Glen
Moderator
The Thuggie Suppression Act was the first piece of federal legislation to bar immigration for a whole race. Granted, the threat of Thuggie violence was sensationalized in the papers, by broadcast telephony, and kinee, and thus some welcomed this bold move to defend America from the threat. Perhaps Congress could be forgiven for believing the legislation would be welcomed throughout the land, but in some quarters there was a violent backlash against the breadth and depth of the law. Several Democrats opposed it on grounds that it was a violation of liberty and an overextension of Federal power. Powerful industrialist interests in the Federalist camp opposed the law because it cut into a potential pool of cheap labor, as many Hindoos had started migrating north to look for work in the mighty factories of America (perhaps hoping for a better reception then they had in the South, but often disappointed in this). Several court cases were filed almost immediately challenging the law. At first it was only the passionate (and perhaps the greedy) who rose in opposition, until one man made an impassioned plea to the nation.
Shush Raja had emigrated with his parents from the Dominion of Southern America as a child, a relative rarity at the time, and had grown up in Richmond, Virginia. He was the first Hindoo to graduate from the law school at the University of Virginia. Raja worked representing Hindoo immigrants in New York City against exploitation in the garment district when the Thuggie Suppression Act was passed. While he worked as a junior member on one of the pro bono teams suing in Federal District Court, he became frustrated with both the amount of bureaucracy that was a drag on the progress of the legal challenge, as well as the lack of general public outcry against the over-reaching legislation.
Raja organized marches throughout the cities of the United States to raise awareness of the unfair Thuggie Suppression Act. While that attracted some attention, it would take more to break through the fear and misunderstanding that faced the Hindoo community. The charismatic Raja took to broadcasting and kinee news reports to make impassioned speeches appealing to the best principles of America. Finally, he engaged in a hunger strike in front of the US Supreme Court, and this garnered true national attention. While the Court never admitted this, in short order the highest court in the land would hear the case against the Thuggie Suppression Act in 1935. The court could choose to uphold the law, strike it down in its entirety, or only certain sections. The Supremes chose to split the difference and strike down the immigration bar while still upholding the stiff penalties against Thuggieism. Even though it wasn't the legal team that Shush Raja belonged to who won the legal victory, most commentators credited the moral victory to Raja.
After this momentous moment in jurisprudence in America, Raja sojourned to the Dominion of Southern America to raise awareness of Hindoo prejudice in the land of his birth. It was here that, amazingly, another dramatic event was added to his story. While leading a march in the Dominion Capitol, Baton Rouge, a Thuggie assassin launched a lethal attack at the Hindoo Rights advocate. Raja's life and those of several of his followers was saved by the heroic sacrifice of Baton Rouge native Andrew Jackson Beauregard, who threw himself on assassin, felling him, but at the cost of his own life. Beauregard came from an old Planter family and many saw his sacrifice as a symbol for the whole nation.
