American Empire: Blood and Iron - By Harry Turtledove Page 0,6

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“Now,” she muttered as she picked up the telephone and waited for the operator to come on the line, “is he calling about Party business or…something else?”

“Hello, Flora,” Blackford said when the call went through. “I just wanted to know if you had seen the newspaper stories about strikes in Ohio and Indiana and Illinois.”

Party business, then. “I’m afraid I haven’t,” Flora said. “I just got back from visiting David.”

“How is he?” Blackford asked.

“They’ve fitted the artificial leg, and he was up on it.” Flora shook her head, though Blackford couldn’t see that. “Even with one leg gone, he talks like a Democrat.” She inked a pen and slid a piece of paper in front of her so she could take notes. “Now tell me about these strikes.”

“From what I’ve read, factory owners are trying to hold down wages by pitting workers against each other,” he said. “With soldiers starting to come home from the war, they have more people wanting jobs than there are jobs to give, so they’re seeing who will work for the lowest pay.”

“That sounds like capitalists,” Flora said with a frown. A moment later, she brightened. “It also sounds like a political opportunity for us. If the factory owners keep doing things like that—and they probably will—they’ll radicalize the workers, and they’ll do a better job of it than we ever could.”

“I happen to know we’ve urged the strikers to stay as peaceful as they can, unless the bosses turn goons loose on them or their state governments or the U.S. government move troops against them,” Blackford said.

“Good.” Flora nodded. Blackford couldn’t see that, either, but she didn’t care. Something he’d said touched off another thought. “Has Roosevelt made any statement about this yet?”

“One of the wire reports quotes him as calling the factory owners a pack of greedy fools,” the Congressman from Dakota said, “but it doesn’t say he’ll do anything to make them stop playing games with people’s lives.”

“That sounds like him,” Flora said. “He talks about a square deal for the workers, but he doesn’t deliver. He delivered a war.”

“He delivered a victory,” Hosea Blackford corrected. “The country was starved for one. The country’s been starved for one for more than fifty years. You may not like that, but you can’t stick your head in the sand and pretend it isn’t so.”

“I don’t intend to do any such thing,” Flora said sharply. “The people were starved for a victory. I’ve seen as much, even with my own brother. But after a while they’ll discover they have the victory and they’re still starved and still maimed and still orphaned. And they’ll remember Teddy Roosevelt delivered that, too.”

Blackford’s silence was thoughtful. After a few seconds, he said, “You may very well be right.” He did his best to hold down the excitement in his voice, but she heard it. “If you are right, that would give us a fighting chance in the elections of 1918, and maybe even in 1920. A lot of people now are afraid we’ll be so badly swamped, the Democrats will have everything their own way everywhere.”

“A lot of things can happen between now and the Congressional elections,” she said. “Even more things can happen between now and 1920.”

“That’s true, too,” Blackford said. “But you’ve seen how many Socialists are wearing long faces these days. Even Senator Debs is looking gloomy. Maybe they should cheer up.”

“Maybe. The real trouble”—Flora took a deep breath—“is that we’ve never won a presidential election. We’ve never had a majority in either house of Congress. Too many people, I think, don’t really believe we ever can.”

“I’ve had doubts myself,” Blackford admitted. “Being permanently in the minority is hard to stomach sometimes, if you know what I mean.”

“Oh, yes,” Flora said quietly. “I’m Jewish, if you’ll remember.” On the Lower East Side in New York City, Jews were a majority. Everywhere else in the country, everywhere else in the world…permanently in the minority was as polite a way to put it as she’d ever heard.

She wondered if reminding Blackford she was Jewish would make him decide he wasn’t interested in her after all. She wondered if she wanted him to decide that. In many ways, her life would be simpler if he did. With a large family, though, she’d rarely known a simple life. Would she want it or know what to do with it if she had it?

The only thing Blackford said was, “Of course I remember. It means I have to eat crab cakes