At the turn of the century, Calvin Carr was lobbying against the anti-trust laws.
-
We have updated our Community Code of Conduct. Please read through the new rules for the forum that are an integral part of Paradox Interactive’s User Agreement.
William Taggarman returned home to Texas briefly, to say hello to his family, before returning to ensuring corruption is kept at a minimum in the government. He was shocked at the untimely death of the president elect, but knows the country will move past into an era of American dominance.
((John Fitzgerald? Really? Clever boy...))
31 December 1899
Governor Jarvis, forced back into Sacramento to sign some last minute legislation that would get a major tax cut and repeal some of the regulation from the Glynne years, is on a train to San Diego, hoping to get home before New Years Night.
He arrives at the station at 7:33 p.m., and gets into his carriage, and heads out to his estate a few miles north of the city. The weather is unusually cool, but not unpleasant.
The carriage passes through the gates of the Jarvis family's beachfront compound, Rosemoor, at 8:17. The Governor gets out and enters the main building.
Unlike the large (and somewhat debauched and scandalous) party the President held, the small get together of only one hundred of the families closest friends has a rather tame celebration. Most of the guests leave before daybreak, and the Governor had gone to bed by two.
He wakes up before noon, January First, to someone knocking on his door...
31 December 1899
Governor Jarvis, forced back into Sacramento to sign some last minute legislation that would get a major tax cut and repeal some of the regulation from the Glynne years, is on a train to San Diego, hoping to get home before New Years Night.
He arrives at the station at 7:33 p.m., and gets into his carriage, and heads out to his estate a few miles north of the city. The weather is unusually cool, but not unpleasant.
The carriage passes through the gates of the Jarvis family's beachfront compound, Rosemoor, at 8:17. The Governor gets out and enters the main building.
Unlike the large (and somewhat debauched and scandalous) party the President held, the small get together of only one hundred of the families closest friends has a rather tame celebration. Most of the guests leave before daybreak, and the Governor had gone to bed by two.
He wakes up before noon, January First, to someone knocking on his door...
Last edited:
David Hensdale spent the turn of the century inside the Mayors office in Richmond, pouring over historical papers from his Grandfather's term in the U.S. Senate.
The honorable Senator of Texas must apologize to the honorable dead President, he must plead ignorance for mis-understanding the exact definition of "president elect". (I thought it literally meant, president elect. As in, a president, who was elected. A quick google search shows I am an idiot ;-))
Erica Hayden-Vallejo spent the New Year with her husbands family in California and then promptly jumped back into preparing for the resumption of the United Fruit trial.
Alicia Vallejo was riding in front of the New Year on the last legs of a long train ride from Baltimore to San Francisco to attend the same family gathering (Train delays made the New Year fall en-route and the arrival to San Francisco - and then to Vallejo - was in the early hours of January 1st already. She was able to meet with her sister-in-law and other relatives later that day, however, after a short rest.)
Sorry the update is taking so long. I had to really work to get GDP statistics for the State of the Union 1900.
Harrison (1st Term): A New Age
The first six months of James Harrison’s presidency seemed preoccupied by ceremonial matters. The press concentrated on the preparations for Hayden’s funeral, and then on the preparations for Independence Day. On July 5th, they gave small columns analyzing his inaugural speech before returning to the great news items of 1899; Hayden and the turn of the century. Indeed, the entire nation was preoccupied with that magical double-o of 1900.
This allowed Harrison to establish himself without the scrutiny of the press. The only time he was seen at a public event after July 4th was the memorial service to Hayden held on August 3rd in front of the Capitol. The only signs of any future personality as a president were his arrival in the White House with a veritable zoo of pets from out west, including one of the last buffalo, and his inaugural address. In December 1899, Harrison finally went back to that which had defined life for him so far; being larger than it.
His first act in that long month was the definitive end of the State v. Howard Industries struggle. The company was ruled to be in control of the steel market, and the Harrison Act constitutional. Howard Industries was broken up, and as a reconciliation gift to the Howards, the president bought up 30% of the shares in most of the new companies when they were still cheap, and gave them for a ridiculously low price to Alfred [1].
The end of Howard Industries’ monopoly also spelled doom for United Fruit. With both his main arguments debunked, Davis was forced to watch the Trust Busters break up United Fruit and the American Railroad Company the week before Christmas. Harrison called it “an early present from Jolly Saint Nick” when asked about the decision.
1. A cartoon depicting the White House on January 1st 1900 and December 31st 1899.
Then came New Year’s Eve 1899. Through the radio installed a mere three years earlier in the White House, much like the ones that adorned fireplaces in a third of all American homes, the president counted down from 10 to 0. When he finished, he said “a Happy New Century to one and all. Let’s make it a good one”. The following morning, John Fitzgerald Harrison, the president’s 19 year old son, woke up half-naked in a bathtub [2].
The next session of congress was further livened up by the announcement that the Germans and Russians had negotiated a peace at Konigsberg late at night on December 25th 1899 [3]. The war that had killed 250,000 Russian soldiers, and 350,000 German soldiers and civilians was over. The president called it “a wonderful turn of events”; the press called it a Christmas Miracle.
Harrison also decided to usher in the new century by breaking the old presidential tradition of the State of the Union Address being a written letter to congress. On January 10th 1900, the president rose onto the podium and said “I am today going to tell you of the state of this glorious union”. Some congressmen, mostly those who opposed anti-trust called it “a break in tradition that will hopefully be a one-off”, the “New York Times” called it “a fine sign of how this century will be different, bolder and freer”.
The union Harrison described was indeed glorious. The country had an estimated GDP of $41,612,353,000 in 1900 dollars, with an estimated GDP per capita of $324.20 [4]. This made the United States the richest country in the world, with the highest living standards. The US military was the third most powerful in the world, with an Army comprising 330,000 soldiers in 33 divisions, in 12 corps in 3 armies, and a navy consisting of 862 transport and warships of all classes, divided into 10 fleets stationed in US harbors.
2. James Harrison, 22nd President of the United States.
The population of the country had increased from 5,308,483 in 1800 to an estimated 128,350,000 in 1900, an increase of 2,417.83%. Indeed, more people voted in 1897 than there were people of any kind in the US a mere 40 years earlier at the beginning of the Civil War. An undeniably huge amount of this population growth was due to immigration. In 1900, 12.3 million of the people living in the nation had moved there during the preceding decade, and the flow of immigrants showed no signs of stopping. In July 1900, an estimated 106,000 people immigrated to America. 4 out of 5 arrived at Ellis Island, New York.
It was this explosive growth and complete economic supremacy that made Europeans wary of the United States. Since the fall of the French Empire, the balance of power had always been shaky. The French had violently reestablished their power by fighting a bloody war for Alsace-Lorraine in 1887-91, and become Britain’s most dangerous competitor in the Scramble for Africa. Whereas other nations, such as Germany, simply participated in the partition of Egypt, France and Britain actively went deeper into the continent, their hunger fueled by natural resources and cheap labor.
Russia, frustrated with the lack of growth that it had experienced since the Persian Wars of the late 1870s, sought any way to expand its territorial holdings. Czar Nicholas the III courted both the British and the French for support in his planned campaign against China in 1892. The British entertained the thought of enforcing their will on the world’s most populous nation, but eventually declined due to the danger posed to British India by a war with the Emperor.
3. Czar Nicholas III of Russia, c. 1900.
Eventually this frustration was what set off the Russo-German War. The bloody and seemingly pointless conflict exacerbated growing tension between the Czar and his people, and mad Nicholas ever more anxious to upgrade and expand the army, which strained the already flimsy Russian budget. The Germans on the other hand, had their national confidence partially restored from the slump it had been in since 1892 by the seeming victories against Russia and becoming the most influential European power in the Egypt-Abyssinia area [5].
The Austro-Hungarian and Ottoman empires continued their centuries-long dance of animosity. Both empires were dangerously close to bankruptcy, both militarily and financially, but in the Concert of Europe a nation could not stop playing without the possibility of death. In the face of this, the British decided to emulate the Americans in withdrawing from the continent, choosing instead to nurture their new African holdings while a cancer festered in the heart of Europe.
4. British Prime Minister Cecil Rhodes depicted astride the continent of Africa.
For the time being however, Americans could not care less about Europe. They were enamored, along with the press, by the first family like they never had been before. John F. was a known socialite, and his father and mother were known to host some of the most extravagant and talked-about parties in the country. They were known to invite people off the street and some of the richest people in the country to the same party [6]. Most congressmen missed the true purpose of these parties, but some like Calvin Carr saw through their disguise, saying; “I must commend the president’s skill with people. It is not everyday that a man runs the nation with so little of that damning interference from the press because the press are too busy wondering why his son is spending so much time with Josephine Young”.
The president’s anti-trust campaign had also resumed. After the bitterly fought United Fruit and Howard Industries cases, Davis was left with few weapons, and thus the monopolies began to fall. In the whirlwind of victories Harrison experienced during the first year of the 20th century, he also began to set up for the most important event of the following year.
In the mid-term elections of 1898, the Federals had regained a large amount of their support with a person holding executive office, or at least in line to hold executive office. Harrison however, knew that his party was still aching from the wounds created by the split in 1897. After becoming president, Harrison engaged in a constant campaign of reconciliation with the pro-trust wing of the party. In July 1900, Roderick Khur and the president appeared together at a Federal rally for the first time since 1895, the two men having reconciled their differences, and hoping to reunite their shattered party.
[1] – Harrison was very nearly bankrupted by the “Howard Purchase”.
[2] – John F. Harrison eventually married General Joshua Young’s granddaughter, Josephine, whose house he had woken up in on New Year’s Day 1900.
[3] – The terms of the peace were not disclosed, but no territorial changes were made, likely due to the recent, devastating reversals suffered by the Russians at the battles of Allenstein and Taprau, which effectively annihilated the Russian 1st and 7th Armies.
[4] – Adjusted for inflation, these numbers translate to $1,075,843,393,410 and $8,381.25 respectively in 2010 dollars. Between 1800 and 1900, US GDP grew by an estimated 5,206%, going from $799,208,470 (1900 dollars) to the 1900 numbers.
[5] – Another factor was the hope in the German government that the friendship with America might be restored to its old glory. This hope had been rekindled by President Harrison’s funnelling of money, and by extension supplies, to the Germans that allowed them to push the Russians backward after Allenstein and Taprau. Harrison however, made it abundantly clear to congress and the Kaiser that his support was given to deter Russia from wanton aggression, not out of love for Germany.
[6] – On one famous occasion, John D. Rockefeller found himself seated next to a former vagrant who remembered Rockefeller giving him a 10 dollar bill some 2 years earlier.
-------------------------------
Exceptional Situation(s):
Primary time. Parties are: Federal, Democratic, American Conservative.
Last edited:
((Roderick was loading weapons and ammo onto a smuggler ship bound for Germany 
))
))
I pledge my support for Harrison in his bid for the presidency again. I have been convinced that the trust-busting we have feared to destroy our nation, has in fact made it freer for those wishing to start up their own businesses. No Monopoly shall be made unless by the inventiveness of the product, or the efficiency of its running, and only then to last until either one or both becomes less significant than the damper the Monopoly puts on the economy over time.
Let a new era reign, a Progressive Era (yeah, I went there) where government and business can join together to make our nation freer, not more tyrannical.
Let a new era reign, a Progressive Era (yeah, I went there) where government and business can join together to make our nation freer, not more tyrannical.
Name: James Heffer
Date of Birth: 1840
Party: Democrat
Occupation: Union Organizer(With criminal connections)-Mayor of New York City-Senator from New York City
Backstory(Too tired to write anything on the scale that I want to so I shall do so tomorrow.
((New to the site, thought I would join in))
Date of Birth: 1840
Party: Democrat
Occupation: Union Organizer(With criminal connections)-Mayor of New York City-Senator from New York City
Backstory
(Too tired to write anything on the scale that I want to so I shall do so tomorrow. ((New to the site, thought I would join in))
((Welcome! Sure you don't want to make your character younger; he's sixty now... of course I usually have no room to talk about character age...
Cecil Rhodes is Prime Minister? Feel sorry for Africa...))
Cecil Rhodes is Prime Minister? Feel sorry for Africa...))
Yeah, sine there isn't much time left in the game and I want to play a few different types of characters I will play with ones who will died in the near future. If I change my mind I am sure he could stay around another 25 or so years.
And you won't be so happy I joined once you look at Shadow of the Andes, I just cost your guy and election
As I am no expert on agricultural matters, I am choosing to Abstain on all three parts of his bill.
I pray every day that we will not be dragged into this European mess; as events with the UPCA have already shown, we have enough troubles of our own in our backyard.
I pray every day that we will not be dragged into this European mess; as events with the UPCA have already shown, we have enough troubles of our own in our backyard.