Another fragment from TL where Zangara's bullet went this way instead of that, and killed President-elect Franklin Roosevelt in 1933.
* * * * *
When I started working out this TL, I was repeatedly surprised by various implications. Here's one: OTL, FDR stole the thunder of the far left. The Socialists, the Communists, radical labor -- with Social Security and CCC and basic welfare and the Wagner Act, he cut the floor out from under all of them. Absent FDR, you have a much stronger radical left. Which in turn means a much stronger radical right... at least for a while.
So, in this TL the middle 1930s see a much stronger Socialist party, and in return the American Revival Party: not quite fascist, but nativist, populist, anti-Semitic, and very fond of violent rhetoric.
By 1940 the inherent strength of the American two-party system is reasserting itself... but that makes this a point of maximum danger for certain sorts of violence, as the ARP sees its window of opportunity slipping away.
* * * * *
In this TL Leon Trotsky has fled unrest in Mexico (long story) for the United States; he's been picked up in Minnesota and charged with... immigration offenses.
Felix Frankfurter is a very famous lawyer, but not the sort of fellow President Garner would ever consider for the Supreme Court.
* * * * *
August 1940: New York City
Prohibited conduct may result from misconception of what duty requires. -- Justice Frankfurter, Cassell v. Tex as, 339 U.S. 282, 293.
"A Jew. A Jew lawyer," -- he almost says /a New York City Jew lawyer/, but catches himself in time; his brethren are New Yorkers, -- "a _rich_ Jew lawyer, grown rich defending criminals -- dirty immigrant murderers -- anarchists, filthy Wops. An immigrant himself, come here from Austria -- one of the Jews of Vienna, the worst liars of them all -- a Jew lawyer, an immigrant, a liberal back-stabber -- defending the biggest Jew Commie, the Bolshie, the worst Red murderer of them all."
"Trotsky," breathes the fat man across the table.
"Trotsky."
* * *
"Mr. Trotsky, I would like you to meet my assistant. Mr. Acheson was one of my best students at Harvard Law School. These days he is a professor of law at, ah, another school, but he took the train down from New Haven to be with us here today."
Dean Acheson nods at Leon Trotsky. Neither man offers to shake hands.
* * *
In times of political passion, dishonest or vindictive motives are readily attributed... and as readily believed. -- Justice Frankfurter, Tenney v. Brandhove, 341 U.S. 367, 378 (1951)
The American Revival Party has fallen on hard times.
Back in 1936, when ten million adult Americans were unemployed, labor unrest was terrifying the middle class, and Germany and Italy were showing the world the virtues of order, the ARP was able to poll over three million votes -- nearly as many as the Socialists. Father Coughlin proudly wore the star-and-flame symbol, as did Frances Townsend; Charles Lindbergh, Joe Kennedy and Al Smith were fellow travellers, and Huey Long had murmured support from his hospital bed.
But Hugo Black and the Wagner Act have somewhat pacified labor, the American economy is doing better than at any time since 1930, and the bombs falling on London have somewhat damaged the Fuhrer's image. Townsend is forgotten, Lindbergh has publicly disowned the Party, and Father Coughlin is vociferously proclaiming the coming of St. Francis Murphy of Detroit. The ARP has been in political free fall for nearly a year now.
Of course, to the true believers, the problem is not with the economy, or the changed political scene, or the war in Europe. The problem is with the secret power that controls the newspapers, the movies, the labor movement, the banks, Wall Street, and the universities. That power has thrown its insidious coils around the American Revival Party and is slowly strangling it.
Something must be done.
* * *
"...don't know why, but I was thinking of Franklin this morning."
"Franklin -- ? _Ach_, the President Roosevelt. Whatever for, my dear?"
"Oh... talking to Trotsky, you know." Felix Frankfurter is enjoying his sole indulgence, a cigar in his armchair at the end of the day. He takes a thoughtful puff; exhales. "He's very... straightforward. Doesn't try to
disguise what he is. What he's done. And we got on the topic of political violence..."
"Got on the topic?" His wife frowns at him. "Felix, are you having -- conversations -- with this Trotsky creature?"
Frankfurter smiles. The question does not make him defensive. In fact, very little makes Felix Frankfurter defensive; he is a man naturally at ease with himself, and he loves nothing better than a good rousing argument.
But not with his wife. "Ah, my dear, you know how it is with clients. You let them talk." He waves the cigar thoughtfully. He wants to say, _And Leon Trotsky is one of the most fascinating human specimens I have ever met_, but he diplomatically rephrases it: "And this Trotsky fellow is a talker. And, you know, he has nobody to talk to down there. I think the INS guards and the police have orders not to exchange words with him. And they won't give him anything to write with, either. Security, they say!" Thoughtfully: "Though, I suppose, a pen can be a weapon for a man like that. If not the sort that INS is worried about..."
"_Ach_, Felix Let Dean talk to him!"
"Oh, Dean will barely exchange two words with Trotsky. Can't stand the man. I'm not quite sure why."
"Well, you don't have to make friends with him to defend him."
"Oh, my dear, I think there's little chance of that. You know perfectly well I don't make friends with most of my clients..." Frankfurter's eyes drift to the desk across the room. Just visible is a small frame, which contains a letter; the letter, written in badly fractured English, expresses gratitude for a legal defense. An unsuccessful legal defense. The signature cannot be seen from Frankfurter's chair, but of course he knows it by heart: Bartolomeo Vanzetti.
"...and anyhow, he's not a man I would want as a friend."
An uncharacteristic silence falls in the room. Frankfurter stares into the blue haze of cigar smoke, briefly lost in memories. "Not every wop has the switch to the electric chair thrown by the president of Harvard..." "Sono innocente! Sono innocente!" "Save Nicholas, he has the wife and the child." "Let all the roads of the nation converge on Beacon Hill..."
Felix Frankfurter stubs out his cigar. "No, not a friend. But I have taken the case, my dear. And I am going to win it."
/This time./
* * *
We have enjoyed so much freedom for so long that we are perhaps in danger of forgetting how much blood it cost to establish the Bill of Rights. -- Justice Felix Frankfurter, Dennis v. United States, 341 U.S. 494, 549.
"Gordon, put down that burger! Do you have your Zippo?"
"We're allowed to eat! Umm... I think you have it."
Muffled cursing. Then: "All right. Now we just have to --"
"Look! There he is! They're early!
(They are indeed; Frankfurter, his assistant and his client have arrived at the courthouse more than half an hour early, hoping to avoid the reporters. Unfortunately, they have arrived just a few minutes after the three ARP cell members, who are ensconced by a second floor window.)
"Get the gun! Matt, get the gun!"
"It's not loaded!"
"Oh, you idiots! There's no time! Use the knapsack! The knapsack, the knapsack!
(Trotsky, hands cuffed in front of him, is escorted by an INS agent; two policemen circle around, but they are looking along the street, not up. The lawyers are a few steps behind. The group is moving quickly up the courthouse steps.)
"Give it to me!"
"I'm gonna load this --"
"You fool, are you drunk? Give me the damn bag!"
"Throw it! Throw it! Throw throw throw --"
The bomb is ridiculous, stupidly crude: a dozen sticks of old dynamite loosely bound together with twine. The dynamite has begun to "sweat", pure nitroglycerine precipitating out as beads on the outer surface of the red cardboard cylinders. Any competent engineer would back away from it, hand waving frantically in terror. The ARP brethren, no engineers, have been carrying the dynamite around in an old CCC knapsack for three days.
Later forensic analysis will suggest that the nitro, rather than the clumsy fuse, triggers the bomb. Not that it matters. The throw from the window is wobbly, but some sort of luck is with the ARP men this morning. The knapsack hits the marble steps of the courthouse some four steps below Leon Trotsky... directly at the feet of Felix Frankfurter.
Trotsky is smashed to the ground, collarbone broken and three teeth knocked out; but he will live, as will his INS escorts. Dean Acheson's left arm is blown off at the elbow; he will be in the hospital for three months and will be partially deaf for the rest of his life, but he, too, will survive.
But Felix Frankfurter is very, very dead.
Doug M.