Timeline 191 - Final Act, Fall from Grace - The Flora Hamburger Story

(Color film footage from the 1963 American Artists film titled: “Fall from Grace – The Flora Hamburger Story”.


Flora Hamburger is played by Suzette Cabot.
Bailiff Edward Young is played by Chuck Connors.
Bailiff Joseph Mehserle is played by James Dean.
Chief Justice of the Supreme Court Carl Evans Hughes is played by Burl Ives.
US Attorney General, Albert Brownell Jr., is played by Burt Lancaster.
Texas Attorney General, Lyndon Baines Johnson, is played by Andrew Duggan.
Former CS Vice President Donald Partridge is played by Dick York.
Unnamed man who announces Dewey victory is played by Woody Allen.
Samantha Baker, black maid at Brownell residence is played by Nichelle Nichols.
The Director of the US Occupation Authority, Lawrence Groves is played by Lee Marvin.


The Setting: It is approximately 8:30 pm Tuesday, November 2, 1948 at a formal dinner party being held at the private residence of Chief Justice of the United States Supreme Court, Carl Evans Hughes, in the Georgetown area of Washington DC.


The opening scene is of a crowded ballroom inside the Hughes’ mansion filled with milling couples dressed in formal attire who are just now returning from the dining room.

Crystal chandeliers sparkle above the highly polished marble floor, while eighteen-foot floor to ceiling velvet drapes of a decidedly copper hue bracket the large windows around the edge of the room. Roman columns and arches fill in the wall spaces between the large windows. The view could be of an old-fashioned soiree held in the Confederacy if not for the banner reading “Dewey 48” strung between two of the columns, and miniature US flags which can be seen sticking up from the hors d'oeuvres table. An eight-piece band is beginning to test their instruments at one far end of the room, while at the other end of the room…Chief Justice Hughes is with a group of a dozen or men at the opposite end of the long room as they engage in a hushed conversation away from prying ears.


Just then a bookish looking man in his late-twenties rushes into the ballroom from an adjoining library with a clinched fists full of paper tape in each hand.


Bookish young man: It’s official! All of the wire services are reporting that Adlai Stevenson Jr. just called Dewey a few moments ago to congratulate him on his victory. It’s Dewey for four more years!


(With the Socialist Party candidate, Jim Curley, in federal custody awaiting sentencing, and with the Republicans currently being regarded as a second-rate political party, it was already a foredrawn conclusion that Dewey would easily win reelection and no one is surprised by the announcement. A polite applause arises from around the room, but the party guests soon return to their idle chit-chat as they wait for the band to warm up.)



(However, the closely grouped cluster of men standing in front of Chief Justice of Supreme Court Carl Evans Hughes hardly seem to notice the announcement as they stare intently at Hughes waiting for a response from him. Hughes places his elbow on the mantle of the dormant fireplace he is standing in front of, lets out a long sigh, and then he asks of the group surrounding him….


Chief Justice of the Supreme Court Carl Evans Hughes: So, we are all in agreement then, and this is the only way to move forward?


(A fellow with a liver spotted forehead whose wobbling neck makes him look more like a turkey dressed in tuxedo than a human being angrily responds…)


Retired Justice James H. Clarke: What right does that dammed able woman have to smear my name to the press like that? We tried to shield her from the electric chair, but what thanks did we get, other than getting our own hand bitten?


(Hughes slowly looks from each man to the next as each man gives a small incognito head nod in the affirmative. Hughes glances at his wife who is busily serving punch to guests in a distant part of the room before responding.)


Chief Justice of the Supreme Court Carl Evans Hughes: Mr. Johnson, would you please come with me, we’ve got some business to attend to.


(Hughes and another man, whose face is hidden from camera view, quickly depart through an open set of double doors and disappear down a long hallway leading to another part of the mansion.)


(After a few twists and turns the two men arrive in the Chief Justice’s private study room. The study is a large room with a thickly carpeted floor, frosted pendant light fixtures extended from the ceiling on metal pipes, floor to ceiling book cases lining three of the four walls, and a large ornately carved desk located to one side of the room.)


(Hughes lets out a loud grunt as he sits down behind his desk, the cummerbund around his midsection straining from the tension. Hughes swivels the chair around to a narrow cabinet behind his desk that is almost invisible in the elaborate woodwork. Next he uses a key to open a small cupboard like door from which he retrieves a modern looking desk phone from the cabinet, places it on his desk, and then dials a number from his memory. The other man stands at parade rest in front of Hughes desk as the call is being placed.)


(The phone rings several times before being picked up on the other end.)


Female Voice on Phone: Good evening, Brownell residence.


Chief Justice of the Supreme Court Carl Evans Hughes: I need to speak with the attorney general please! (Somewhat crisply.)


Female Voice on Phone: One moment please.


The Setting: The scene is of another election night party; however, this party is somewhat less formal than the one at the Hughes residence, with the music coming from a HiFi record player instead of a live band, and people dressed in casual white-collar business attire instead of tuxedos and formal dresses. The room is furnished in the modern German minimalist style with several modern art pieces hanging on the wall.


An attractive black female maid of approximately twenty-five to thirty years of age enters the doorway leading into the large living-room and announces….


Maid Samantha Baker: Mr. Brownell, there’s a call for you in your den. I think that it is important.


(Brownell puts the shot glass he is holding down upon a nearby end table as he excuses himself from a young couple he has been chit-chatting with. Brownell weaves through the party guests and makes his way to another part of the house where his den is located. The lights are off in the room, but Brownell can see the telephone receiver sitting on his desk, and he picks it up without turning on any lights.)


US Attorney General, Albert Brownell Jr: This is the attorney general speaking. (Breathlessly. As he sits down behind his desk in the darkened room.)


Chief Justice of the Supreme Court Carl Evans Hughes: We are in unanimous agreement, and it is time for this situation to reach its logical conclusion. You will have no problems with us! (From over the phone.)


US Attorney General, Albert Brownell Jr: Understood.


(There is a sharp click sound in Brownell’s ear as the Chief Justice hangs up his phone.)


The Setting: The scene returns to the home study of Chief Justice Carl Evans Hughes, after the phone has just been hung up. This time the camera point of view is from behind the shoulder of Hughes, facing Texas Attorney General Lyndon Baines Johnson who is standing in front of Hughes’ desk.


Texas Attorney General Lyndon Baines Johnson: Mr. Chief Justice, you’ve just done every American a great service, and with the Socialists now out of the way, we can now go about the business of kitting the country back together again.


Chief Justice of the Supreme Court Carl Evans Hughes: I prey that you’re right. (With his hand still resting on the handset of the telephone which he has just hung up.)


The Setting: The scene returns to the home of US Attorney General, Albert Brownell Jr who has just turned on a desk lamp, and is busily flipping through a little black book he has retrieved from a desk drawer. Brownell locates a telephone number labeled “Limpet” and dials it on his desk phone.


The Setting: The scene changes to the first-floor lobby of the Charles C. McLaughlin United States Courthouse in Lower Manhattan. The lobby is deserted except for Bailiff Edward Young (actually a deputy for the Manhattan Sheriff’s Department) who is sitting at a desk across from the main lobby entrance.


(Suddenly the sound of a ringing telephone reverberates through the marble filled lobby. Young turns to see that it is the third pay phone in a row of phones lining the far wall. Young hurries to the phone, but doesn’t say anything when he picks it up.)


US Attorney General, Albert Brownell Jr: Limpet, this is Starfish, the daises have sprouted.


Bailiff Edward Young: Understood.


US Attorney General, Albert Brownell Jr: Call me back once you’ve completed your task, I’ll be waiting.


Bailiff Edward Young: Understood.


(The click sound in his ear tells Young that the call has ended and he hangs up the payphone. Young walks through an unmarked door and enters a small room where a couple of men wearing Manhattan Sheriff Department uniforms are playing cards while listening to the radio.)


Bailiff Edward Young: Say, can one of you guys take over for me in the main lobby? I’ve got a special something waiting for me in the back alley. (Young then does a pounding motion in the air with his fist to simulate a thrusting penis.)


(A younger bailiff eager to please his superior stands up from the card table.)


Bailiff Joseph Mehserle: I’ll take over for you, Sir, and while you’re out there give her a couple of Hmm…hmm…hmm for me (As Mehserle duplicates Young’s thrusting fist motion. Everyone in the room laughs)


Bailiff Edward Young: Oh, don’t you worry, Joseph, I will. (Pats Mehserle on the back as Mehserle walks past him out the door towards the main lobby.) In the meantime, you sit tight until I get back in twenty or thirty minutes.


(Young gives a mock salute to the remaining card players and then closes the door as he leaves. Young then continues on down the hallway and enters a locked door marked “Stairwell”. Young rapidly descends four or five flights of metal stairs and emerges onto the lowest level of the prisoner holding floors.)


(The corridor is empty, and all of the solid steel sliding cell doors are open, revealing the cells to be unoccupied. Except for one cell at the end of the hallway.)


(Young stops at glass fronted cabinet containing a fire hose. He uses his key to open the cabinet and then spends the next several seconds using both hands to root around behind the heavy fire hose. As young withdraws his hand from the cabinet it is holding a dark case about the size of a cigarette case.)


(Young opens the flip top, inside the case is an unusually small hypodermic syringe, already loaded with some sort of clear fluid. Young holds the syringe up to the light to examine it before replacing it in its case. Young slips the case into his front pocket and begins walking towards the occupied cell at the end of the corridor.)


(Young reaches the only occupied cell on the floor and looks in through the reinforced window that is located high up in the door. Although the room is fully illuminated the prisoner appears to be asleep under her covers.)


(Young skillfully inserts his master key into the cell lock and turns the tumblers without making any sound. In addition to the bed upon which the suspect is sleeping, there is also a table and chair, and also a toilet and washbasin in the far corner. The entire surface of the table is taken up by variously sized books, writing tablets, and other miscellaneous items.)


(Young stands at the foot of the prisoner’s bed and removes the case from his pocket. He removes the syringe from the kit and then returns the empty case to his pocket. He silently crouches and takes the prisoner’s bare foot in his hand, preparing to insert the needle between the first and second toes of the foot he is holding it.)


(Young hesitates, as a look of complete astonishment comes over his face. Young feels the other foot, the look on his face turns from astonishment to understanding. He stands up and returns the hypodermic syringe to its case without having used it, and then puts the case back in his pocket. He walks to the head of the bed and pulls the covers away.)


(The face of Flora Hamburger is revealed. Her features appear to be frozen into a mask of agony. Young peers closer, there are dark finger shaped bruises on her neck, and her esophagus appears to have partially crushed as well. Young picks up her wrist and tries to check for a pulse, there is none. The arm drops easily to the mattress when he lets go of it.)


(Young backs out of the room locking the sliding door behind him as he leaves. He quickly makes his way back to the lobby where he instructs Bailiff Joseph Mehserle to return to his card game because his date didn’t show up.)


(Once alone, Young picks up the receiver on the same payphone he used earlier, and dials “9” five times without depositing any coins. The phone rings twice and is picked up on the other end.)


Bailiff Edward Young: This is Limpet.


US Attorney General, Albert Brownell Jr: And this is Starfish, what is your status?


Bailiff Edward Young: There is a situation here.


US Attorney General, Albert Brownell Jr: What do you mean?


Bailiff Edward Young: The subject was already expired when I entered the cell.


US Attorney General, Albert Brownell Jr: How did that happen? (surprised)


Bailiff Edward Young: There is some dark bruising around the neck, and also a possible crushed esophagus. (dryly without emotion)


US Attorney General, Albert Brownell Jr: Then someone is trying to frame us!


Bailiff Edward Young: Agreed.


US Attorney General, Albert Brownell Jr: Now, as soon as we hang up, I want you to personally guard that wing of the prisoner holding area, and I want you to shoot anyone who doesn’t belong in that corridor. Do I make myself clear?


Bailiff Edward Young: Crystal clear.


US Attorney General, Albert Brownell Jr: Now, we have to make sure that the subject finds its way to the NBI, and not to the Manhattan County Coroner’s office. (pause) An NBI agent with the code name of Mollusk will be down there shortly to help take care of things, and Mollusk will inform you that they were sent by me, Starfish.


Bailiff Edward Young: Understood.


US Attorney General, Albert Brownell Jr: If anyone else shows up trying to claim that body, then I want you to shoot them, no questions asked. Let’s not forget that this happened on your watch.


(Before Young can reply a sharp click tells him that the US attorney general has hung up the phone.)


The Setting: The scene changes to a planning room located in the basement of the headquarters of the United States Occupation Authority building located on the site of the defunct Confederate naval base in Norfolk, Virginia.


(The Director of the US Occupation Authority, Lawrence Groves is sitting at a planning table listening to the telephone conversation between Starfish and Limpet as it emanates from a speaker box located on the table in front of him. A group of technicians in lab coats can be seen maintaining racks of electronic gear in a glass room located some distance behind Groves. Some of the electronic machines appear to have large reels of magnetic tape which are constantly spinning, as if the machines they are mounted on are searching for something.)


(The sharp click of the US attorney general hanging up his phone issues forth from the speaker in front of Groves. Groves jumps up from his chair, his cigar dropping ashes everywhere.)


USOA Director Lawrence Groves: And fuck you, Mr. Albert Brownell Jr., where do you get off telling the president that my department should be abolished!


(A man who had previously been out of frame steps into view next to Groves. It is former Vice President of the Confederate States of America, Donald Partridge.


Donald Partridge: And not only fuck the US Attorney General, but fuck Texas President, Wright Patman as well!

(Both men look at each other in silent agreement as the data reels continue to turn behind them.)
 
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What does it all mean?
Admittedly I probably should have fleshed this idea out a little better, but I think that everyone can kind of get an idea of I’m describing?

Originally, I was thinking that Retired Justice James H. Clarke (the same justice mentioned in act II) should make some sort of angry protest about Flora Hamburger accusing him of sexual deviancy during an interview with a reporter, and maybe also accusing other justices of corruption, but I started to type something like that, and after I read it – it seemed like it was taking my short story down an entirely different rabbit hole, so I deleted it.

Anyway, it should be clear that most of the men standing in front of Chief Justice of the Supreme Court Carl Evans Hughes at his house party are current or retired members of the US Supreme Court who are deeply concerned about things that Flora Hamburger is saying about them has she is about to begin her prison sentence?

Why would Flora Hamburger turn on members of the Supreme Court, especially James H. Clarke, who was nominated to the court by her husband?

Maybe Hamburger has become like a wounded animal stuck in a trap, and she has decided that if she is going to go down, then she is going to take down as many people in the government as she can as she is going down? Or, perhaps Hamburger has suffered some sort of mental breakdown in during her three- or four-month confinement in her subterranean prison cell beneath the federal courthouse in Lower Manhattan? Another possibility is that she is of sound mind, but for some reason has returned to her radical roots since the end of the Second Great War, and now she feels that she must ignite a revolution before she is silenced once and for all? -

At any rate, Hamburger refuses to cooperate with the plea-deal brokered by retired Justice James H. Clarke, and instead of cooperating she decides to start dishing out all sorts of salacious gossip rumors regarding members of the US Supreme Court. Gossip that if proven true could send people to prison, and forever tarnish the image of their families.

The justices decide that Hamburger must be silenced sooner than later, and thus they conspire with members of the US Justice Dept. to have Hamburger assassinated via an injection of a hard to detect cocktail of drugs on the night before she is to be transferred to the prison system.

Meanwhile, the US Attorney General, Albert Brownell Jr., is engaged in a power struggle against another man named, Lawrence Groves, who heads the all powerful United States Occupation Authority overseeing the defeated Confederacy.


Lawrence Groves learns of the plot to kill Hamburger and to make it look like a natural death. Groves somehow has Hamburger killed in a vicious fashion, knowing that the Hamburger’s cruel death will be blamed upon members of the US Supreme Court, and eventually US Attorney General, Albert Brownell Jr.

Groves does this because he believes that the resulting scandal will cause the US Attorney General to fall from power, and will also thus secure the continued operation of the US Occupation Authority, and Groves as head of that department.

Also, I was imagining that Don Partridge would probably start cooperating with the US government soon after the end of In at the Death, and many within the US government hold Partridge up as a posterchild for the reformed Confederate citizen now willing to embrace the United States.

However, US President Thomas Dewey and Texas Wright Patman spark up a friendship in early 1948, and create a plan for Texas to rejoin the US. Patman also begins touring the defeated Confederacy and meeting with former prominent Whigs, promising them positions in the US Democrat Party if they will support readmission of their states back into the US. Patman experiences a great deal of success in his efforts.

Patman’s success causes the spotlight to move away from Don Partridge and Patman becomes somewhat of a celebrity among many people in the US. Partridge is hoping that Patman will be discredited by the death of Hamburger, and that the spotlight will return to him, Partridge. (The two men meet and do not like each other, although they pose for publicity photos together.)
 
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I must have missed something, why is she in prison?

Sorry, I put some of that info into earlier postings, but I realize no one is a mind reader, so here it is in a more complete form.



After the end of the Second Great War many in the US come to view the disastrous 1941 Plebiscite and the actions of Socialist President Al Smith as the primary cause for the costliest war in US history.

The Socialists, therefore, do poorly in the elections of 1944, and also in the midterms of 1946. As a result of their losses, the leadership of the Socialist Party engages in a campaign of harsh criticism against Dewey's policies in the defeated Confederacy, and also his economic policies towards a newly independent Canada.


However, the Socialist Party's attempts to besmirch Dewey backfire on them due to Dewey's wild popularity with the people of the US. The people of the US need a rallying point in the years immediately following the war, and Dewey provides them with the necessary symbolism to see the country through the uncertain times. Also, due to his popularity, the press is sometimes willing to turn a blind eye as Dewey sometimes breaks a few eggs to make an omelet.


In January 1945 Hamburger invites a war widow whose husband has been killed in postwar violence to speak in front of the House, and then Hamburger asks the question if the defeated Confederacy should given some limited autonomy as a means of reducing US occupation troop casualties. This remark privately angers President Dewey, but at this point he takes no direct action against her or the Socialist Party in general.


In June 1947 Hamburger accuses the Dewey Administration of using the powers of the state to fix the flaws of capitalism, after Dewey orders the US Secretary of the Treasury to purchase Canadian Dollars in order to prop the value of the currency. The move is also somewhat unpopular with some conservative members of the Democratic Party, but when Hamburger makes her comments on the matter, Dewey becomes outraged, and privately orders his attorney general to find a crime to charge Hamburger with.


Meanwhile, later in the summer of 1947, a group of Russian Trotskists travel to New York and meet with the leadership of the US Socialist Party. The US Socialists are impressed with the dedication of the Trotskists, and agree to supply them with financial and propaganda support.


In November of 1947 the Czar is finally overthrown and replaced by the Trotskists. Hamburger and group of other US Socialists travel to Moscow to meet with meet with Leon Trotsky who is now the Premier of the RSFR.


On Christmas Eve 1947 Flora Hamburger lands at New York's La Guardia Airport after a week long visit in Moscow and boldly declares in front of the cameras, "I have seen real socialism in the Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic, and it works!"


On March 5, 1948 the NBI conducts a raid of the new Socialist Party headquarters in mid-town Manhattan. Hamburger is arrested along with other prominent members of the Socialist Party, including the Socialist Party candidate for the presidency, and is charged with a variety of crimes including bank-wire-fraud, conspiracy, violating the Logan Act, and treason, although the charges of treason are later dropped.

On November 5, 1948 Flora Hamburger's death in prison is announced to the public. Her official cause of death is listed as a brain aneurysm.
 
A quick question, wouldn't her name be Blackford instead of Hamburger? I mean she was also a widow, having been married to a former President.
 
Although a fictional movie inside a fictional world, it surprises me that Charles Evans Hughes is still a niumble and spry man as he is at the age of 88, given that in the OTL he was extremely sick at that time.

Think its an interesting choice....
 
A quick question, wouldn't her name be Blackford instead of Hamburger? I mean she was also a widow, having been married to a former President.

In the earlier postings the judge addresses her directly has Congresswoman Flora Hamburger-Blackford, but when she is being referred to in the third person, I simply refer to her as Hamburger.
 
Although a fictional movie inside a fictional world, it surprises me that Charles Evans Hughes is still a niumble and spry man as he is at the age of 88, given that in the OTL he was extremely sick at that time.

Think its an interesting choice....
Oh well. Maybe he took better care of his health in this universe. If General Custer can live decades into the Twentieth Century, then why can't Hughes also remain spry for an extended period of time?
 
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