'As if further proof were needed, colored guerrilla fighters in the Confederate States have shown beyond the shadow of a doubt that courage is not a question of black and white. Without their brave efforts, our war against Jake Featherston's vicious tyranny would be even harder and more perilous than it is.
'No law prevents the enlistment and conscription of Negroes into the armed forces of the United States. We have relied on long-standing custom instead. I say to you that this custom will stand no longer. By its dreadful example, the Confederacy shows us how evil prejudice of any sort is. This being so, I have today issued an executive order forbidding discrimination on the basis of race in the recruitment, training, and promotion of all U.S. military forces.'
He paused there, perhaps wondering what kind of applause he would get. Flora clapped hard. So did almost all the Socialists and Republicans listening to President La Follette. And so did most of the Democrats in Congressional Hall. Flora was sure Robert Taft would have if a people bomb hadn't killed him; he was a conservative, yes, but one with a strong sense of justice. Only a few reactionaries, men who harked back to the days when their party dominated the states that became the CSA and the attitudes that went with those days, sat on their hands.
President La Follette beamed out at Congress. He must have got a better hand than he expected. Sounding relieved, he continued, 'Under the terms of the executive order, Negro men from the ages of eighteen to forty-eight will have sixty days to register for conscription at the center nearest their homes. Once registered, they will be selected at random on the same basis as whites-and, for that matter, on the same basis as Orientals and Indians. Failure to register within sixty days will lead to the same penalties for them as for anyone else who tries to evade conscription.'
Flora wouldn't have talked about penalties right after lifting the bar of discrimination. She didn't think Al Smith would have. Charlie La Follette didn't have such sure political instincts. If he did, he might have got elected on his own hook instead of being chosen to balance the Socialist ticket. Instincts or not, though, he was getting the job done.
If a bomb blew Jake Featherston to hell, how would the Confederate States fare under Don Partridge? As far as Flora could see, the Vice President of the CSA was a handsome, smiling, brainless twit. She suspected Featherston chose him as a running mate because he was a nobody: not a rival, not a threat. The previous Confederate Vice President had tried to murder his boss, and by all accounts damn near succeeded. Nonentities near the center of things were safer. As long as Jake Featherston survived, it didn't matter. His ferocious energy drove the CSA. But if he died…
Wishing he would made Flora miss a few words of President La Follette's speech. When she started paying attention again, he was saying, '…and 1944 is only two weeks away. It will be the fourth year of the war. But I pledge to you, people of the United States, it will also be the last! This is our year of victory!'
A great roar went up from the assembled Senators and Representatives. They sprang to their feet, clapping and cheering. No one hung back, not the most ardently revolutionary Socialists and not the most hidebound Democrats. The only alternative to beating Jake Featherston was losing to him, and he seemed to have gone out of his way to show the United States how horrid that would be.
'The birthday of the Prince of Peace is almost here,' La Follette said after the Congressmen and — women reluctantly took their seats again, 'and we shall have peace. That is my pledge to you. We shall have peace-and on our terms.'
He got another stormy round of applause. If the United States won the war by this coming November, he would get more than that: he likely would get elected President on his own hook. And he would have earned it, too.
Flora wondered whether he would threaten to rain a new destruction on the Confederate States if they didn't give up, the way the Kaiser had warned Britain and France. But he kept silent there. Thinking about it, Flora decided it made sense. Jake Featherston knew what the United States was working on. He was working on the same thing himself. If he got it first, he might win yet. Every U.S. bombing raid on the C.S. uranium project made that less likely, but you never could tell. The Confederacy's rockets warned that its scientists and engineers were not to be despised, even if its leaders were.
'North America must have peace,' was the way Charlie La Follette chose to finish. 'Four times now, during one long lifetime, war has ravaged our continent. It must never come again-never, I say! Before the War of Secession, the United States stood off England in the fight that gave us our national anthem and defeated Mexico to plant our flag on the Pacific coast. We dominated the continent, being the sole power at its heart. And, when this cruel war ends at last, we shall do the same again!'
There! He'd said it! That was probably more important than obliquely warning the Confederates about uranium bombs. Charlie La Follette had declared there would be no more Confederates, no more CSA, when the war was over. If he could go down in history as the Great Reuniter, wouldn't he make people forget about Abraham Lincoln and the way the United States fell to pieces during his luckless term in office?
Senators and Representatives contemplating the end of the Confederate States cheered even louder than they had before. It wasn't given to many men to be in at the birth of something wonderful. If you couldn't do that, being in at the death of something foul was almost as good.
Congressmen and — women crowded up to congratulate the President as he stepped down from the rostrum. Flora started to, but then changed her mind. Charlie La Follette would know how she felt. And she wanted to find out what Jake Featherston had to say about his opposite number's speech. She didn't think she would need to wait very long.
But when she got to her office, Bertha waved a message form at her. 'Mr. Roosevelt would like to see you as soon as you can see him, Congresswoman,' she said.
'Is he coming here, or does he want me to go to the War Department?' Flora asked.
'He called right when the President finished. When I told him I expected you back soon, he said he was on his way,' her secretary answered.
Roosevelt got there about fifteen minutes later. He wheeled himself into Flora's inner office and closed the door behind him. 'What's going on, Franklin?' she asked.
'Well, I'm afraid I have bad news, and I wanted you to hear it straight from me,' the Assistant Secretary of War said. 'The Confederates landed raiders in Washington State-we think by submersible-and they fired a good many mortar rounds at the uranium project.'
'Gevalt!' she exclaimed. 'How bad is it?'
'They did some damage, damn them. We're still trying to figure out just how much,' Roosevelt replied. 'Two or three mortar bombs hit one of the dormitories, too. We lost some talented people, and they won't be easy shoes to fill.'
'How close are we? Can we go on without them?'
Franklin Roosevelt shrugged broad shoulders. 'We have to. And we're getting very close. I don't know how much this will delay us. I'm not sure it'll delay us at all. But I'm not sure it won't, either.' He spread his hands. 'We just have to see.'
'What about the Confederate project? Are we delaying it?'
'If we're not, it isn't from lack of effort. That town will never be the same, and neither will that university. But they're burrowing like moles, putting as much as they can underground. That's delaying them all by itself. They haven't quit, though. I don't think that bastard Featherston knows what the word means.'
'They won't get another chance to do this to us. They've already had too many,' Flora said.
'Charlie made a good speech there,' Roosevelt agreed. 'I bet Jake Featherston's mad enough to spit rivets.'
'Shall we see?' Flora reached for the knob on her wireless set. Even after it warmed up, static stuttered and farted as she turned the tuner to a frequency Featherston often used. The USA and CSA kept jamming each other's stations as hard as they could. Richmond's main transmitter, though, punched through the jamming more often than not.
Sure enough, the Confederate President came on the air right away. 'I don't need to tell you the truth, on account of Charlie La Follette just did it for me,' Featherston snarled. 'The truth is, he aims to wipe the Confederate States clean off the map. Charlie La Follette thinks he's Abe Lincoln. Turned out Lincoln couldn't wipe us out. Old Charlie'll find out the hard way he can't, either. I know the Confederate people won't let the country down. They never have. They never will. And Charlie La Follette will hear from us real soon now. You bet he will. So long.'
