He got on the train again the next day, to go back to the Alabama Correctional Camp (P). Newsboys shouted election results. "Freedom Party claims vetoproof majority in both houses of Congress!" was one cry.
Conscious of a job well done, Jeff bought a paper. He read it as the train rumbled south from Birmingham. Then he let it fall to the floor and dozed: no, he didn't sleep well in his own bed any more.
He got rudely awakened just before the train pulled into Montgomery. He came within inches of getting killed. A bullet blew out the window by his seat, cracking past his head and spraying him with broken glass. More bullets stitched along the length of the car.
"Down! Get down, goddammit!" he shouted, and dove between his seat and the one in front. Quite a few of the men in the car-likely the ones who'd seen combat during the war-did the same thing. Like him, they knew machine-gun fire when they heard it. Screams and wails said some of the bullets hadn't missed-and that civilians were panicking. Before long, Pinkard's hands and knees were wet and sticky with someone's blood.
The last time anybody'd shot up a train in which he was riding, it had been Negro rebels when he was a private on his way to put down one of the Socialist republics the blacks had proclaimed in Georgia. Who was it this time? The country between Birmingham and Montgomery was full of farms and plantations… and the plantations were full of Negroes.
Coincidence? Or the start of a new uprising? Jeff didn't know-he had no way of knowing-but he muttered under his breath.
Flora Blackford didn't realize how much she'd missed the floor of Congress till she came back to Philadelphia. "Is it any wonder there is armed struggle against the Freedom Party in the Confederate States?" she demanded. "Is it any wonder at all, after the farce that went by the name of an election in that country two weeks ago?"
A Congressman-a Freedom Party Congressman-from Houston sprang to his feet. "How is that there election different from most of the ones y'all put on in what you call my state?"
He didn't want to be in the U.S. Congress at all. He would sooner have served in Richmond. "Excuse me, Mr. Mahon, but I have the floor," Flora said with icy courtesy. "May I go on?"
"That's right. Ride roughshod over me. You've been riding roughshod over my state-what you call my state-ever since you tore us bleeding from Texas and made us join the USA."
"Tell the lady, George!" That was another Freedom Party man from Houston. Two more Congressmen, these from Kentucky, began singing "Dixie." Neither they nor their constituents wanted to belong to the United States, either.
Bang! Bang! Bang! Congressman La Follette of Wisconsin, the speaker of the House, plied his gavel with gusto. "The gentlemen are out of order," he declared. "The gentlemen will observe the rules of the House. Mrs. Blackford has the floor."
"This body is out of order!" George Mahon shouted. "This whole damn country is out of order!" The Kentucky Congressmen sang louder than ever.
Bang! Bang! Bang! "That will be quite enough!" Charles La Follette declared. "The sergeant-at-arms will eject from this chamber any individual flouting the rules of the House. Is that clear?"
"It's clear, all right," Mahon said. "It's clear that even though our own people elected us, you don't want to let us tell you what they want." But he sat down after that, and the rowdy singing stopped. The Freedom Party Congressmen knew La Follette meant what he said. He'd ejected them before. Flora wasn't sure how much good that did, though. Getting thrown out of Congress only made them bigger heroes back home.
"You may continue, Mrs. Blackford," La Follette said wearily. "Without further interruption, I very much hope."
"Thank you, Mr. Speaker," Flora said. "I rose to call upon the administration to take stronger action against the Confederate States than it has done up until this time. President Hoover stayed silent in the wake of the riots-I might even say, the pogrom-aimed against the black residents of the CSA and does not appear to recognize their legitimate right to rise against oppression and brutality. He-"
"The distinguished Congresswoman from New York worries more about the Negroes of the Confederate States not because they are black but because they are Red," another Congressman broke in. "Most people in the United States worry very little about them for any reason."
He wasn't a Freedom Party man. He was a rock-ribbed Democrat from Maine. Speaker La Follette gaveled him to silence, too, but not with the vehemence he'd used against the Freedom Party buffoons. And, to her dismay, Flora saw heads nodding in agreement with what the New Englander had said. The United States had only a handful of Negroes. Border patrols stayed busy keeping would-be colored refugees out. The USA wanted no more blacks; if anything, most people would have been happier with none at all.
Stubbornly, she said, "They are human beings, too, Congressman, endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights, among those being life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness."
"Jefferson was a damned Virginian," the man from Maine sneered. "Give me Adams and Hamilton any day." More nods, these from all around the big room. Founding Fathers from states no longer in the USA had a low reputation north of the Mason-Dixon line these days, and had ever since the War of Secession.
"Do you deny, sir, that they are human beings?" Flora asked. "Do you deny that they possess those rights I named?"
"They are in a foreign country," the Congressman from Maine replied. "I deny that they are any business of the USA."
He got more nods, from fellow Democrats, from the handful of Republicans and Freedom Party men, and even from a few Socialists. To her dismay, Flora had seen that before. Socialists spoke on behalf of racial equality, but couldn't get too far ahead of the people who voted them into office. That was how they rationalized it, anyhow.
"Congressman Moran, would you say the same if these persecuted people were Irish?" Flora asked sweetly.
"Since they aren't Irish, the question does not apply." Moran was too smart to answer that one the way she asked it.
Because he was, she waited for Speaker La Follette to gavel down his interruption and then introduced her motion of censure against the Confederate States. She knew it would fail; the next motion passed censuring the Confederate States for the way they treated their Negroes would be the first. But she had to make the effort. It wasn't as if Jews didn't know pogroms, too. News out of Russia and the Kingdom of Poland (which bore about the same relationship to Germany as the Republic of Quebec did to the USA) wasn't good.
After the House adjourned, she went across the street to her office. A newsboy waving the Philadelphia Inquirer shouted, "Confederates ask to enlarge their army! Read all about it!"
"I certainly do want to read about that!" Flora exclaimed, and gave him a nickel. He handed her a paper, and smiled broadly when she didn't wait for change.
She spread the Inquirer out on her desk. That was the lead headline, all right. She zoomed through the story. President Featherston, apparently, had requested permission to boost the Confederate Army to a size significantly larger than that allowed by the treaty ending the Great War. Featherston was quoted as saying, "These soldiers will be used only for internal defense. We have uprisings against the lawful authority of our government in several states, and need the extra manpower to put them down."
Hoover hadn't said yes and hadn't said no. A Powel House spokesman had said the president of the United States would give the request serious consideration. Flora wondered what he would do. As a Democrat, he would normally favor a hard line against the CSA. But, as a Democrat, he would also normally favor putting down uprisings of the proletariat, no matter how justified they might be.