he at once moved from Jacksonville, Sonora to Los Angeles, California. Hughes was merely the most famous of many wealthy Southerners (disproportionately Texan like Hughes) who had seen from the polls that the unthinkable was about to happen: the Populists were going to win the election.
Long was easily the most charismatic politician on the campaign trail, far outdistancing his opponents. The Democratcs could only offer experience - a thin soup indeed after the past three years; the Whigs could only offer respectability and dignity but that didn't feed a man or give him a job; as for John E. Rankin he did succed in tapping into a strong current of anger and despair and early on he looked quite formidable. As it was he lacked the charisma and magnetism of a Hitler. Democracy had deep roots in Dixie and as in Britain and Ireland the Grayshirts - in this election at least - failed to grasp popular opinion.
Across the Confederacy Democratic strongholds fell to the Populists. They lost the Senate and their majority in the House - a position held for more than forty years - though here they at least retained a plurality.* In the Presidential Election Robinson failed even to carry his home state of Arkansas - an utterly humiliating defeat for a party that had won a landslide just six years previously.
The Whigs in some ways had an even worse election, for though they improved both their share of the vote and their electoral tally they now had to look forward to another six years in opposition. Worse they had failed to take either the Senate or the House. A rather sad end to Mario García Menocal's career who announced his intention to retire from politics after the results had come in.
Unusually Long had a man from his home state as his Vice President - Richard W. Leche, one of the President-Elect's cronies who had notoriously failed to get elected to the Louisiana State Senate. A clear sign of what sort of future administration the Kingfish intended to run. The self proclaimed respectable (ie. wealthy) citizens of Dixie could only look on in dread and hope their men in Congress at least could do something.
*Post election: Senate - 12 Democrat 11 Whig 8 Populist 3 Other, House - 69 Democrat 66 Whig 25 Populist 4 Other
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stnylan: No doubt quite a lot of people in Dixie will be unhappy alright.
J. Passepartout: What's wrong with the Kingfish?
GeneralHannibal: Well put.
Patrick O'Harte: Heh, well already had a Mexican Vice President (Augustus von Habsburg); half way there!
Actually I'd use more Mexican politicians but nearly all of them from the time period are far too left wing/anti-clerical to be elected in conservative, religous Dixie.
Jemisi: Thank you, hope you like it.
J. Passepartout:
What's wrong with the Kingfish? GeneralHannibal: Well put.
Patrick O'Harte: Heh, well already had a Mexican Vice President (Augustus von Habsburg); half way there!
Actually I'd use more Mexican politicians but nearly all of them from the time period are far too left wing/anti-clerical to be elected in conservative, religous Dixie.
Jemisi: Thank you, hope you like it.
Very interesting election. I'd like to see what sort of measures Long takes to alleviate the Depression, though I don't have much hope for an incorrupt government judging by his RL practices.
I'm also slightly amused that he won my home state over.
I'm also slightly amused that he won my home state over.