The Center Cannot Hold ae-2

by Harry Turtledove

  "Look." Mary Jane pointed. "Hoover's going to make a speech." Sure enough, the new president-elect get out of his limousine and, black top hat on his head, made his way towards a podium set up beside the catafalque on which Calvin Coolidge's remains rested.

  Wires ran from the podium back into the State House. Microphones sprouted from it: one to amplify Hoover's words for the crowd actually there, the rest to send those words across the United States by wireless. An announcer (who also wore a somber black suit) waited behind the podium to introduce him. The man reached out and shook Hoover's hand. They spoke for a moment, too far away for the microphones to let anyone hear their words. Then the announcer stepped up to the podium and said, "Ladies and gentlemen, the new president-elect of the United States, Mr. Hoobert Heever."

  Did I hear that? Sylvia wondered. Beside her, Mary Jane let out a small, startled giggle. Others rose from the crowd, too, so Sylvia supposed her ears hadn't tricked her after all.

  If Herbert Hoover noticed his name being butchered, he gave no sign of it. He said, "Ladies and gentlemen, people of the United States, I would give anything I own not to stand here before you today in this capacity. I wish with all my heart that Governor Coolidge were still the president-elect, and that he, not I, would take the oath of office as president on February first of this year."

  A polite round of applause followed. Sylvia joined it. She didn't see what else Hoover could say. With his round, blunt-featured face and strong chin, he looked very determined-he put her in mind of a bulldog ready to sink its teeth into something and not let go no matter what.

  He continued, "Since fate has thrust me into the highest office in the land, I pledge to you today that I will to the best of my ability continue the policies on which Governor Coolidge campaigned and which the American people overwhelmingly chose in the election two months ago. We shall go forward!"

  More applause. Again, Sylvia clapped along with everybody else. Again, she didn't see how Hoover could say anything else, but he said what needed saying well.

  "Ever since this crisis struck our country almost four years ago," he went on, "the Socialist administration has tried every quack nostrum under the sun to set things right, but not a single treatment has worked. To our sorrow, we have seen that only too clearly. Governor Coolidge campaigned on the Democrats' fundamental belief that business has seen altogether too much regulation these past twelve years and that, if left to itself, it would find its own way out of the mire in which it finds itself. I believe this with all my heart, and it will be the guiding principle of my administration."

  Again, people clapped their hands. Again, Sylvia was one of those people. She had no great love of businesses; they'd treated her like dirt in the years after the war. But whatever the Socialists had done hadn't worked. The whole country could see that-the whole country had seen that. Maybe what Coolidge had proposed and what Hoover now promised would be better. Sylvia didn't see how it could be much worse.

  Hoover plugged ahead with his speech: "We are currently engaged in an unfortunate war. By now, the Empire of Japan has plainly seen it cannot subvert the United States of America's hold on the territories we conquered at such cost during the Great War. Japan has also seen that we are ready to respond strongly to any challenge facing us. Any time the Japanese are ready to seek an honorable peace, I shall listen to their proposals with great attentiveness."

  "What does that mean?" Mary Jane whispered.

  "I don't know," Sylvia whispered back. The war had cost both sides some ships. After hitting Los Angeles, Japanese bombing aeroplanes had attacked the Sandwich Islands from carriers, but they were spotted on the way in, did little damage, and took losses from U.S. fighters based near Pearl Harbor. If neither side could hurt the other much, why go on fighting? Maybe Hoover hoped the Japs would figure that out for themselves.

  The president-elect stuck out his formidable jaw. "Regardless of that, our first goal is restoring prosperity at home. Conditions are fundamentally sound. The fundamental strength of the nation's economy is unimpaired." Hoover shook his head; maybe he hadn't meant to use variants of the same word in back-to-back sentences. He gathered himself. "Thanks to the American system of rugged individualism, we shall certainly prevail over any and all obstacles.

  "Governor Coolidge epitomized that system. I promise you here today that I shall do everything I can to walk in his footsteps. With God's help, we will triumph over adversity. And if it does not defeat us, it will make us stronger in the end. We are a great nation. The burden that has fallen on my shoulders leaves me awed and humbled. I know Governor Coolidge would have succeeded. All I can do is my best. With God's help again, that will suffice. Thank you, and may He bless the United States of America."

  He stepped away from the podium and walked over to the catafalque. There, very solemnly, he took off his top hat and bowed to Coolidge's casket. The soldiers and sailors and Marines who'd borne the coffin from the hearse saluted. Hoover returned the salute; he'd done his two years as a conscript well before the turn of the century, and had been a major in engineering during the war.

  The wireless announcer introduced the new governor of Massachusetts-and, incidentally, got his name right. More praise for Calvin Coolidge came forth, this time in the familiar accents of home, not Hoover's flat Midwestern speech. Sylvia listened with half an ear. Mary Jane began to fidget. When the lieutenant governor came to the podium and began saying everything for the third time, Sylvia asked, "Shall we go?" Her daughter nodded.

  They began making their way toward the back edge of the crowd. It wasn't so hard as Sylvia had feared, not least because they weren't the only ones slipping away from the Boston Common. The newsreel photographer, up there on his platform, wasn't taking pictures of the crowd shrinking.

  "Good day, Mrs. Enos." There stood Joe Kennedy, with his sharp-faced wife beside him. He wasn't going anywhere, not till the last speech was made. Even the way he stood was an effort to make Sylvia feel guilty about leaving.

  It didn't work. He wasn't paying her now that the campaign was done. Behind them, the lieutenant governor's empty words kept blaring forth through the microphone. "Good day, Mr. Kennedy," she answered. "We've got to be getting home, and after a while everything sounds the same."

  That made Rose Kennedy smile. When she did, her face lit up. She looked like a whole different person. Her husband, though, frowned. He didn't look like a different person; Sylvia had seem him frowning plenty of times. Voice stiff with disapproval, he said, "We should all take notice of the praise for Governor Coolidge. He would have made a fine president, and he would have done a lot of good for the state. Now…" He shrugged. "Now a lot of that will go somewhere else."

  He thought like a politician. Sylvia didn't know why she was surprised. In fact, after she thought about it for a moment she wasn't surprised any more. She said, "If you'll excuse us-"

  "Of course." Joe Kennedy was barely polite to her. His whole manner changed when his gaze swung to Mary Jane. "The last time I saw your daughter, Mrs. Enos, she was a little girl. She's not a little girl now."

  "No, she's not," Sylvia said shortly. Kennedy was practically undressing Mary Jane with his eyes, there right in front of his wife. Didn't she notice? Didn't she care? Or had she seen it too many times before to make a fuss about it? If George had looked at another woman like that, Sylvia knew she wouldn't have kept quiet. She touched Mary Jane's arm. "Come on. We have to go."

  "If there's ever anything I can do for either one of you charming ladies, don't be shy," Kennedy said.

  Sylvia nodded. All she wanted to do was get away. As she and Mary Jane descended into the subway entrance, her daughter said, "He's an interesting man. I didn't think he would be, not from the way you talk about him."

  "I'll tell you what he's interested in-he's interested in getting you someplace quiet and getting your knickers down," Sylvia said. "And I'll tell you something else, too: any man who'll run around for you will run around on you, any chance he gets."


  Mary Jane laughed. "I wasn't going to do anything with him, Mother."

  "I should hope not," Sylvia said. She and Mary Jane lined up to trade nickels for tokens for the ride back to the flat by T Wharf.

  T he red light in the studio went on. The engineer behind the glass pointed to Jake Featherston, as if to say he was on. He nodded and got down to business: "I'm Jake Featherston, and I'm here to tell you the truth."

  All across the Confederate States, from the Atlantic to the Gulf of California, people would be leaning forward to listen to him. The wireless web knit the CSA together in a way nothing else ever had before. All the parties used the wireless these days, but he'd been doing it longer than anybody else, and he thought he did it better than anybody else. He wasn't the only one who thought so, either. By the way Whig newspapers flabbled about their party's ineffective speakers, they too knew he scored points every time he sat down in front of a microphone here.

  "I'm here to tell you the truth," he repeated. "I've been trying to do that for a long time. Some of you kind folks out there didn't much want to believe me, on account of what I have to say isn't the sugar-coated pap you'll hear from the usual run of stuffed shirts in Richmond. No, it isn't sweet and it isn't pretty, but it's true.

  "Up in the USA, they've got themselves a brand-new president-not the one they elected, but another Democrat just the same. Herbert Hoover." He spoke the name with sardonic relish. "He got famous up there for helping out in the big flood back in 1927. Of course, that hurt us a lot more than it did the Yankees. But even so, they voted for him up there because of the good he did. What did we do here, where it was so much worse? I'll tell you what. We voted for the people who let it louse up the country, that's what. And if that's not a judgment on us, I don't know what is. Before that, who ever had a platform that says, 'Throw the rascals in '?"

  That made the engineer laugh, which convinced Jake it was a good line. The man was a staunch Whig. He was also a good engineer, and conscientious enough to make sure he gave his best to whoever was using the wireless. Featherston wished the Freedom Party attracted more men like that. When we win, we will, he thought, and this time, by God, we're going to win.

  "They say the sky will fall if the Whigs lose an election," he went on aloud. "We've been our own country the past seventy years, and they've won every time. And I tell you something else, friends-we've paid for it. We've paid through the nose. What have they given us lately? A losing war. Two states stolen, and chunks carved out of three more. Money you took to the grocery store in a wheelbarrow. The worst flood since Noah's, with nobody doing much to clean up the mess. And now this here little-'business turndown,' they call it." He snorted. "If business turned down any more, it'd turn dead. And they say everything'll be fine in the morning. But then the morning comes, and we're still in the middle of it.

  "I say it's time to roll up our sleeves and get to work. I say it's time to build dams to keep the Mississippi from kicking us like that again. I say we can use the jobs building those dams'll give us, and I say we can use the electricity we'll get from 'em, too. I say it's time to stand on our own two feet in the world, and to weed out all the traitors who want to see us stay weak and worthless. And I say seventy years is too long. The Whigs have had their chance. They've had it, and they fouled it up. I'm not telling you any secrets, friends. You know it, I know it, the whole country knows it. It's time to give somebody else the ball. Give it to the Freedom Party in November. Give it to us and watch us run. That's it for tonight." He had fifteen seconds left. "Remember, we won't let you down. The Whigs already have."

  The engineer swiped a finger across his throat. The red light went out. By now, after going on ten years of sending his voice over the wireless web, Featherston could time a broadcast almost to the second. He gathered up his papers and left the studio. He'd be back in a week, pounding his message home. The country should have been ready to listen to him in 1927. He still thought it would have been if Grady Calkins hadn't murdered President Hampton.

  "Son of a bitch had it coming," Jake muttered, but even he couldn't help adding, "Not like that, dammit."

  Saul Goldman was waiting in the hallway, as usual. Featherston was glad he didn't seem to have heard those mutters. In the years since Jake started coming to the studio, the little Jew had put on weight, lost hair, and gone gray. Jake was glad time didn't show so much on his own rawboned frame and lean, harsh features. Goldman said, "Another fine broadcast, Mr. Featherston."

  "Thank you kindly, Saul," Jake answered. "You've done the Party a lot of good, you know. When the day comes, you'll find we don't forget. We don't forget enemies, and we don't forget friends, either."

  "That is not why I did it, you know," the wireless man said.

  Jake slapped him on the back, hard enough to stagger him. "Yeah, I know, pal," he said. "You get extra points in my book for that. You don't lose any. When the time comes, how'd you like to be running all our broadcasts all over the country?"

  "Do you mean all the broadcasts of the Freedom Party or all the broadcasts of the Confederate government?" Goldman asked.

  "Six of one, half a dozen of the other," Jake replied. "Before very long, we'll be the government, you know. And when we get our hands on it, we'll have a lot of cleaning up to do. We'll do it, too, by God."

  Goldman didn't say anything. He didn't back the Freedom Party because he was wild for revenge against the USA, or because he wanted to punish the blacks who'd risen up and stabbed the Confederacy in the back. He was just relieved the Party kept quiet about Jews. Jake had never seen the need to get hot and bothered over Jews. There weren't enough of them in the CSA to matter. Negroes, now…

  Saul Goldman had never hidden his reasons for riding along on the Freedom Party's coattails. Featherston gave him credit for that. The Jew said, "If the time comes, I'll do what I can for you."

  "Swell!" Featherston staggered him again with another swat on the back. "You're a man of your word, Saul. I've seen that. And so am I. Wait till we win. Your telephone'll ring. Job'll pay good, too. You'll get rich." What more could a Jew want?

  But all Goldman said was, "We'll worry about that when the time comes."

  Shrugging, Jake went out to his automobile. The guards who accompanied him everywhere in public these days came to attention. His chauffeur bounced out of the motorcar and held the door open for him. Across the street, a man in an overcoat with a couple of missing buttons waved and yelled, "Freedom!"

  "Freedom!" Jake called, and waved back. He ducked down into the Birmingham.

  Virgil Joyner closed the door behind him and got back into the auto himself. As he settled in behind the wheel, he asked, "Straight back to Party headquarters, Sarge?"

  "Yes," Jake said, and then, in the same breath, "No." He laughed at himself; he didn't usually change his mind like that. He went on, "Take me around Capitol Square first. I want to have a good, long look at the Mitcheltown there."

  In the USA, they called shantytowns like this one Blackfordburghs. Featherston wondered if they would change the names of such places to Hoovervilles now that they had a new president. He doubted it. They'd been saying Blackfordburgh for almost four years. That was plenty of time for the word to grow roots. Here in the CSA, Burton Mitchel got the blame.

  Well, by God, when I take over, nobody's going to call a shantytown Fort Featherston or any damn stupid thing like that, Jake thought. Anybody tries it, he'll be sorry as long as he lives-and the son of a bitch won't live long.

  Joyner put the motorcar in gear. The guards piled into two more autos and followed. They didn't take any chances with Featherston's health. He wondered if the Party could win without him. Maybe-with times as hard as they were now, people were panting to throw the Whigs out on their ear. But he didn't want anybody to have to find out. He'd waited too long. Now his hour was come round at last. He intended to stay right here and enjoy it.

  Huts and tents huddled in the shadows of the statues of George Washington and Albert Sidney Johnsto
n. They would have lapped up against the Confederate Capitol, too, had a barbed-wire perimeter patrolled by soldiers not held them at bay. Men in wrinkled, colorless clothes smoked pipes and cigarettes. Women gossiped or hung up washing on lines that stretched from one makeshift dwelling place to another. Children scampered here and there. In a football game, a boy threw a forward pass. That was a Yankee innovation, but it had conquered the Confederate States.

  Joyner ignored the football. "Shame and a disgrace when you've got to use wire to keep the people away from the politicians," he said. "I saw thinner belts than that when I was in the trenches."

  "I know. I was thinking the same thing," Featherston said. "Well, we'll set that to rights, too. A little more than a year before the next Inauguration Day." The United States had moved up the date from March 4; the Confederate States, always more conservative, hadn't. Jake didn't care one way or the other. He had good guards. He figured he would last.

  "Where now, Sarge?" the chauffeur asked him when they'd gone around the square.

  "Now back to headquarters," Jake answered. "I hope Ferd's still there. I've got something I need to talk to him about." One of the reasons he hadn't wanted to go straight back was that he didn't want to talk with Ferdinand Koenig. He had to. He knew it. But he didn't want to. He'd known Koenig since 1917. The other man had backed every play he made, backed it to the hilt. Without Ferdinand Koenig, the Freedom Party probably would have been stillborn. This wasn't going to be easy.

  Koenig was not only there, he was waiting in the entranceway when Featherston came in. "Good speech, Jake," he said. "It's getting ripe, isn't it? You can feel it there, ready for you to reach out and pick it."