the street rolled over him. He drank it in. He liked his whiskey as well as the next fellow, but the intoxication of a crowd took him higher and didn't leave him with a headache the next morning.
He held up his hands. Not everybody who was cheering had Party discipline; the noise took longer than it should have to die away. When it did, he went on, 'The truth is, we're going to make this country work again, and we're going to make it work better than it ever did before. We're going to dam the big rivers and keep them from flooding the way they did seven years ago. We're going to use the electricity from the dams for people's houses-the houses of honest people, working people, white people-and for factories that will make all the things we need, and make 'em cheap enough so folks can afford 'em.'
More applause. Again, it faded more slowly than it might have. Once it did, he continued, 'And it's high time we show the USA that the Confederate States are a country that works, too. It's time we stand up straight again and look the United States in the eye and say, 'We've got a few things to talk about.' We haven't been able to do that yet, even though the war's been over for a long time. We haven't been strong enough. We will be, though.'
This time, the rapturous shouts from the crowd were the older Party cry: 'Freedom! Freedom! Freedom!' They were deeper and fiercer than those that had gone before, with more men and fewer women joining in. Even the generals in their gleaming uniforms looked intrigued. What's this, boys? You think I'll put my toys in your hands? In the quiet of his own mind, Jake laughed out loud. You're fools, too. You're worse fools than that stinking McReynolds, only you're too dumb to know it.
He kept the inaugural address short and sweet. That was best for the wireless web and for the crowd there in person. After the speech came the parade, for the crowd and for the newsreel cameras. An Army marching band began it. Behind the band strutted a crack regiment in dress uniform.
And behind that one regiment came formation after formation of Freedom Party men from every state in the CSA: stalwarts in white shirts and butternut trousers, smaller units of guards in those almost military uniforms. Some bands of stalwarts simply marched. Some carried truncheons. Like the Army regiment, the Freedom Party guards carried rifles, and they plainly knew what to do with them.
'Look at the generals,' Jake whispered to Ferdinand Koenig. 'Now they're seeing what we've got, and and they want it for themselves.'
Scorn filled Koenig's voice: 'Not likely.'
'Oh, hell no,' Featherston said. 'All that there'-he pointed to the parade-'that's ours. We made it, and we'll use it. I know just how, too. By God, you'd better believe I do.'
