TL-191: Filling the Gaps

[Tiro]

Ferdinand Koenig

b.October 7th 1900.
d.1945 USA.


-I cannot quite decide where to place him on the map of the Confederate States; I don't want him to be ANOTHER member of the Virginia Mafia, but I need him to be a fellow who can convincingly become one of the first members of the Freedom Party (which was a Virginia original).

I thought of making him a Texan to partly explain how The Freedom Party was able to swallow the Redemption Party and make them like it on the whole, as well as continue to do Good Business in the Lone Star state (also due to the significant numbers of Germans who settled in Texas) but in all honesty were this the case its likely Koenig would have joined the Redemption League first.

I'm currently inclined to set his point of origin in Alabama, as I understand at least one Confederate Regiment that served during the Civil War contained a significant German minority amongst its ranks.


- I would explicitly identify Koenig as 'Dutch' (Confederate-born, of German descent) and as nursing a chip on his shoulder of considerable size as a result; I imagine that memories of German-American loyalty to the Union during the Civil War, coupled with the thoroughly-Teutonic nature of the Central Powers hasn't sweetened Southern attitudes towards German-Confederates.

If it weren't for the Blacks and The Reds, it seems highly likely that German-Confederates would bear the brunt of local prejudices.

- Probably joined up during the Great War, all the better to prove his bone fides as a True Son of the South; to say that service to the state at a desperately young age had a traumatising effect on him is putting things very mildly, but he was so big nobody noticed he was underage.


- I tend to imagine Koenig as suffering from phenomenally-low chances of being raised to a position of trust on account of his heritage (despite being born the latest in a long line of Confederate Germans), something that I think would explain his particular devotion to Featherston; not only had both of them suffered similar discrimination, but it was Jake the Snake who handed Koenig golden opportunities to be SOMEBODY (and exact some serious payback in the progress).


- Don't let the gut fool you, he's more Himmler than Goering; he might not be a trained professional, but he gets the job done and more than one opponent has paid the price for assuming his nerves sag as much as his gut - that being said he's no Clarence Potter and therefore more effective than efficient.

Brute determination and Overwhelming Force all the way.


- Looking for a rather thickset Nordic-Teutonic henchman of misleadingly bland demeanour?

Allow me to suggest Mr Sven-Ole Thorson (CONAN THE BARBARIAN, RED HEAT, THE RUNNING MAN, GLADIATOR), who has a long record of hulking villainy in supporting roles behind him.

 

[Tiro]

Saul Goldman

b. May 1st 1897 Chenstokhov, Russian Empire (modern Czestochowa Poland).
d.1945 USA.



-Foreign-born (pogroms forced them out in 1902), but raised in the Confederate States of America (I'm not sure where, but I'm inclined to think Charleston SC, given its very old associations with Jewish Americans, although New Orleans is another possibility).


-In fact I'm inclined to make him a Louisiana boy simply because it allows one to hypothesise a family divided against itself; given that Louisiana is at the heart of resistance to the Freedom Party and his own association with that particular Political Mob it's interesting to imagine that some of his family would find themselves politically opposed to him.


- One imagines him as quite the budding Entertainment mogul even before Featherston and more ambitious than he lets on (quite possibly having come to the National Capitol with the idea of becoming the next Judah P. Benjamin or at least making friends and influencing some Very Important Persons).


- I imagine that he became THE Confederate multimedia mogul almost overnight once those fateful votes were finally counted out in 1933; I doubt he was any more tolerant of dissent than Goebbels but it's possible that he had slightly better taste.


-I imagine him as a very assimilated Jew, in fact as the sort of person who regards blending into the background as a survival trait; however I also imagine that this strong and sensible impulse to keep a sharp eye out for the nearest escape route tends to clash with an ambition to be so powerful and important that anyone stupid enough to persecute him or his people will themselves end up as the victim.


- "Better those people than Our People" might as well be his motto; my guess is that he mirrors the precise degree of Anti-Negro prejudice of the people around him, but feels no particular empathy with the Coloured Population (nor anything but relief that "Blame the Blacks!" is the hunting cry of the Confederate Mob, rather than "Blame the Jews").

On the other hand it might be interesting if he were acutely sympathetic to those Jews in Russia, Poland and France enduring Anti-Semitism, working to open doors in the Confederacy to allow those being persecuted in Europe to find refuge in North America (at least Between the Wars); it might be particularly interesting if the motivation behind his move to Richmond were to make Friends in High Places for the Children of Israel in the Confederate Capitol, given later developments.

If only because this is one of the few circumstances under which one can imagine Senator Flora Blackford corresponding on semi-friendly terms with a future member of the Freedom Party (in fact it is interesting to imagine Goldman as a sort of mirror image to the former Flora Hamburger - a man who suppresses his conscience for the sake of power and survival Vs The Conscience of Congress).


- For some reason I imagine he looks more like Sir Ben Kingsley in the role of Itzhak Stern (from SCHINDLER'S LIST) than Herr Goebbels himself.

 

[Tiro]

George Herbert Walker

b. January 20th 1875 MS.
d. Unknown?

- Not actually the maternal grandfather of Bush 41 or the great-grandfather of Bush 43 (who is quite happily going about his business Up North, give or take a Great War), but quite possibly his Evil Southern Doppelgänger (and probably an old classmate of his!).


-I'd put him down as one of the youngest sons of a Maryland slave-owner who fought for the South and was far from welcome back in the aftermath of the War of Secession (along with a lot of other Copperheads); he was therefore born outside the Golden Circle of Confederate Grandees and spent a lot of time trying to work out how to buy or charm his way inside.


- Educated in England, he proceeded to make a number of useful connections and financial investments that in many ways proved more valuable; his connections were informally put to good use on behalf of the Confederate States but in practice he remained too irksome to be allowed above the Salt on a permanent basis, much to his own vexation (which may have resulted in or even resulted from a bad habit of flirting with the Rad-Libs, running back to the Whigs whenever they whistled, then sulking all the way back to the Radical Liberals when the Establishment was finished with him).


- Then opportunity knocked; The Freedom Party were in town and while they were violent thugs they weren't snobs - more to the point they felt a burning need for all the diplomacy they could beg, borrow or steal (even The Snake wasn't crazy enough to attack the Yankees without trying to put together an alliance or two, all the better to gang up on the Yankees).

Walker, being an opportunist and keenly aware that this was his Chance to FINALLY make his Name and make History in the process (not to mention quite convinced that this particular job-load of jackboots needed all the polish they could get) he enthusiastically accepted the post of Ambassador to the court of Saint James and later the position of Secretary of State (CS).


- His greatest contribution to the Confederate War effort was to drag the United Kingdom into the war against the United States despite the best efforts of Winston S. Churchill and his ilk, who bore old grudges over Canada but were also smart enough to prefer the idea of an Anglo-US Pact that would have allowed these two Powers to ignore one another and focus on the job of reducing their more immediate Nemesis to bite-sized chunks (whatever his faults Mr Churchill didn't like Featherston any more than he did Stalin and doubtless conjured his little remark equivocating Satan with a more modern Serpent while thinking of Jake the Snake ITL).

Unfortunately Mosley proved more susceptible to Walker's charms and had more to lose if suggestions of Ideological Solidarity from across the Pond were refused; he therefore made his support for the 'King's Party' National Government contingent on Great Britain's support for the Confederate States.


- His contributions to 'Population Reduction' (I'm trying to recall a Biblical name which can act as a Christian analogue to 'Holocaust' in the same way 'Population Reduction' stands in for 'Final Solution' - I'm not sure that 'The Rapture' isn't the most appropriate term, given it's connections with The Apocalypse).


- Imagine the face of Colonel Saunders (he probably likes to be called 'Colonel Walker' despite not having earned the title in the slightest) and the heart (not to mention the brains) of Ribbentrop.

Not a very pretty picture, is it? (Add a lordly faux-English accent and a charm that works well while it lasts, but seldom casts its spell for very long to complete the picture).

 

[Tiro]

Please be assured that if any of you fellows would like to offer any counter-suggestions concerning my short run of brief speculative character sketches I should be very glad to see them - these are, I must admit, very rough work.

 

[Zoidberg12]

Tiro, I have yet to read your character sketches, but I'd recommend having Jake Featherston being born on April 20, 1886. This would make him eligible to run for President of the CSA in 1921, what with him turning 35 that year.

Speaking of elections, I'm currently working on the 1908 election article. In the meantime, heres a map of the 1908 election. This map was originally made Turquoise Blue. The only change I made was having Indiana go Democratic instead of Socialist, as in President Mahan's Henry Cabot Lodge article it was mentioned that Indiana went for Aldrich and the Democrats.

 

[Reggie Bartlett]

George Herbert Walker

b. January 20th 1875 MS.
d. Unknown?

- Not actually the maternal grandfather of Bush 41 or the great-grandfather of Bush 43 (who is quite happily going about his business Up North, give or take a Great War), but quite possibly his Evil Southern Doppelgänger (and probably an old classmate of his!).


-I'd put him down as one of the youngest sons of a Maryland slave-owner who fought for the South and was far from welcome back in the aftermath of the War of Secession (along with a lot of other Copperheads); he was therefore born outside the Golden Circle of Confederate Grandees and spent a lot of time trying to work out how to buy or charm his way inside.


- Educated in England, he proceeded to make a number of useful connections and financial investments that in many ways proved more valuable; his connections were informally put to good use on behalf of the Confederate States but in practice he remained too irksome to be allowed above the Salt on a permanent basis, much to his own vexation (which may have resulted in or even resulted from a bad habit of flirting with the Rad-Libs, running back to the Whigs whenever they whistled, then sulking all the way back to the Radical Liberals when the Establishment was finished with him).


- Then opportunity knocked; The Freedom Party were in town and while they were violent thugs they weren't snobs - more to the point they felt a burning need for all the diplomacy they could beg, borrow or steal (even The Snake wasn't crazy enough to attack the Yankees without trying to put together an alliance or two, all the better to gang up on the Yankees).

Walker, being an opportunist and keenly aware that this was his Chance to FINALLY make his Name and make History in the process (not to mention quite convinced that this particular job-load of jackboots needed all the polish they could get) he enthusiastically accepted the post of Ambassador to the court of Saint James and later the position of Secretary of State (CS).


- His greatest contribution to the Confederate War effort was to drag the United Kingdom into the war against the United States despite the best efforts of Winston S. Churchill and his ilk, who bore old grudges over Canada but were also smart enough to prefer the idea of an Anglo-US Pact that would have allowed these two Powers to ignore one another and focus on the job of reducing their more immediate Nemesis to bite-sized chunks (whatever his faults Mr Churchill didn't like Featherston any more than he did Stalin and doubtless conjured his little remark equivocating Satan with a more modern Serpent while thinking of Jake the Snake ITL).

Unfortunately Mosley proved more susceptible to Walker's charms and had more to lose if suggestions of Ideological Solidarity from across the Pond were refused; he therefore made his support for the 'King's Party' National Government contingent on Great Britain's support for the Confederate States.


- His contributions to 'Population Reduction' (I'm trying to recall a Biblical name which can act as a Christian analogue to 'Holocaust' in the same way 'Population Reduction' stands in for 'Final Solution' - I'm not sure that 'The Rapture' isn't the most appropriate term, given it's connections with The Apocalypse).


- Imagine the face of Colonel Saunders (he probably likes to be called 'Colonel Walker' despite not having earned the title in the slightest) and the heart (not to mention the brains) of Ribbentrop.

Not a very pretty picture, is it? (Add a lordly faux-English accent and a charm that works well while it lasts, but seldom casts its spell for very long to complete the picture).

I'd like to see your breakdown of Reginald Bartlett.

 

[Darth_Kiryan]

Ferdinand Koenig

b.October 7th 1900.
d.1945 USA.

Nope. Sorry. Fix the date of birth mate, you are wrong here. This would make Koenig 17-20 years old when Featherston launched his coup of the Freedom Party. I always had the feeling he was OLDER than Featherston to be honest.

He has to be at lest the same age as Jake Featherston himself. In fact, i would suggest that all the main people mentioned as Freedom Party were born in the 1880s.

 

[bguy]

Speaking of elections, I'm currently working on the 1908 election article. In the meantime, heres a map of the 1908 election. This map was originally made Turquoise Blue. The only change I made was having Indiana go Democratic instead of Socialist, as in President Mahan's Henry Cabot Lodge article it was mentioned that Indiana went for Aldrich and the Democrats.

My Aldrich article had Aldrich sweep the coastal states and win all the Mid-Western states save Illinois, so New York, New Jersey, Washington, and Michigan should all be for Aldrich if we are trying to stay consistent.

I also don't think Aldrich would do as well in the Mountain States as you have him doing here. (He's an eastern banker which is pretty much anathema to westerners and he's not all that personally popular by 1908.) He might carry Montana because its a Democrat stronghold, and maybe Utah because of the Mormon vote, but I would give Idaho, Wyoming, and Nevada to the Socialists. (And maybe give Nebraska and Kansas to the Republicans.)

Also, didn't we decide that Robert La Follette was the Socialist candidate in 1908?



Tiro, interesting articles. I particularly liked the character piece on Wily Knight. It makes me want an entire article on the Redemption League. The speculation about German-Confederates was also really interesting and something I had never considered before.

My one question would be the bit in the Walker article about Mosley insisting on the the UK alliance with the Confederates. Why would that be a sticking point for him? It seems like a weird issue for him to dig in upon.

 

[Turquoise Blue]

So, like this? And I expect the GOP to lose their last state around... 1900, 1904?

 

[Tiro]

Tiro, I have yet to read your character sketches, but I'd recommend having Jake Featherston being born on April 20, 1886. This would make him eligible to run for President of the CSA in 1921, what with him turning 35 that year.

Zoidberg, thank you very kindly for pointing out the proper year; I remembered that Featherston had been explicitly described as 35 in a specific year but for the life of me I could not remember which one.

I also recalled that there was some inconsistency about Jake the Snake's birth in the original text - hence my suggestion that he did not acquire a birth certificate until later in life than is usual (presumably by virtue of being born in utter obscurity or simply due to some distinctly laissez faire local government).


I would like to say that I deliberately chose April the 30th in preference to the 20th of that month as a way of differencing two very similar dictators, while still making an allusion to a date associated with Adolf Hitler.

This is a policy I intend to follow with regard to other characters from Timeline-191 who very closely resemble characters from our own History; my thought was to take the day of their inspiration's death and the year of their birth to make a Birth Date, although I am very willing to bow to consensus if a preferred date has already been mutually agreed upon.

Nope. Sorry. Fix the date of birth mate, you are wrong here. This would make Koenig 17-20 years old when Featherston launched his coup of the Freedom Party. I always had the feeling he was OLDER than Featherston to be honest.

Lord Kiryan that is a perfectly valid interpretation of the character; my own differs but I hope that it is by no means objectively inferior.

For the record I would like to amend the day of birth to the Twelfth of January Nineteen-Hundred (so that the Birth Date given is a dual reference to the primary inspirations for Koenig's character - Hermann Goring's day of birth and Heinrich Himmler's year of birth).

It is my intent to make Koenig a somewhat older contemporary of Heinrich Himmler rather than of Goring to drive home two points; (firstly) that while Koenig looks like Herman 'The Raddled Baron' Goring he thinks more like that curiously dangerous little man with the glasses and (secondly) that the Freedom Party is the party of Angry Young Men looking to grab the Confederate establishment by those natty grey beards and throw them out on their ear.

I was also, admittedly, influenced by the mental image of Koenig being devoted to Jake Featherston as an elder brother - hence his absolute loyalty and the hissy fit he throws when told he'll have to hold down a job that carries ACTUAL POWER AND INFLUENCE, as opposed to the Vice Presidency.

Not to mention the pathos of an underage volunteer desperate to prove his Patriotism turning into an adolescent butcher on behalf of the Party that will destroy the Confederacy he fought to impress.

In fact, i would suggest that all the main people mentioned as Freedom Party were born in the 1880s.

That seems reasonable and I do believe that the hard core of the Freedom Party belong to the generation who were fearsomely disappointed in the Confederacy that lost The Great War but were too young for force of habit or pre-existing ties (in terms of Political Office or Financial Holdings) to keep them wedded to the Establishment anyway.

With this in mind I suspect the general rule would be that Freedom Partizans tend to belong to the generation born between about 1885 and 1895 - although I expect that there would be exceptions to this, as there are to every rule.

George Herbert Walker, for instance, is a contemporary of his 'Good Twin' and intended to be an example of those who served the Freedom Party simply because it was in power and might be prepared to share a little of that power with those willing to toe the party line.

Tiro, interesting articles. I particularly liked the character piece on Wily Knight. It makes me want an entire article on the Redemption League. The speculation about German-Confederates was also really interesting and something I had never considered before.

Thank you very kindly Bguy for the compliment!

As far as the Redemption League goes, my take on it would be that it is effectively founded on Texan indignation over the loss of what was now the State of Houston and the failure of the Confederate Establishment to invest serious resources West of the Mississippi - they want West Texas back, they want The Confederacy reformed to their satisfaction (although just what exactly they want done tends to vary with the audience) and they're not afraid to wrap up their demands in some flamboyantly pretty rhetoric and symbolism that mixes the Old West with Camelot quite shamelessly.

Basically they're a lot more Western than the Freedom Party and a lot more colourful, but a bit less Populist (not to mention a little more modest in their aspirations - give them Houston State back and a nice big slice of the Confederate pie, why they'll be content, but the problem is they're nakedly criminal Thugs so neither The Whigs nor the Rad-Libs want anything to do with them).

My one question would be the bit in the Walker article about Mosley insisting on the the UK alliance with the Confederates. Why would that be a sticking point for him? It seems like a weird issue for him to dig in upon.

Basically I think he's using the issue as a way of sinking Mr Churchill's chances of being able to ditch him and make overtures to Labour (whom I imagine would be very attracted to the idea of coming to a congenial understanding with their fellow Anglophone Socialists in Congress) so that The Kings Party can do without those thugs in their Silver Shirts.

Mosley is also being courted like a beauty queen and bribed very handsomely (or persons close enough to whisper in his ear have been bribed) by the Freedom Party.

The fact that the the ideologues in his party are likely crying out for solidarity with their fellow … Actionists? Revanchists? Jackboot Brigade? … the Freedom Party (who also happen to be at the head of a loyal Entente partner, even if that partner is FAR less useful than the United States would be) also plays a major part in his enthusiasm for maintaining the Confederate Alliance.


For the record I tend to imagine Mr Churchill as being pragmatic enough to recognise that alliance with the Confederate States is a heck of a lot less useful than an Understanding with the United States - for one thing an Anglo-US Non-Aggression Pact (on the order of the Ribbentrop-Molotov Pact) means the UK can secure their food supply, can significantly improve the balance of power in the looming naval conflict and can probably even rely upon Ireland to refrain from stabbing them in the back while they focus upon Germany.

A nation which, it must be said, has somewhat failed to endear itself to the United States during the 20s and 30s; my bet would be that half the reason the Pacific War was a wash would be the failure of Germany and her satellites to fully co-operate with the United States - for fear of Japan and quite possibly to take the Yankees down a peg or two.

In the longer term such an understanding also opens the possibility of improving the lot of Occupied Canada and the probability that the Japanese are going to suffer a lot more in the next Pacific War than in the last one.

Quite frankly if British Diplomats didn't pursue such an understanding in the course of Timeline-191 (especially after the Great War, even if they failed) I can only describe them as absurdly stupid.

Especially if they instead intended to risk betting on the Confederacy's ability to tackle the United States equalling their willingness to do so - already proven to be a losing proposition and now made still less likely by the loss of Canada.


I hope my suggestions make more sense in light of this brief explanation!

 

[Tiro]

I'd like to see your breakdown of Reginald Bartlett.

Why thank you very kindly good sir for the compliment of being asked to sketch you - I hope that you'll help by offering corrections and suggestion in order to make sure the image is as true to life as possible, despite being somewhat hastily constructed to comply with your request.


Reginald 'Reggie' Bartlett

b. September 8th, 1888 VA.

d. July 21st 1925 VA.


- Reginald Bartlett is VERY English by descent and given his name this sentence can safely be described as stating the blatantly obvious; never-the-less it should be stated for the record that his Father's people arrived in Mobile Alabama in 1822, having set out from Sussex (at least according to my idea of things).


- His mother Elizabeth Bartlett nee Grey (b. 1858) of Bartlett VA was actually first introduced to his father Thomas 'Tiger Tom' Bartlett (b. 1849) on the grounds that their mutual friends found the coincidence too good to be allowed to pass unrecognised; luckily the two of them liked each other well enough to marry and so any mild humour at their expense was not begrudged.

It should be noted that they married somewhat later in life than was then the custom and Reggie was their only child (his mother's firstborn and her last, although thankfully he wasn't treated as a Nine Day Wonder).


- While his parents were quite consciously the model of Confederate respectability when Reggie knew them, I quite like the idea that (in contrast with Chester 'Chet' Martin our other Everyman) their pasts were more remarkable than their present state of modest domestic bliss would indicate.

I've gone back and forth on just what their respective careers were like before they settled down together, but at the very least Mr Bartlett was a drummer boy during the War of Secession and a travelling man with a fine turn of phrase after it (he may have been a drummer in more ways than one - rumours of 'Patent Medicine Tonics' and a glib line in sales patter perhaps?) by Sea and by Land, taking him "From Georgia to Virginia by the long way 'round and by way of odd jobs" as he put it.

Mrs Bartlett, by contrast, sought Fame and Fortune on the stage although she was never destined to find more than friendship, as well as a husband in the course of her modest career in supporting roles and on occasion as understudy.


-Mr Bartlett met the future Mrs Bartlett by virtue of his career as a reporter, having come to the career late in life but with a fine line in storytelling and particularly vivid descriptive prose style; his habitual beat tended to encompass the arts only in addition to and in competition for his attention with the sporting world, but his visits to the theatre multiplied exponentially after meeting Miss Elizabeth Grey.


- To say that young Reggie Bartlett was weaned on a fine supply of tall tales and endowed from birth with a certain quality of romantic imagination would be putting things rather mildly; his family, while never destined to enjoy freedom from the need to work was comfortably settled amidst the Confederate middle classes (although lower down the totem pole than some in that order).

Had Reggie been blessed with siblings this would probably have not remained the case for long.


- Reggie himself (named for his grandfather) never really knew family other than his father and mother or their friends; his mother's family were distant, his father's family even more so.

Unfortunately his Father and Mother would seem to have died fairly young (either before the Great War or during it), given that Reggie does not seem to be the sort of fellow who would neglect his parents in thought or deed if they were still around to be appreciated.

Still, he had friends and neighbours so he rubbed along pretty well; he grew to be a young man with charm and a considerable fund of good cheer, without very much in the way of worries or expectations. He served his hitch as a conscript without either disgracing or distinguishing himself and mostly regarded it as his civic duty (enlivened with the admiration a uniform elicits in a certain number of females) and proceeded to find employment as a drugstore assistant, quite convinced that the future would look after itself.

Then the Great War came - after that the Future needed all the help it could get and Reggie did his best; in the end his Luck was not as Good as his heart and that killed him.


- In my mind's eye Reggie Bartlett looks astonishingly like a younger Tom Hanks in a straw boater; the reasons for this should be obvious! (more SAVING PRIVATE RYAN than FORREST GUMP, actually, although both played a part in influencing me).

 

[Tiro]

Having posted that I just wanted to canvass the opinions of you good fellows upon some various points of minor interest:-

- If I remember correctly 'Dixie' is in fact the official anthem of the Confederate States of America; would it be reasonable to deduce that it is the version written by General Albert Pike which became officially enshrined?


- Do you think it possible that The Confederacy would retain The Marseillaise as their equivalent of 'Hail to the Chief' in memory of its role at the inauguration of Mr Jefferson Davis? (also as a useful nod to the importance of international connections insofar as the fortunes of the CSA are concerned).


- What do you think The Confederates would call their Capitol district? (presumably encompassing the city of Richmond and its environs in the same way Washington is set in the District of Columbia); I myself am inclined to think of this Constitutionally-mandated partition as the District of Jefferson (in honour of Mr Thomas Jefferson and Mr Jefferson Davis simultaneously).


- Would it seem reasonable to deduce that Confederate and United States troops referred to one another as 'Johnny' and 'Billy' in the same way Britons and Germans knew one another as 'Tommy' and 'Fritz' respectively? (when they weren't crying 'Rebs' and 'Yankee' of course).


- Does it make any sense to assume that the Confederate General Staff employed grey as their branch of service colour? (In the same way the Artillery used red and the Infantry sky blue).


- Finally I would suggest that it might make sense for 'Cousin Johnny' to be the Confederate equivalent of 'Uncle Sam' (same sense of extended family come-a-calling, slightly less sense of overwhelming seniority).

I considered Bre'er Johnny (as a derivative of Brother Jonathan), but that seemed a trifle too African-Confederate.


Apologies if I have deluged you with trivia!

 

[bguy]

So, like this? And I expect the GOP to lose their last state around... 1900, 1904?

Yeah, that looks about right for the map. The only change I might recommend if we aren't going to give the Republicans any states is to maybe reverse the winners of Iowa and Nebraska. (OTL in 1908 Nebraska went for Bryan over Taft, whereas Taft's percentage of the vote in Iowa exceeded his national average, so Iowa seems to have been the more conservative state at that time.)

As for the Republicans, it's certainly possible they stopped winning states that early but would the party still be around as a somewhat significant force in the 1940s (with it still drawing capable people like Wilkie and Stassen into its ranks), if it had stopped winning states all the way back in 1904?

 

[Turquoise Blue]

Yeah, that looks about right for the map. The only change I might recommend if we aren't going to give the Republicans any states is to maybe reverse the winners of Iowa and Nebraska. (OTL in 1908 Nebraska went for Bryan over Taft, whereas Taft's percentage of the vote in Iowa exceeded his national average, so Iowa seems to have been the more conservative state at that time.)

As for the Republicans, it's certainly possible they stopped winning states that early but would the party still be around as a somewhat significant force in the 1940s (with it still drawing capable people like Wilkie and Stassen into its ranks), if it had stopped winning states all the way back in 1904?

They do have a strong regional base and as the Socialists become more urban, they pick up their rural votes?

 

[Tiro]

For some odd reason I have been contemplating Confederate Political Parties recently and most particularly I've been trying to think out the Whig/Radical-Liberal rivalry which dominated electoral politics in that nation for almost as long as Elections actually mattered in The Confederacy, before the Freedom Party discarded Freedom of Choice as a cumbersome inconvenience to their Plans.

I have also been contemplating President Mitchel for the simple reason that he is such a fluke of History - the only man in the history of the Confederacy to be legitimately re-elected to the Presidency - not to mention the man who had more success than most in keeping the Freedom Party out of office (more on him later).


FIRST … a suggestion regarding Confederate Party Symbolism (Yes, I actually spent some thought working out just what the mascots of Fictional Political Parties in a Fictional version of a long-defunct Country would be; the Human Mind works in strange ways).

I actually turned this over in my mind for some little time (digressing at least once into pondering whether or not the Democrats and Republicans used Jackass and Elephant as Totems in the course of Timeline-191, as well as wondering what the signature beast of the Socialist Party would be), but in the end I decided the simplest and most appropriate symbolism would be that of The Fox and the Hound.

This seems appropriate, given the Horse-and-Rider on the Seal of the Confederacy (depicting Mr George Washington, if I remember correctly, himself a keen fox-hunter); the fact that this symbolism subtly associates both Confederate Political Parties with a gentleman's sport is a bonus (The Fox needn't enjoy his role, but he still plays a part in the Hunt), given the apparent nature of Confederate Politics.

Now I just need to decide which Party is the Fox and which the Hound!


Also, having observed a certain amount of commentary elsewhere concerning the peculiarity of the Whigs being the traditionally dominant political party in the Confederacy and having also recently discovered that the original American Whig Party crumbled not very long before the conflict Timeline-191, with the Republican Party being built up from a significant portion of their relics (including one Abraham Lincoln, if memory serves) a personal theory of mine has become a firm conviction.

Quite frankly I don't think the Whigs came up with the name themselves; my opinion is that it was a label intended as a slight at the very least and quite possibly entirely intended to brand them as being the next worst thing to a Republican - unfortunately for the 'benefactor' this all rather backfired on him when the newly-dubbed Whigs proceeded to turn what should have been a mark of shame into a Badge of Honour (very much in the same way that the original Whigs took comparison to a rabble of Scots Zealots in their stride), most probably by evoking a connection between the Whigs of the First American Revolution and the Whigs of the Second American Revolution.

I can imagine such a series of events unfolding were a Southern newspaperman to sniff out the Gentleman's Agreement between leading Confederate politicians and other Grandees brought about by the efforts of Mr Longstreet - in the interests of avoiding potentially-catastrophic internal division even as the Republican Party looked increasingly likely to capture the White House Up North and in subtle defiance of the Confederate aversion to formalised Political Parties.

Presumably miffed or possibly even genuinely outraged, our ace newshound spills the beans right out into the open - doubtless to the glee of opponents of Mr President Longstreet and the irritation of the Old Pete Administration, who proceed to place the most positive spin on this revelation or at least do their best to do so (quite possibly smarting under this odious comparison all the while).

Then the Second Mexican War plays out and the Confederacy, on the whole, decides that if this is what the Whig Party can do then they DEFINITELY want to be a part of it! (Meanwhile our diligent Anti-Partizan might well shrug his shoulders and say "If you can't beat 'em … lurk in a dark alley and wait for your next chance!").

 

[Tiro]

Charles Burton Mitchel III

b. December 29th 1875 AK.
d. July 4th 1937 VA.


Picked out as Vice-Presidential candidate in order to buttress the prospects of Wade Hampton V in the middle states of the Confederacy and as the latter's way of bridging the eternal East-West/Old Money-New Money division between the wings of the Whig Party, Charles Burton Mitchel the Third was plucked from relative political obscurity without a single expectation that he would do anything but smooth Hampton's path to the Grey House and then help him pick a path through the tangle of Confederate Politics in the aftermath of the Great War - Mitchel was a lifelong politician, after all, albeit an only modestly successful one - before being restored to his former obscurity.

Dragged into the public eye by virtue of his status as the most useful senior statesman of the Whig Party who had NOT been first recruited, then tarred as one of 'Semmes Shipmates' or proven themselves so progressive that they were thought more likely to rock the Whig Party boat than help steer a smooth course through the stormy waters surrounding the Ship of State, Mitchel swiftly proved himself a thoroughgoing conservative, an inveterately reliable subordinate and as handy in the business of Party Management as one would expect of a former Whip and lifelong Whig.

The Whigs proved victorious once more in the teeth of opposition more ferocious than any it had know in its history; Wade Hampton V was President of the Confederate States, the man of the Hour and Mitchel had not in any way disgraced himself.

The future began to look a little brighter - then a madman shot President Hampton down in the streets of Birmingham AL and the unthinkable happened; Burton Mitchel the Third was sworn in as President of the Confederate States, the Twelfth Man to hold that office since The Second American Revolution.


"That snake Featherston is not fit to be trusted with our precious Confederacy … the so-called Freedom Party cannot be trusted to oversee any sensible policy of Recovery … those bullies cannot manage the Southern Economy any more than a tiger is able to milk a cow!" - President Mitchel before The Crash.


The cynical and those who hated him were swift to point out and would always say that if the Freedom Party hadn't handed Burton Mitchel a Golden Ticket, he'd have had to shoot Wade Hampton himself; they may have had a point.

An inveterately stubborn man, acutely thin-skinned in the face of criticism and more prone to liquor than to eloquence it is difficult to imagine the man increasingly known as "Simple Mitch" (although not to his face; it was a name bestowed with mockery as a parody of his oft-stated remark that he was "Only a simple country gentleman, BUT … ") rising to such a position of eminence on the back of his own winning personality (he was notoriously introverted although far from inarticulate).

Yet it must also be said that he was also hard-working, single-minded, thoroughly trustworthy and quite probably fearless - his reaction to being confronted by a hunting party of Freedom Party stalwarts during the Election of '21 had been to produce a pistol and stand them off (which did the Whig Party ticket no harm at all); his reaction to the assassination of Wade Hampton V was to seize upon the opportunity to put the Freedom Party (and more particularly its leadership) on trial.

It was a fair trial, in the sight of God and Law and Country, but unfortunately neither Jake Featherston nor any of his cronies were guilty of this particular crime and so President Mitchel was obliged to let them go; such scrupulousness helped bolster the somewhat flagging respect for Due Process amongst the Confederate general populace, but it is hard not to suspect that the seeds of future tyranny were sown with this act of impeccable Legitimacy.

This did not seem to be the case at the time; when Stalwarts were hauled in for other incidents of political violence they were prosecuted to the fullest extent of the Law and it swiftly became apparent that the Freedom Party would be required to seriously curtail its more 'robust' tactics, at least for the duration of the Mitchel Administration.

Extending this hard-nosed approach to Law and Order far beyond the boundaries of the Freedom Party, President Mitchel's administration would also bring those 'Regulators' who had been taking the Law into their own hands since the Great War to heel and bring down the Public Enemies who had simply elected to IGNORE the Law (a series of bandits, gangsters and outlaws colourful enough to deserve their own article), having often taken advantage of the Border to escape the consequences of doing so.

Having won a considerable a degree of popularity for his success in restoring confidence in the rule of Law and Order, as well as a willingness to conciliate those voters leaving the Freedom Party just as great as his often-expressed enthusiasm for castigating the Leadership of that Party (his animosity towards Featherston and his Ilk appears to have been heartfelt; it is he who is generally credited with popularising 'The Snake' as a nickname for Featherston, although it is unclear if he was the first to do so), it was Burton Mitchel's good fortune that the Confederate States was able to negotiate a final end to Reparations and began to experience an economic upturn at long last under his stewardship.

Running for the office of President in his own right (after a series of very careful enquiries into the constitutionality and legality of such an action), President Burton Mitchel was returned to office in 1928 with a handsome majority and from then on things proceeded to go to Hell in a handbasket.


"My name is Jake Featherston and I'm here to tell you The Truth.

Once upon a time Mr President Mitchel told us that our party was no more fit to manage an economy than a tiger is fit to milk a cow. Truth is that Mr President Mitchel ought to be wearing stripes himself right now." - Jake Featherston after The Crash.


While President Mitchel cannot be blamed for The Crash, a phenomenon far beyond the powers of any single Leader to bring about or indeed to remedy, the President and his Whig Confederates must certainly bear their share of the blame for the Freedom Party's return to prominence and eventual rise to Totalitarian Power.

While there is considerable irony to be found in the fact that this most ardent enemy of the Freedom Party helped sow the seed of the long grass through which they might slither into power, it must be said that by allowing Featherston to wither on the vine rather than cutting the tree out from under him President Mitchel unquestionably made a terrible mistake.

Even worse was his emphasis on adhering to older patterns in the course of his attempts to reconstruct the War-torn Confederate States; possessed of an ardent desire to Normalise the Confederacy after a long period of strife and uncertainty, he sowed the seeds of further strife by failing to show the same conciliatory attitude towards voters inclining to the Left that he did towards the more Conservative ex-Freedom Partizans, still less did he make any attempt to consolidate the population of newly-enfranchised coloureds under the Whig Party banners (much less extend the franchise).

He was quoted as saying that "This is a country for White Men and by God Almighty so long as I am President, my Government shall be a Government for White Men" which reassured an unfortunately-large majority of the population, but perpetuated the very attitudes that would bolster the Freedom Party vote and bring about The Population Reductions (although in all fairness nothing in the man's history indicates that he would ever have countenanced such a Final Solution).

As a final indignity his long series of heartfelt warnings against and execrations of the Freedom Party may well have kept that organisation in the Public Consciousness, with fatal consequences when The Crash and the hideous consequences of the Economic Depression that followed it destroyed the Public's faith in his Judgement. Worse still, in the end Freedom Party thinkers proved canny enough to turn this endless excoriation of their party to advantage - portraying themselves as persecuted by a bullying politician looking to distract the Public from his own failures by trampling over an underdog and a party offering a better way.

Variations on the old Gadsden banner, with a Battle Flag of the Confederacy perched in the canton of a black-and-white flag bearing the rattlesnake and the legend DON'T TREAD ON ME became almost as popular amongst Party Faithful as the parties own colours-inverted variation on the Battle Flag.

In the end Burton Mitchel's limitations were his own worst enemy and the political, as well as personal failings that grew out of them brought him to the very brink of impeachment in the last months of his term; internal divisions of the Whig Party thought healed over long since were made raw once more, the old rivalry between Radical-Liberals and the Ruling Party was as bad as ever (fatally bad for both of them, as it would turn out) and the coloureds remained a liability to the Confederacy, rather than an asset.

The End of the Mitchel Presidency was the beginning of the end for the Confederacy and the end of the beginning for the Freedom Party; his Administration had both deliberately and as a result of sheer bad luck left no other alternative readily apparent.


- "Well boys I'm real glad to see you at long last - here's living proof I wasn't always in the wrong" - Burton Mitchel III, moments before his murder by agents of the Freedom Party.


Having searched the length and breadth of the Confederacy, having followed up every escape route and hounding out every hiding place, the Freedom Party had still failed to track down Burton Mitchel and therefore had yet to finish settling scores with their Confederate Opposition - given the enthusiasm and success with which he had cracked down on their activities this was a source of considerable frustration to the hunting dogs of the Featherston Adminstration.

Frustration would turn to astonishment only after a period of complete disbelief when it was discovered that they had failed to ferret out ex-President Mitchel's hiding place for the very simple reason that he was in fact living in Richmond and refused to either flee like a common felon or hide himself away like a criminal.

Claims that Featherston deliberately saved this particular enemy until last are throughly undercut by the absolute fury he is known to have shown on being informed that the former bane of his existence has been hiding out under the very noses of his secret police undetected for years - an anger further exacerbated by the fact that Mitchel did not even seem to HIDING or showing the vaguest expression of fear in the face of the Victorious Opposition.

He was, however, living the life of a complete recluse, having taken the experience of being disowned by his beloved Whigs even worse than he did the universal disdain in which the Confederate Population held him - it was in fact as much his complete rejection by the Confederate Political community as his own sedentary and somewhat unsociable nature that had left him to be purged last of all the Confederate Opposition, since nobody cared enough about him to know enough to be able to betray him.

But now he had been hunted out at last and the hounds closed in; they chose to move on Independence Day (one of the few holidays still celebrated by North and South alike) on the understanding that the comings and goings and enormous noise of the celebrations would make extremely convenient cover for what was to be a straightforward assassination instead of an arrest.

President Mitchel had not been a naturally loquacious man, but he had been more than persistent enough and just eloquent enough in his denunciations of The Freedom Party in general, as well as Jake Featherston in particular, for the barbs he launched to have worked their way through even The Snake's tough and scaly hide - and worse still he'd kept The Party and The Confederacy from their Destiny for the better part of a decade.

For such crimes the sentence could only be Death and Featherston declined to postpone it.

On approaching his home, the assassins expected to be greeted by a servant (Mitchel was known to live alone except for his books, his whisky and a few ageing retainers) but instead found that the ex-President answered his own door and were disconcerted to realise that he did not fear them in the slightest; in fact he actually appeared gratified to have finally been remembered as the Enemy of the Freedom Party he had always striven to be and to have been expecting them for some while.

His last words are reported to have been "Lord have mercy on Dixie."

 

[Turquoise Blue]

Excellent work on Burton Mitchel III.

 

[Tiro]

Thank you very kindly for the compliment Turquoise; it is very much appreciated (I am in fact sorry that my knowledge of Electoral Maps are insufficient to allow me to comment upon your own map-work with any degree of intelligence and therefore denies me the chance to return your kindness with a compliment worth reading, so please accept my apologies).

I have to admit that President Mitchel has fascinated me for some little time now given that we know he was in many ways the most successful of the Freedom Party's domestic enemies yet in many ways the man who must be held responsible for their eventual ascension to power to some degree (given the unusual length of his tenure).

Given the fact that he is permitted to run for re-election (in practice, if not in theory) and actually WINS, we may at least assume that he was held to have earned a considerable degree of trust from The Establishment and Respect from the populace … only to see it all go down the drain after The Collapse.

Really its an intriguing (and rather tragic) character arc and just begging for a really good character to stand at the heart of it; I hope that I've been able to make a decent attempt at producing one, although I will admit that I've borrowed quite heavily from Andrew Johnson (not least because it struck me that there are interesting parallels to be evoked between the failure of Reconstruction and the descent of Weimar Germany into the Third Reich).

Finally, on the understanding that a picture speaks with a thousand words, I've taken the liberty of sourcing an image which I think illustrated my mental image of Charles Burton Mitchel III quite neatly - imagine this as a worm's eye point of view on that gentleman as he answers his front door for the first and last time, dressed in his best and ready to die like a gentleman.

https://jmmnewaov2.files.wordpress.com/2013/10/dancing_on_the_edge_episode_4_2012_08_685x385.jpg?w=670

 

[Darth_Kiryan]

Nice biography on Burton Mithcell. Have not seen a Confederate profile in a few pages.

 

[robcraufurd]

Now I just need to decide which Party is the Fox and which the Hound!

The most prominent British Whig politician was Charles James Fox, so...