President Custer? There was an idea to make any man who didn't believe things could have been worse for the United States think twice. Even though it hadn't happened-and probably hadn't been so close to happening as Custer asserted now, thirty-two years after the fact-contemplating it was enough to make Dowling…
"Are you well, Major?" Libbie Custer asked sharply. "You look dyspeptic. Maybe the general should send this wench Cornelia over to your quarters to cook for you and bring you back up to snuff."
"I'm sure that won't be necessary, dear," Custer said. "Anyone can see that the good Major Dowling is not off his feed." He chuckled.
Libbie Custer glared at him because he refused to remove the attractive housekeeper from his not very attractive house. Dowling glared at him because he'd called him fat. Dowling knew he was fat. He didn't appreciate being reminded of it.
Oblivious to having angered both people with whom he was conversing, Custer went on, "Now we shall just have to wait until after the seventh. If God be kind, both Senator Debs and this ignorant, vicious Hamburger woman will get the drubbing they so richly deserve. And if the Lord should choose to inflict Debs on us because of our many sins, we shall still have four months in which to redeem ourselves."
Dowling sighed. Agreeing with Custer on anything, even a matter of politics, tempted him to take another look to make sure he wasn't wrong. He hadn't dreamt anything might incline him toward Socialism, but if Custer loathed it, it had to have its good points.
Somebody knocked on the door of Socialist Party headquarters. "Another Western Union boy!" Herman Bruck shouted over the election-night din that filled the place.
Flora Hamburger happened to be standing close to the door. "I'll get it," she said. Opening the door for a moment would let a little of the tobacco smoke hazing the atmosphere escape. Her own father's pipe was but one among a great many sources of that smoke, as he and the rest of the family had come down with her to learn whether she would be going to Philadelphia when the new Congress convened in January.
But it wasn't another messenger with a fistful of telegrams standing out there in the hall. It was Max Fleischmann, the butcher from downstairs. He carried a tray covered with brown paper. "You people will be hungry," he said. "I've brought up some salami, some bologna, some sausages…"
"You didn't have to do that, Mr. Fleischmann. You didn't have to do that at all. You're a Democrat, for heaven's sake."
"You people-and especially you, Miss Hamburger-you don't let politics get in the way of beings friends," the butcher said. "This is the least I can do to show you I feel the same way."
After that, Flora didn't see what she could do but take the tray. "This is very kind of you," she told the old man, "and if more people felt the way you do, the United States would be a better place to live."
"Getting rid of those Soldiers' Circle goons would be a good start," Fleischmann said. "Well, I hope you win, even if you're not from my party. What do you think of that?"
"I hope I win, too," Flora blurted, which made the butcher smile. He bobbed his head to her and went back downstairs.
She put the tray on a desk near the door. People descended on it as if they hadn't already demolished a spread of cold cuts and pickles and eggs and bread that would have done justice to the free-lunch counter at a fancy saloon. Everyone was eating as if there would be no tomorrow.
Someone else knocked on the door. This time, Maria Tresca got it. This time, it was a Western Union messenger. She took the sheaf of flimsy envelopes from him. "New returns!" she shouted. "I have new returns!" Something approaching silence fell.
She started opening envelopes. "Debs leading by seven thousand in Wyoming," she said, and a cheer went up. "The Socialist there is going back to Congress, too, it looks like." Another cheer. She opened a new telegram, and her face fell. "Roosevelt ahead by ten thousand in Dakota."
Groans replaced the applause. Dakota had voted Socialist most of the time since being admitted to the United States. Herman Bruck let out a long sigh and said the thing most of the people in the room had been thinking for some time: "We aren't going to elect a president this year. The people are too mystified to put aside the war."
A few party workers called out protests, but most only nodded, as when a doctor delivers a diagnosis grim but expected. "We carried New York," three people said at the same time, as if that were a consolation prize.
"We aren't carrying any of the other big states, though," Bruck said, looking at a map of the USA. "And, now that the returns from west of the Mississippi are coming in, it doesn't look like we're going to carry enough of the Midwest and the West to make up for that."
"Foolishness," Flora said. She'd been saying the same thing since the beginning of the war. For the life of her, she didn't understand why more people didn't feel the same way. "If you have a mine that doesn't give you any gold, why spend more money on it?"
Along with everyone else in the room, her mother and father, both sisters, and the younger of her two brothers nodded at that. She wished David Hamburger had been there to nod, too. But he was down in Virginia now. That filled Flora with dread. Yossel Reisen had gone down to fight in Virginia, too, and never came back. His little son slept in Sophie's arms.
A telephone rang. Herman Bruck picked it up. He scribbled numbers on a piece of foolscap, then hung up. "New returns from City Hall," he announced in a loud, important voice, cutting off Maria's reading of results from farther away. "Latest returns for our district…Miller, 6,482; Hamburger, 7,912. That's the biggest lead we've had tonight."
Howls of glee filled the air. Benjamin Hamburger's pipe sent up smoke signals. He looked over at Flora, smiling broadly around the pipe. "This is a fine country. Never doubt it for a minute. This is a fine country," he said. "I came here with the clothes on my back and not a thing more, and now I have not a son but a daughter-a daughter, mind you!-in the Congress of the United States." More cheers rose.
"Angelina would be proud of you," Maria Tresca said quietly. She added, "And if the results hold, you can keep your brother out of any danger."
"I can, can't I?" Flora said in some surprise. The War Department would likely pay attention to the wishes of any member of Congress, even a young woman from the opposition. The War Department might even pay special attention to her wishes, in the hope that, by doing as she wanted, it could influence her vote on matters pertaining to the war.
And, in making that calculation, the War Department might prove right. All at once, leading by fifteen hundred votes, Flora contemplated the differences between running for office and being in office. The Socialists down in Philadelphia often compromised on issues Party regulars back home would sooner have seen fought to a finish. They'd compromised on war credits back in the summer of 1914, and Flora was far from the only one who wished they hadn't.
Now came her turn in the barrel. Would she have to make deals with the Democratic majority? Could the Socialists and the few surviving Republicans do anything to slow down Teddy Roosevelt's juggernaut?
Then she asked herself another question: if she used her Congressional office to protect David, wasn't she taking for herself one of the privileges of the elite that Socialists from Maine to California decried? But if she didn't do what she could to keep her brother out of harm's way and something (God forbid!) happened to him, how could she ever look at herself again? Was her ideology more important, or her family?