The Victorious opposition

Few cheers came from the crowds that lined the streets. Remembrance Day wasn't a holiday for cheers. But the crowds were thicker than on any Remembrance Day that Flora remembered since the euphoric one after the end of the Great War.

The parade rolled along Fifth Avenue: limousines, marching bands, veterans, clanking military hardware, and all. More people filled Central Park, where it ended. Spring made the air taste sweet and green. Wherever people weren't standing, robins and starlings hopped on the grass, digging up worms.

Strangely, the cheery birds made Flora sad. There are liable to be plenty of fat worms soon, she thought, because the bodies of our young men will feed them.

A temporary speaker's platform stood in the middle of a meadow now packed with people. Policemen-one tough Irish mug after another-kept a lane clear for the limousines. They pulled up behind the platform. Dignitaries got out and ascended. Flora took her place with the rest. The other women on the platform were there because they were wives. Flora had her place because of what she did, and she was proud of it.

Governor LaGuardia, a peppery little Socialist in an outsized fedora, called the German ambassador to the microphone. Hjalmar Horace Greeley Schacht spoke better, more elegant English than the governor. "We have been rivals, your country and mine, because we are both strong," he said. "The strong notice each other. They also draw the jealousy of the weak. Like you, we have neighbors who would like to bite our ankles." That patrician scorn drew a laugh. Schacht went on, "So long as we stand together, though, nothing can overcome us both." He got another big hand, and sat down.

The Austro-Hungarian envoy-his name was Schussnigg, Governor LaGuardia said-delivered a thickly accented speech that sounded ferocious but didn't make much sense. When he stepped away from the microphone, the applause he got seemed more relieved than anything else.

LaGuardia himself made a speech that called down fire and brimstone on the Democratic Party and the Confederate States in equal measure. Then he introduced the mayor of New York City, who was just as Italian as he was, and who ripped the Socialists and the Confederate States up one side and down the other. The two men glared at each other. Flora couldn't help laughing.

More speeches followed, some very partisan, others less so. Then Governor LaGuardia said, "And now, the former First Lady of the United States, New York City's favorite daughter, Congresswoman Flora Blackford!"

Flora stood up and strode to the microphone. A few cries of, "Blackford-burghs!" floated out of the crowd, but only a few. She hadn't expected not to hear them. If anything, she got less heckling than she'd looked for.

"I don't want to talk about political parties today," she said, and enough applause erupted to drown out the jeers. "I want to talk about what's facing the United States. It will be trouble. I don't see how it can be anything but trouble. The government now ruling the Confederate States does not respect the rights of its own people. That being so, how can we hope it will respect the rights of its neighbors?"

That got a big hand. She went on, "Many of you came to the United States or had parents who came to the United States to escape pogroms in Europe. And now we see pogroms in North America. Is a man any less a man because he has a dark skin? Jake Featherston thinks so. Is he right?"

This time, the applause was sparser, less comfortable. Again, Flora had thought it would be. She'd seen again and again that the plight of Negroes in the Confederate States did not get people in the United States hot and bothered. When people in the USA thought about Negroes, it was generally with relief that the vast majority of them were the CSA's worry.

That wasn't right. Flora drove the point home: "A lot of you have ancestors who came here because someone was persecuting them in Europe. Someone is persecuting the Negroes in the Confederate States right now, and we won't let them in. We turn them back. We shoot them if we have to. But we keep them out. And don't you see? That's wrong."

Now she got almost no applause. She would have been more disappointed if she were more surprised. "A lot of you don't care," she said. "You think, They're only niggers, and you go on about your business. And do you know what? That sound you hear from Richmond is Jake Featherston, laughing. If you don't care about a wrong to people in his country, he thinks you won't care about a wrong to people in your country, either. Is that so?"

"No!" She got the answer she wanted, but from perhaps a third of the throats that should have shouted it.

"I'm going to say one more thing, and then I'm through," she told the crowd. "If you say that oppression of anybody anywhere is all right, you say that oppression of everybody everywhere is all right. I don't think that's what the United States are all about. Do you?"

"No!" This time, the shout was louder. A lot of people clapped and cheered as she went back to her seat.

Governor LaGuardia introduced another member of Congress. The man, a Democrat, harangued the crowd about how good they were and how wicked the Confederates were. He said not a word about the Negroes in the Confederate States. To him, the Confederates were wicked for no other reason than that they presumed to challenge the people of the United States of America.

He told the people in Central Park what they wanted to hear. They ate it up. The park rang with cheers. Flora had done her best to tell the people the truth. They hadn't liked that nearly so well.

The dignitary sitting next to her leaned over and said, "I see why they call you the conscience of the Congress."

"Thank you," she whispered. Someone, at least, had understood.

Then he went on, "But really! To get excited about a bunch of niggers? Those black bastards-pardon my French, ma'am-aren't worth it. We'd all be better off if they were back in Africa swinging through the trees."

He was, she remembered with something approaching horror, a judge. "What do you do if one of them comes into your court?" she asked.

"Oh, I try to be fair," he answered. "You have to. But they're usually guilty. That's just how things go."

He didn't see anything wrong with what he said. The only way Flora could have let sense into his head would have been to bash it open with a rock. She knew that. She'd met the type before. If she did it here at a Remembrance Day rally, people would talk. Even telling him off was useless. He'd just get offended. She could talk till Doomsday without persuading him.

Sitting there quietly felt as much like a compromise with evil to her as letting the Confederates do what they wanted to the Negroes in their country. She made herself remember there were degrees of wickedness, as there were with anything else. If you couldn't tell the difference between one and another, how were you supposed to make choices?

You couldn't. She knew that, however distasteful she found it. The Confederates were worse than the judge. That still doesn't mean he's good, she thought defiantly. At the microphone, the Democratic Congressman kept on laying into the CSA. The crowd ate up every word.

When Jake Featherston told the people who protected him that he was going to make a speech in Louisville, they started having co

That last comment worried him, because he didn't think anyone else in the Confederacy had the driving will and energy to do what needed doing when the war started. But he stuck out his chin and told the Freedom Party guards, "I'm going, goddammit. You keep the people in Louisville from shooting me. That's your job. I'll worry about the rest. That's mine."