The Falcon Cannot Hear: The Second American Civil War 1937-1944
- Thread starter Ephraim Ben Raphael
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Ephraim Ben Raphael
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OK, how much of that last update is OTL, and how much is TTL?
The quote from Eisenhower is allohistorical, coming as it does from his memoirs written in the later part of his life. He did express pity for the BEF IOTL though.
Everything else is as it happened historically.
Thank you both for your kind compliments.
I'm afraid I was unclear- the hundred casualties are as Zog noted, only wounded not killed. There were only four deaths, and over a hundred injured in the attack on the Anacostia Flats camp. I've seen some contradictory numbers for the number injured when the BEF was dispersed, Wikipedia shows over a thousand, but Manchester writes a hundred- so I went with Manchester's number.
Oh sweet motherfucking hell...
Welcome to 1930's America.
We haven't reached the POD yet, when it shows there will be no doubt about it.
Everything from this update, excepting the Eisenhower quote, is historical. Jo Angelo was struck with the flat of a cavalry saber but not seriously injured, he indeed confronted Patton as Seleucus describes. Senator Bingham was knocked over but unhurt besides his pride, he was prevailed upon by the other members of his party (Republican) to support the President and went on to lose re-election.
Precisely, I adapted this scene straight out of Manchester's book. I'm trying to channel his style.
Not a bad guess.
I can't agree more. MacArthur was a skilled general, but an awful human being.
The quote from Eisenhower is allohistorical, coming as it does from his memoirs written in the later part of his life. He did express pity for the BEF IOTL though.
Everything else is as it happened historically.
OMG.
That's just cruel even by the standards of the Depression stories I've heard. Makes everything else beforehand seem like a walk in the park.
Nothing. He'll go back to work as if nothing happened. IMHO he should have been cashiered too.
Ah, I see; misread the trampling, casualties, and cavalry sabering as being lethal. At least they're retaining a slightest modicum of common sense.
So yes, expecting a Democrats-nominate-someone-who-isn't-FDR POD then. Or otherwise a more restrained FDR (possibly if his nomination is brokered and/or he's reigned in by the party.)
In that case, I'm guessing we'd see a far more messy 1932 election (something like 50% Democrat, 30-35% Republican, 10-15% Socialist, with the rest being other/minor parties), a far more restrained New Deal that doesn't achieve very much, and a very very messy situation in 1936 (with a much stronger Socialists, significant Communist presence - possibly influenced by Trotsky, and breakdown of the political system.) It would presumably be thrown to the House (or there would be quite a few deals before the Electoral College meets, and discussion of constitutionality of 'faithless electors')
Then we just need something like McArthur launching a coup d'etat against the presumably-victorious Socialist Party (or "bravely standing up against the tide of communist agitators", as he'd probably put it), and we have the civil war on cue in 1937.
So yes, expecting a Democrats-nominate-someone-who-isn't-FDR POD then. Or otherwise a more restrained FDR (possibly if his nomination is brokered and/or he's reigned in by the party.)
In that case, I'm guessing we'd see a far more messy 1932 election (something like 50% Democrat, 30-35% Republican, 10-15% Socialist, with the rest being other/minor parties), a far more restrained New Deal that doesn't achieve very much, and a very very messy situation in 1936 (with a much stronger Socialists, significant Communist presence - possibly influenced by Trotsky, and breakdown of the political system.) It would presumably be thrown to the House (or there would be quite a few deals before the Electoral College meets, and discussion of constitutionality of 'faithless electors')
Then we just need something like McArthur launching a coup d'etat against the presumably-victorious Socialist Party (or "bravely standing up against the tide of communist agitators", as he'd probably put it), and we have the civil war on cue in 1937.
Great idea! HEY, EBR, HEAR THAT?
I'd imagine Pelley would likely fill a role similar to Rohm, minus the being-purged-less-than-a-year-after-helping-to-seize-power bit (or maybe not! Civil wars are always interesting... ...in the Chinese sense...
).
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Ephraim Ben Raphael
Banned
OMG.
That's just cruel even by the standards of the Depression stories I've heard. Makes everything else beforehand seem like a walk in the park.
That's history for, just when you think it's hyperbole...
Great idea! HEY, EBR, HEAR THAT?
I'd imagine Pelley would likely fill a role similar to Rohm, minus the being-purged-less-than-a-year-after-helping-to-seize-power bit (or maybe not! Civil wars are always interesting... ...in the Chinese sense...
Yes, Pelley will play a role. Not saying how big it will be.
Ephraim Ben Raphael
Banned
Things Get Worse- 1932
Washington was far from the only part of the nation troubled by unrest. On March 7 some 3000 hungry men and women attempted to protest outside of Henry Ford’s plant in Dearborn, Michigan. The police fired into their ranks, killing four and wounding a hundred others- who were then handcuffed to their beds and charged with rioting. In other cities the Unemployed Councils remained active and kept up a low level stream of incidents. It’s unsurprising the American people were becoming antsy. Easily 15 million men were out of work by September, 1932 and the market was so glutted with job-seekers that New York department stores were requiring bachelor’s degrees for all elevator operators. A man from Arkansas walked 900 miles to find work, in Detroit people were buying jobs. When Amtorg, the Russian trading agency advertised for 6,000 jobs in the Soviet Union an amazing 100,000 skilled applicants showed up. United Steel and General Motors stock had fallen to 8% of their pre-Crash values, overall the value of stocks was down to 11% of what the market had been worth in 1929. In about two years investors had lost 74 billion dollars, and 5,000 banks and 86,000 businesses had closed their doors. America’s GDP was down from 104 billion dollars to a mere 41 billion. Wages had fallen dramatically, the economy placed workers at the mercy of their employers. Miners made $10.88 a month, when they tried to protest their strike was bloodily put down by the National Guard. In New England towns men were treated like serfs, one of them left Manchester, New Hampshire to apply for a job in New Haven, Connecticut, was arrested, brought before a judge, and ordered back to his Manchester factory. Unions were no help, the conservative American Federation of Labor had only 2.2 million members (6% of the work force) and was as likely to side with the bosses as it was with their employees.
A line of unemployed wait for food.
When a senator declared that workers could not survive on one or two days wages a week, President J.E. Edgerton of the National Association of Manufacturers said, “Why, I’ve never thought of paying men on the basis of what they need. I pay for efficiency. Personally I leave that social welfare stuff to the churches.”
A child in a Seattle Hooverville.
On the street they joked that the only person making money in the Depression was Sally Rand.
But as bad as it was for industrial workers, for farmers it was even worse. The farm population made up 25.1% of the total population and prices for crops had fallen down to 25 cents for a bushel of wheat, 7 cents for a bushel of corn, a dime for a bushel of oats, and a nickel for a pound of cotton or wool. This meant that when all prices were considered a wheat farmer lost $1.50 for every acre he reaped. It was cheaper to burn corn for fuel than coal. In Minnesota a rancher bought bullets on credit then spent two hours slaughtering a herd of livestock and left the meat to rot. It wasn’t worth the money to ship it to a slaughterhouse. Turning away he remarked to a reporter, “One way to beat the Depression, huh?”
A farm foreclosure sale in Iowa.
Then on April 7, 1932 a voice appeared on the radio promising hope- the warm, vibrant, confident voice of Franklin D. Roosevelt. The governor of New York State and cousin of President Theodore Roosevelt attacked the Hoover administration for relieving banks and big business. He mocked “shallow thinkers” who knew no way to help the farmer. “These unhappy times,” he said, “call for the building of plans that put their faith once more in the forgotten man at the bottom of the economic pyramid.” Roosevelt was a poor liberal- he also said that “to accomplish anything worthwhile… there must be a compromise between the ideal and the practical”, but he was the best America could find and with the support of party bosses and by including John Nance Garner, the conservative, red-baiting, Speaker of the House on his ticket, FDR (as he was called) won the Democratic Nomination. In his acceptance speech he pledged a “New Deal for the American people”. Precisely what this “New Deal” consisted of was unclear, but it would include “bold, persistent, experimentation.”
Franklin D. Roosevelt, as Governor of New York and Democratic Party nominee for President.
President Hoover was not intimidated, he agreed with his friends that the country was still conservative. America would not elect a cripple (polio had left Roosevelt unable to walk). He was stunned however when the state of Maine, which voted in September before the rest of the country, elected a Democratic governor and two Democratic congressmen- the first such slippage by the Grand Old Party since the Civil War. Earlier the President had predicted that in four months of campaigning Roosevelt would “lose the confidence of business’ which in some mysterious way he thought would determine the election. Such firms as Ford Motor Company had in fact notified their employees that “To prevent times from getting worse and to help them get better, President Hoover must be elected.” But workers weren’t listening- and to make matters worse Republican notables had even started defecting from the party.
President Hoover accepting the Republican nomination for President.
So Hoover put on his celluloid collar and his high-button shoes and went out to campaign. In Des Moines he predicted that “grass would grow in the streets” if his tariff was taken away and the people booed. In Indianapolis he told listeners that Roosevelt was peddling “nonsense… misstatements…prattle…untruths… defamation… ignorance… calumnies…” and they hissed. In Cleveland he promised no “deserving” citizen would starve, and they hooted. In St. Paul he spoke of the defeat of the Bonus Marchers saying, “Thank god we still have a government in Washington that still knows how to deal with a mob,” and the crowd replied with one vast snarl. In Detroit they carried signs that read DOWN WITH HOOVER, SLAYER OF VETERANS and BILLIONS FOR BANKERS, BULLETS FOR VETS. Hoover grew increasingly desperate, his condemnation of “false gods arrayed in the rainbow colors of promises” fell on deaf ears. On election night Roosevelt carried 42 of the 48 states.
Hoover speaking in Olympia, Washington.
The country was to have a new President, one who promised that “something, anything” would be done. But already American politics were starting to radicalize and fragment. Disenchantment with the two major parties was high, third party candidates had started appearing on ballots and some were even winning. The Farmer-Labor Party held five seats and gained over 2 million votes in the House of Representatives, the Socialist Party gained over a million votes for the House but no seats. In the Presidential election Socialist Norman Thomas came in third, with almost 900,000 votes, followed by Communist William Z. Foster with 103,000. The newly minted Liberty and Jobless parties made themselves felt, as did the Socialist-Labor party. There were still four months of the old administration left before the new one could take office- and a lot could change in that time.
Washington was far from the only part of the nation troubled by unrest. On March 7 some 3000 hungry men and women attempted to protest outside of Henry Ford’s plant in Dearborn, Michigan. The police fired into their ranks, killing four and wounding a hundred others- who were then handcuffed to their beds and charged with rioting. In other cities the Unemployed Councils remained active and kept up a low level stream of incidents. It’s unsurprising the American people were becoming antsy. Easily 15 million men were out of work by September, 1932 and the market was so glutted with job-seekers that New York department stores were requiring bachelor’s degrees for all elevator operators. A man from Arkansas walked 900 miles to find work, in Detroit people were buying jobs. When Amtorg, the Russian trading agency advertised for 6,000 jobs in the Soviet Union an amazing 100,000 skilled applicants showed up. United Steel and General Motors stock had fallen to 8% of their pre-Crash values, overall the value of stocks was down to 11% of what the market had been worth in 1929. In about two years investors had lost 74 billion dollars, and 5,000 banks and 86,000 businesses had closed their doors. America’s GDP was down from 104 billion dollars to a mere 41 billion. Wages had fallen dramatically, the economy placed workers at the mercy of their employers. Miners made $10.88 a month, when they tried to protest their strike was bloodily put down by the National Guard. In New England towns men were treated like serfs, one of them left Manchester, New Hampshire to apply for a job in New Haven, Connecticut, was arrested, brought before a judge, and ordered back to his Manchester factory. Unions were no help, the conservative American Federation of Labor had only 2.2 million members (6% of the work force) and was as likely to side with the bosses as it was with their employees.
A line of unemployed wait for food.
When a senator declared that workers could not survive on one or two days wages a week, President J.E. Edgerton of the National Association of Manufacturers said, “Why, I’ve never thought of paying men on the basis of what they need. I pay for efficiency. Personally I leave that social welfare stuff to the churches.”
A child in a Seattle Hooverville.
On the street they joked that the only person making money in the Depression was Sally Rand.
But as bad as it was for industrial workers, for farmers it was even worse. The farm population made up 25.1% of the total population and prices for crops had fallen down to 25 cents for a bushel of wheat, 7 cents for a bushel of corn, a dime for a bushel of oats, and a nickel for a pound of cotton or wool. This meant that when all prices were considered a wheat farmer lost $1.50 for every acre he reaped. It was cheaper to burn corn for fuel than coal. In Minnesota a rancher bought bullets on credit then spent two hours slaughtering a herd of livestock and left the meat to rot. It wasn’t worth the money to ship it to a slaughterhouse. Turning away he remarked to a reporter, “One way to beat the Depression, huh?”
A farm foreclosure sale in Iowa.
Then on April 7, 1932 a voice appeared on the radio promising hope- the warm, vibrant, confident voice of Franklin D. Roosevelt. The governor of New York State and cousin of President Theodore Roosevelt attacked the Hoover administration for relieving banks and big business. He mocked “shallow thinkers” who knew no way to help the farmer. “These unhappy times,” he said, “call for the building of plans that put their faith once more in the forgotten man at the bottom of the economic pyramid.” Roosevelt was a poor liberal- he also said that “to accomplish anything worthwhile… there must be a compromise between the ideal and the practical”, but he was the best America could find and with the support of party bosses and by including John Nance Garner, the conservative, red-baiting, Speaker of the House on his ticket, FDR (as he was called) won the Democratic Nomination. In his acceptance speech he pledged a “New Deal for the American people”. Precisely what this “New Deal” consisted of was unclear, but it would include “bold, persistent, experimentation.”
Franklin D. Roosevelt, as Governor of New York and Democratic Party nominee for President.
President Hoover was not intimidated, he agreed with his friends that the country was still conservative. America would not elect a cripple (polio had left Roosevelt unable to walk). He was stunned however when the state of Maine, which voted in September before the rest of the country, elected a Democratic governor and two Democratic congressmen- the first such slippage by the Grand Old Party since the Civil War. Earlier the President had predicted that in four months of campaigning Roosevelt would “lose the confidence of business’ which in some mysterious way he thought would determine the election. Such firms as Ford Motor Company had in fact notified their employees that “To prevent times from getting worse and to help them get better, President Hoover must be elected.” But workers weren’t listening- and to make matters worse Republican notables had even started defecting from the party.
President Hoover accepting the Republican nomination for President.
So Hoover put on his celluloid collar and his high-button shoes and went out to campaign. In Des Moines he predicted that “grass would grow in the streets” if his tariff was taken away and the people booed. In Indianapolis he told listeners that Roosevelt was peddling “nonsense… misstatements…prattle…untruths… defamation… ignorance… calumnies…” and they hissed. In Cleveland he promised no “deserving” citizen would starve, and they hooted. In St. Paul he spoke of the defeat of the Bonus Marchers saying, “Thank god we still have a government in Washington that still knows how to deal with a mob,” and the crowd replied with one vast snarl. In Detroit they carried signs that read DOWN WITH HOOVER, SLAYER OF VETERANS and BILLIONS FOR BANKERS, BULLETS FOR VETS. Hoover grew increasingly desperate, his condemnation of “false gods arrayed in the rainbow colors of promises” fell on deaf ears. On election night Roosevelt carried 42 of the 48 states.
Hoover speaking in Olympia, Washington.
The country was to have a new President, one who promised that “something, anything” would be done. But already American politics were starting to radicalize and fragment. Disenchantment with the two major parties was high, third party candidates had started appearing on ballots and some were even winning. The Farmer-Labor Party held five seats and gained over 2 million votes in the House of Representatives, the Socialist Party gained over a million votes for the House but no seats. In the Presidential election Socialist Norman Thomas came in third, with almost 900,000 votes, followed by Communist William Z. Foster with 103,000. The newly minted Liberty and Jobless parties made themselves felt, as did the Socialist-Labor party. There were still four months of the old administration left before the new one could take office- and a lot could change in that time.
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Ephraim Ben Raphael
Banned
Ones that don't take place in the 21st century and somehow involve a resurrected CSA.
No comment.
Ephraim Ben Raphael
Banned
Nice update. Just a minor nitpick, though. As someone from Conencticut, I can tell you that the city is in fact called NEW Haven, not just Haven.
Thanks for catching that.
Next update will have the POD, by the way.
Deleted member 67076
I'm really liking this. Please continue.
Err, how? How are man made events going to disrupt hurricanes?
Better not let CalBear catch that.
BTW, liking this a lot. May I PM you about some ideas I have for a Second American Civil War which would bring about the world of a TL (more like an anthology, really - it's in my sig
) I'm currently working on? Marc A
I might also add that it is also during the 1920s and 1930s that some of the textile mills in Massachusetts and Rhode Island made a big push to the South, which continued for quite a while - in Rhode Island, the last mills closed in the 1960s. A worse Depression would only accelerate the push South.
Apart from that, another great update. I await with baited breath what the POD would be.
Apart from that, another great update. I await with baited breath what the POD would be.
How many factions will they be in the Civil War? Will it just be on on one, or will we have a lot factions. Maybe a Pacific States of America?
No they havnt got any history, i personally want
Government (good ol usa)
Communists (the only good commie is... one freeing the people)
Fascists (Hail the silver legion)
Greens (Screw this, maggie grab me my gun, me an the boys are goin huntin)
Confederates (The south shall rise ag...wow so many blacks with guns..)
African American Movement (I have a dream..where you die)
Black (Wooooh Anarchists yeah woooh...ow...ow...stop laughing at me)
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