Spectre of Europe - An Alternative Paris Commune Timeline
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Chapter One Hundred and Seventy Four - African Influenza - The US Experience
I've hidden this chapter in a spoiler, for now, as it details a pandemic's effects on an unprepared America. It was largely written months before the current situation, but I'm aware that it might be upsetting for some. So please don't read on if you feel this might make you uncomfortable.
Best wishes to all
Reydan
I've hidden this chapter in a spoiler, for now, as it details a pandemic's effects on an unprepared America. It was largely written months before the current situation, but I'm aware that it might be upsetting for some. So please don't read on if you feel this might make you uncomfortable.
Best wishes to all
Reydan
Heal the sick, raise the dead, cleanse lepers, cast out demons - Matthew 10:8
African Influenza spread in a ragged pattern across the United States. The nation's patchwork hospital and general practitioner network was simply overwhelmed by the spread. The infection rate soared, week after week, as local health workers compiled terrible statistics and mortuaries filled with the dead. By the summer of 1940 an estimated 40% of the population had contracted the virus and the death toll had, by June 23rd, topped one million.
Responses were hodgepodge. In Philadelphia, the local Labor Council locked the city down, to much protest from business owners and political opponents, but managed to keep their total death toll below 100 for the duration of the pandemic. In contrast St Louis, where public health officials were forced to pull back on their proposals under public backlash, the infection rate exploded. Missouri National Guardsmen were mobilized to enforce a quarantine around the city as hospitals were overwhelmed. Sportsman's Park, home of the Cardinals, was used as a massive fever hospital with local Masonic groups funding the erection of a temporary roof over the field itself. California believed itself to have escaped the infection during the early months of the year, only for April to bring a surge of outbreaks up and down the state and forcing Governor Upton Sinclair to impose travel restrictions. Controversy embroiled the State when, in June, business tycoon Howard Hughes was arrested on his private airfield after publicly breaching quarantine, flying himself in his two-seater between properties and businesses he owned across California.
With Congress's recess extended due to the crisis, all eyes turned to the White House where President Unterholtz held sway. Millions of Americans huddled around their wireless sets or visited large outdoor cinemas to hear him speak of the crisis. Utilising the growing left-wing film centre of Buffalo, New York, and its array of talent, Unterhotlz was able to craft a reassuring public presence. His dulcet Southern tones, his rough working-class inflections, endeared him to many. 'He's a President rolling up his sleeves and getting stuck in' one woman was quoted when interviewed by the New York Times and pretty soon the re-election campaign had adopted the slogan.
But more divisive than his tones were his politics - and his methods. Accused of politicizing a crisis, the President was pushing for the biggest social reform in American History. 'Every Goddamn Doctor, every Goddamn Hospital, every Goddamn Country Nurse' he assured roaring crowds in New Orleans. 'We're going to have 'em all. Make 'em work for you - public health will be our public wealth'. Another instant slogan.
Yet the idea - effectively nationalising every medical element in the United States - was both powerful and destabilizing. For opponents it was socialism, undiluted, and massive governmental overreach. Eager to fan the flames in an election year, Unterholtz was deliberately provocative. A speech in which he promised to 'sew the mouths of Doctors shut with a golden thread' was truncated as simply 'sewing the mouths of Doctors shut' in the press and the administration was slow to correct the error. Others were concerned about his tactics - Unterholtz proposed to ram the policy through without Congress and, when asked about the Supreme Court, suggested that perhaps the public health emergency sweeping the nation required him to be given powers 'beyond those imagined by the Founding Fathers'. To his supporters it was electrifying - the promise of a better tomorrow - but for his opponents it was a contagion as deadly as the influenza.
Opposition to Unterholtz saw the erstwhile two party system break down. A fusion ticket of Republicans and Democrats was initially proposed as a rhetorical position by the junior Senator for Rhode Island, but more and more seemed vital. A temporary Constitutional ticket was formed, both parties backing it, and a convention held. Wild speculation attended those three days in Boston but, ultimately, few could have suspected the eventual winner.
It was, in the best American tradition, a combination of smokey back-room manouvers and a thrilling speech on the convention floor that sealed the deal. The presence of the former Chief Justice, Charles Evans Hughes, twice President [1916-1920, 1920-1924] had surprised many. He was 78, a centrist Republican, and like the President they despised had already served two terms. But Hughes was a lightning rod for the discontent that swirled around America in 1940. He was liberal - with a solid track record - and fearless. 'This...' he announced in a booming speech 'is an administration of greed...of corruption...of tyranny. President Unterholtz offers us nothing more than government by organised crime'. And, with his selection, the stage was set for a bitter electoral contest in in the fall of 1940
The idea that a third term was in some way dictatorial motivated much of the opposition to Unterholtz.
Dark memories of the assassination of the former left-wing President William Jennings Bryan, as he geared up to campaign
for a third term, were not far from the public mindset in 1940
Dark memories of the assassination of the former left-wing President William Jennings Bryan, as he geared up to campaign
for a third term, were not far from the public mindset in 1940
African Influenza spread in a ragged pattern across the United States. The nation's patchwork hospital and general practitioner network was simply overwhelmed by the spread. The infection rate soared, week after week, as local health workers compiled terrible statistics and mortuaries filled with the dead. By the summer of 1940 an estimated 40% of the population had contracted the virus and the death toll had, by June 23rd, topped one million.
Responses were hodgepodge. In Philadelphia, the local Labor Council locked the city down, to much protest from business owners and political opponents, but managed to keep their total death toll below 100 for the duration of the pandemic. In contrast St Louis, where public health officials were forced to pull back on their proposals under public backlash, the infection rate exploded. Missouri National Guardsmen were mobilized to enforce a quarantine around the city as hospitals were overwhelmed. Sportsman's Park, home of the Cardinals, was used as a massive fever hospital with local Masonic groups funding the erection of a temporary roof over the field itself. California believed itself to have escaped the infection during the early months of the year, only for April to bring a surge of outbreaks up and down the state and forcing Governor Upton Sinclair to impose travel restrictions. Controversy embroiled the State when, in June, business tycoon Howard Hughes was arrested on his private airfield after publicly breaching quarantine, flying himself in his two-seater between properties and businesses he owned across California.
With Congress's recess extended due to the crisis, all eyes turned to the White House where President Unterholtz held sway. Millions of Americans huddled around their wireless sets or visited large outdoor cinemas to hear him speak of the crisis. Utilising the growing left-wing film centre of Buffalo, New York, and its array of talent, Unterhotlz was able to craft a reassuring public presence. His dulcet Southern tones, his rough working-class inflections, endeared him to many. 'He's a President rolling up his sleeves and getting stuck in' one woman was quoted when interviewed by the New York Times and pretty soon the re-election campaign had adopted the slogan.
But more divisive than his tones were his politics - and his methods. Accused of politicizing a crisis, the President was pushing for the biggest social reform in American History. 'Every Goddamn Doctor, every Goddamn Hospital, every Goddamn Country Nurse' he assured roaring crowds in New Orleans. 'We're going to have 'em all. Make 'em work for you - public health will be our public wealth'. Another instant slogan.
Yet the idea - effectively nationalising every medical element in the United States - was both powerful and destabilizing. For opponents it was socialism, undiluted, and massive governmental overreach. Eager to fan the flames in an election year, Unterholtz was deliberately provocative. A speech in which he promised to 'sew the mouths of Doctors shut with a golden thread' was truncated as simply 'sewing the mouths of Doctors shut' in the press and the administration was slow to correct the error. Others were concerned about his tactics - Unterholtz proposed to ram the policy through without Congress and, when asked about the Supreme Court, suggested that perhaps the public health emergency sweeping the nation required him to be given powers 'beyond those imagined by the Founding Fathers'. To his supporters it was electrifying - the promise of a better tomorrow - but for his opponents it was a contagion as deadly as the influenza.
Opposition to Unterholtz saw the erstwhile two party system break down. A fusion ticket of Republicans and Democrats was initially proposed as a rhetorical position by the junior Senator for Rhode Island, but more and more seemed vital. A temporary Constitutional ticket was formed, both parties backing it, and a convention held. Wild speculation attended those three days in Boston but, ultimately, few could have suspected the eventual winner.
It was, in the best American tradition, a combination of smokey back-room manouvers and a thrilling speech on the convention floor that sealed the deal. The presence of the former Chief Justice, Charles Evans Hughes, twice President [1916-1920, 1920-1924] had surprised many. He was 78, a centrist Republican, and like the President they despised had already served two terms. But Hughes was a lightning rod for the discontent that swirled around America in 1940. He was liberal - with a solid track record - and fearless. 'This...' he announced in a booming speech 'is an administration of greed...of corruption...of tyranny. President Unterholtz offers us nothing more than government by organised crime'. And, with his selection, the stage was set for a bitter electoral contest in in the fall of 1940
Another great update! Personally, I do not mind it when people write about events that (wether intentionally or not) resemble similar situations occuring in real-life. That said, I see why that is not something everyone would agree with and i will certianly not get angry at people for not wanting to cause discomfort. All in all, regardless of when it comes i look forward to the next chapter!
Huzzah! A new marvelous update of our beloved timeline! Interesting as usual. A bit of apology first, but somehow I felt Bernie failed to capitalise on the pandemic to push for his healthcare when I read about Unterholtz campaign. Although yeah, he might be seen as demagogue more than ever if he did.
By the way, are we expecting updates at regular pace again?
By the way, are we expecting updates at regular pace again?
Oh shit, this is the stuff civil war is made of... the only thing preventing it might be the fact that there's not too much uniformity of opinions here. You can be pro-lockdown and anti-nationalization, so it's not like anti-lockdown people necessarily have to see lockdowns as a conspiracy to interfere with a pivotal election. But also, if labor orgs have a big hand in enforcing lockdown in some cities then conspiracy theories like that become a lot easier. All the tension from the last few months might explode in a big way.
Ah, the time honored tradition of genteel gerontocrat vs uncouth populist. At least both sides have some energy, but I definitely don't bet on the traditionalist in this situation.
I await the chaos, is all I can say.
Well, this will be interesting. I wonder what America's neighbours are thinking of the political ruckus.
Did you write anymore after that last update or was that the last one before the coronavirus hit?
Chapter One Hundred and Seventy Five - Hot Tempers
As the virus began to tail off in the United States, as it was around the world in the late summer of 1940, it was replaced by a different existential threat. 'Not since Bleeding Kansas' opined the New Yorker that August 'have tensions been so inflamed by the potential of what is to come. This is political violence on a national stage'. Whilst both candidates urged restraint, at least officially, much of urban America was a battleground. In cities and small towns from the Deep South to the Midwest and from the East Coast to the Pacific crowds of supporters clashed.
Union radicals and sympathetic police break up a large Constitutional Rally in San Fransisco in August 1940.
Govenor Upton Sinclair protested to the President, leader of his own party,
over this use of the police against peaceful citizens but his protests went unheard.
The receipts of the political violence were high. In Pittsburgh, on a sweltering August weekend, clashes all around the Allegheny Commons left over 120 injured, some very serious, as labor unions and anti-union protestors fought. In Denver seventeen businesses were burned in a swirling riot that, after three days, was finally broken up by police. And in Mobile, a march by the combined Democratic and Republican Women's Associations dissolved into chaos when they were heckled by nearby factory workers. The women, over four hundred Hughes supporters, were so enraged by the lewd suggestions thrown out by the two dozen workers that they charged them, chasing them up the main street and for almost a quarter of a mile. There were 42 political shootings, 22 of them fatal, and over 11700 cited cases of assault linked to the disorder between August 9th and September 27th across the United States as the tensions of generations burst angrily forth.
Nowhere was this more evident than in the question of civil rights. Unterholtz had attempted to outflank Hughes with black voters, promising largescale legislation on civil rights. For Unterholtz and his supports this was a class war - one of poor Americans with nothing against the rich who wanted to hold onto everything. Civil Rights, he told his supporters at large angry rallies, was just another denial from the rich. 'You ain't pissed at the black man' he told a broiling crowd in Toledo in early September 'you're just real angry with the rich man who makes you both fight for his table scraps. You're better than that. The blacks are better than that. We're all better than that together'. As with so much about Wally Unterholtz, it is impossible to know how much of this was real reforming passion and how much was, like always a political weapon. Yet in this case it was a dangerous live wire he had grasped.
Whilst Hughes tried to stay above the mud-flinging some in his party, seeing an opportunity to profit did not. Unterholtz was painted an integrator, a miscegenator, and a race radical. A deft bit of maneuvering forced the President to come down on the somewhat radical side of civil rights reform, alienating white voters across the nation. A series of race riots and violence, which had never needed much prompting in many parts of America, broke out across the nation. Tulsa, Detroit, Washington DC, Atlanta, Portland, and Covington, KY, all had sad stories to tell by the fall as black citizens were attacked and black businesses burned. What was noticeable, though, was the staunch defences mounted in Detroit, in Atlanta, and in Richmond where a large, defiant, black crowd forced white attackers back and remained so disciplined that even the best efforts of the openly racist Mayor failed to produce any major convictions against them. 'If the President's legacy in this field was anything', writes Annalise Rawlins in Black America Awakes 1922-1942, 'it was to encourage a generation of young black men to defend their rights vigorously'. Hughes, always a supporter of the black community, was appalled at the polarisation. But there was little he could do - America in 1940 was not the country for nuance.
Black counter-protestors are detained in Detroit, 1940.
Cooler weather in late September brought a respite, but even as the country simmered, larger shadowy forces were on the move. Polls predicted a narrow defeat for the incumbent, as voters mobilised against his radicalisation, but all those predictions were so much waste-paper basket lining when, on the morning of October 17th shots were fired at the Presidential party as it left a hotel in New York on the campaign trail.
As the virus began to tail off in the United States, as it was around the world in the late summer of 1940, it was replaced by a different existential threat. 'Not since Bleeding Kansas' opined the New Yorker that August 'have tensions been so inflamed by the potential of what is to come. This is political violence on a national stage'. Whilst both candidates urged restraint, at least officially, much of urban America was a battleground. In cities and small towns from the Deep South to the Midwest and from the East Coast to the Pacific crowds of supporters clashed.
Union radicals and sympathetic police break up a large Constitutional Rally in San Fransisco in August 1940.
Govenor Upton Sinclair protested to the President, leader of his own party,
over this use of the police against peaceful citizens but his protests went unheard.
The receipts of the political violence were high. In Pittsburgh, on a sweltering August weekend, clashes all around the Allegheny Commons left over 120 injured, some very serious, as labor unions and anti-union protestors fought. In Denver seventeen businesses were burned in a swirling riot that, after three days, was finally broken up by police. And in Mobile, a march by the combined Democratic and Republican Women's Associations dissolved into chaos when they were heckled by nearby factory workers. The women, over four hundred Hughes supporters, were so enraged by the lewd suggestions thrown out by the two dozen workers that they charged them, chasing them up the main street and for almost a quarter of a mile. There were 42 political shootings, 22 of them fatal, and over 11700 cited cases of assault linked to the disorder between August 9th and September 27th across the United States as the tensions of generations burst angrily forth.
Nowhere was this more evident than in the question of civil rights. Unterholtz had attempted to outflank Hughes with black voters, promising largescale legislation on civil rights. For Unterholtz and his supports this was a class war - one of poor Americans with nothing against the rich who wanted to hold onto everything. Civil Rights, he told his supporters at large angry rallies, was just another denial from the rich. 'You ain't pissed at the black man' he told a broiling crowd in Toledo in early September 'you're just real angry with the rich man who makes you both fight for his table scraps. You're better than that. The blacks are better than that. We're all better than that together'. As with so much about Wally Unterholtz, it is impossible to know how much of this was real reforming passion and how much was, like always a political weapon. Yet in this case it was a dangerous live wire he had grasped.
Whilst Hughes tried to stay above the mud-flinging some in his party, seeing an opportunity to profit did not. Unterholtz was painted an integrator, a miscegenator, and a race radical. A deft bit of maneuvering forced the President to come down on the somewhat radical side of civil rights reform, alienating white voters across the nation. A series of race riots and violence, which had never needed much prompting in many parts of America, broke out across the nation. Tulsa, Detroit, Washington DC, Atlanta, Portland, and Covington, KY, all had sad stories to tell by the fall as black citizens were attacked and black businesses burned. What was noticeable, though, was the staunch defences mounted in Detroit, in Atlanta, and in Richmond where a large, defiant, black crowd forced white attackers back and remained so disciplined that even the best efforts of the openly racist Mayor failed to produce any major convictions against them. 'If the President's legacy in this field was anything', writes Annalise Rawlins in Black America Awakes 1922-1942, 'it was to encourage a generation of young black men to defend their rights vigorously'. Hughes, always a supporter of the black community, was appalled at the polarisation. But there was little he could do - America in 1940 was not the country for nuance.
Black counter-protestors are detained in Detroit, 1940.
Cooler weather in late September brought a respite, but even as the country simmered, larger shadowy forces were on the move. Polls predicted a narrow defeat for the incumbent, as voters mobilised against his radicalisation, but all those predictions were so much waste-paper basket lining when, on the morning of October 17th shots were fired at the Presidential party as it left a hotel in New York on the campaign trail.
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Alright, to start off the discussion: how Are the U.S's neighbors viewing the violence next door? On the one hand, they'll try to distance themselves from the bloody political circus, but I also can't help but think how Canada and Mexico's own minorities might see the goals of class and racial equality to be emulated.
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@Reydan
I imagine this year has been a pain in the ass for your outline.
If that wasn't written on the fly, I'm almost sad at how on-the nose this all is but I guess it's just a consequence of an honest take on the United States.
None of the issues the country has are new and that's all that can be said.
I can only hope that whoever comes out the other end of this doesn't dismantle the associations and movements that are going to come out of these more successful organizations of black people and workers.
I imagine this year has been a pain in the ass for your outline.
If that wasn't written on the fly, I'm almost sad at how on-the nose this all is but I guess it's just a consequence of an honest take on the United States.
None of the issues the country has are new and that's all that can be said.
I can only hope that whoever comes out the other end of this doesn't dismantle the associations and movements that are going to come out of these more successful organizations of black people and workers.
Now this, this does not bode well. Either for the country at large, dissident movements in general, or Sinclair in particular*.
*He really doesn't have the temperament or sensibilities for what his movement is turning into.
Especially on account of this.
Underholz dies, things will be bloody in the immediate term.
Underholz lives and is functional, things will be bloody in an indefinite term.
Honestly, I hope he comes out of this in a Wilson situation. Deeply weakened and disabled, but also alive and hidden.
That way the reaction is less explosive and Underholz is too broken to feed the fire.
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Bookmark1995
Banned
It speaks about how good medicine has become that we forget disease can have an enormous impact on history, as you have demonstrated.
Thanks for the comment! Mexico we might have to revisit, as its presently under a defacto US puppet government put in after the Christero Regime fell. Essentially a front for big US businesses in oil, fruit, and other raw materials. Canada, I don't think, has ever been mentioned in this timeline!
It's not been brilliant, I have to say. Most of the outline and detail was decided well in advance, but I've had to rewrite bits that seemed too relevant to today.
I'm honestly just really happy that people still read and enjoy this thread after so many years and my sporadic posting efforts.
Assumes of course that Unterholz was even the target....
Thank you, although I think that most of us these days are not in any doubt about the enormous impact disease can have on life and culture!
Bookmark1995
Banned
I live in New England. Hurricane Sandy didn't shut down my local library, but this disease DID!
Chapter One Hundred and Seventy Six - BANG BANG
'When you are fresh meat, kill and throw them something fresher'
The bullets were five .30-06 rounds, the entire contents of a magazine, fired from an M1903 Springfield sniper rifle. Investigators afterwards would determine that the shooter, firing the military-surplus rifle from the war with Mexico, had lain prone on the roof of the tenement building on Orchard Street on the Lower East Side waiting for two days before opening fire in a controlled burst. In all he had fired for eighteen seconds, one round after another, before leaving the rifle and his rosary, sprinting low across the rooftop, scrambling down the fire escape on the other side of the building from the street, and escaped into the morning bustle.
Five rounds, fired in quick succession, had hit President Unterholz's group as they strode down the street towards a rally in the Lower East. The first round had struck the President's briefcase, sending it spinning onto the ground. The second, as Unterholz stood their shocked, slammed into the ground behind his right shoulder. The third and fourth hit home, right in the centre of Vice President Landik's chest, and the fifth smashed into the skull of a Presidential aide, spraying the female aide behind him with the poor man's viscera. Like the aide, Vice President Harry Landik, reforming Mayor of Philadelphia and much loved of the softer wing of the Labor Party, was dead before his body hit the floor.
The press coverage was frenzied, so close to the election. In minute detail America devoured the story of the assassination attempt - of the sniper's nest abandoned except for the rosary and the rifle itself, wiped clean of prints. Of the massive police manhunt that failed to turn up anything. Of Unterholz's defiant speech to rapturous applause in the heart of New York's poorest district. But even the fevered minds of weird fiction writers or ardent fans of hard-boiled detective novels could not predict what was to come next.
On the morning of October 23rd, almost a week after the shooting, Police Agents arrested, after a tense stand-off, Charles 'Lucky' Luciano, one of the biggest players in organised crime in New York and the country more widely on charges of conspiracy. What was more shocking still, though, was the name that police authorities announced Luciano had given them in connection with the assassination attempt. Thomas Dewey. Former crusading public prosecutor of New York and currently Hughes's running mate. The storm that broke was electric. Documents were uncovered during a police raid on Dewey's home showing close connections between the former prosecutor and the Italian mob in the city. Even as Dewey tried to deny these the death of Luciano in a mysterious accident moving between jails left the former mob-boss's statement hard to disprove. It didn't matter. All Unterholz or anyone had to do was repeat the words 'murder' and 'organised crime' with Dewey's name and the Vice Presidential candidate was tarred with scandal. Even dropping off the ticket did little more than late-hour damage control.
The November 1940 election was a tight one, with bookies ruined or made for life in many places across America. But it was Unterholz and his new Vice President Alice Durer, one of the first female senators for Labor from West Virginia, who squeaked over the line. Hughes, battered and exhausted, was forced to concede. His supporters horrified at the loss. Dewey's career in public service was over, even though no charges were ever brought.
As ever in Wally Unterholz's career the timing was fortuitous. It is near impossible to say who would have won the 1940 election without the Orchard Street Outrage, as it has become known, but the polls pointed to a narrow Hughes victory until those October days. Conspiracy theorists have continued to point to the death of Luciano in custody before he himself could speak about the issue and the growing influence in US-controlled Mexico of Arnold Rothstein and other figures in the Jewish Organised Crime families. Political historians tend to point to the felicity of Unterholz being able to replace Landik - popular with the party but weak nationally - with the fiery Durer who helped clinch the votes of many women excited to see a woman on the ticket for the first time in history. But without a gunman and without any firm evidence one way or another, the assassination attempt remains one of America's biggest mysteries.
'When you are fresh meat, kill and throw them something fresher'
The bullets were five .30-06 rounds, the entire contents of a magazine, fired from an M1903 Springfield sniper rifle. Investigators afterwards would determine that the shooter, firing the military-surplus rifle from the war with Mexico, had lain prone on the roof of the tenement building on Orchard Street on the Lower East Side waiting for two days before opening fire in a controlled burst. In all he had fired for eighteen seconds, one round after another, before leaving the rifle and his rosary, sprinting low across the rooftop, scrambling down the fire escape on the other side of the building from the street, and escaped into the morning bustle.
Five rounds, fired in quick succession, had hit President Unterholz's group as they strode down the street towards a rally in the Lower East. The first round had struck the President's briefcase, sending it spinning onto the ground. The second, as Unterholz stood their shocked, slammed into the ground behind his right shoulder. The third and fourth hit home, right in the centre of Vice President Landik's chest, and the fifth smashed into the skull of a Presidential aide, spraying the female aide behind him with the poor man's viscera. Like the aide, Vice President Harry Landik, reforming Mayor of Philadelphia and much loved of the softer wing of the Labor Party, was dead before his body hit the floor.
The press coverage was frenzied, so close to the election. In minute detail America devoured the story of the assassination attempt - of the sniper's nest abandoned except for the rosary and the rifle itself, wiped clean of prints. Of the massive police manhunt that failed to turn up anything. Of Unterholz's defiant speech to rapturous applause in the heart of New York's poorest district. But even the fevered minds of weird fiction writers or ardent fans of hard-boiled detective novels could not predict what was to come next.
On the morning of October 23rd, almost a week after the shooting, Police Agents arrested, after a tense stand-off, Charles 'Lucky' Luciano, one of the biggest players in organised crime in New York and the country more widely on charges of conspiracy. What was more shocking still, though, was the name that police authorities announced Luciano had given them in connection with the assassination attempt. Thomas Dewey. Former crusading public prosecutor of New York and currently Hughes's running mate. The storm that broke was electric. Documents were uncovered during a police raid on Dewey's home showing close connections between the former prosecutor and the Italian mob in the city. Even as Dewey tried to deny these the death of Luciano in a mysterious accident moving between jails left the former mob-boss's statement hard to disprove. It didn't matter. All Unterholz or anyone had to do was repeat the words 'murder' and 'organised crime' with Dewey's name and the Vice Presidential candidate was tarred with scandal. Even dropping off the ticket did little more than late-hour damage control.
The November 1940 election was a tight one, with bookies ruined or made for life in many places across America. But it was Unterholz and his new Vice President Alice Durer, one of the first female senators for Labor from West Virginia, who squeaked over the line. Hughes, battered and exhausted, was forced to concede. His supporters horrified at the loss. Dewey's career in public service was over, even though no charges were ever brought.
As ever in Wally Unterholz's career the timing was fortuitous. It is near impossible to say who would have won the 1940 election without the Orchard Street Outrage, as it has become known, but the polls pointed to a narrow Hughes victory until those October days. Conspiracy theorists have continued to point to the death of Luciano in custody before he himself could speak about the issue and the growing influence in US-controlled Mexico of Arnold Rothstein and other figures in the Jewish Organised Crime families. Political historians tend to point to the felicity of Unterholz being able to replace Landik - popular with the party but weak nationally - with the fiery Durer who helped clinch the votes of many women excited to see a woman on the ticket for the first time in history. But without a gunman and without any firm evidence one way or another, the assassination attempt remains one of America's biggest mysteries.
Be kind, they are but a humble 90s Bookmark. For they, the 21st century is still a time of great potential and wonder.
Sounds like a suicide to me.
One day I'm going to write a short timeline where absolutely nothing of consequence happens in October, and then Calbear is going to tell me to put it on ASB.
Well that was...convenient. At this point, who knows what Unterholz' second term will bring?
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