Blue tide or roll tide
New
Alenco98
Not too sore, are you?
- Joined
- Oct 20, 2022
- Messages
- 270
- Likes received
- 10,435
Transcript: Emergency Oval Office Meeting – June 14, 1943
Participants:
President Franklin D. Roosevelt
Vice President Henry A. Wallace
Governor Eugene Talmadge of Georgia
Location: White House, Washington D.C.
Time: 8:45 PM
---
[BEGIN TRANSCRIPT]
ROOSEVELT:
(slamming hand on desk)
Goddammit, Eugene—have you seen the front page of The New York Times?! Le Monde?! Do you even know what they're calling us in Rome right now? "The Butchers of Savannah." That's what! You have singlehandedly ruined America's name in every capital from London to Canberra.
TALMADGE:
Mr. President, with all due respect, this didn't start with us. That consulate was harboring radicals, terrorists! They opened fire on our boys. They started it.
WALLACE:
Bull shit, Eugene. They were handing out passports, not weapons. It was the National Guard that opened fire on unarmed civilians. You slaughtered people in front of the goddamn Italian consulate! Do you have any idea how this looks?
TALMADGE:
They were harboring seditionists—Negro agitators, thugs, communists. It was a powder keg. They lit the match, not me.
ROOSEVELT:
You nailed a priest to a telephone pole, Eugene! You let mobs run wild through the streets like it was 1865. We have photos of priests cradling shot children, for God's sake! Do you have any concept of the damage you've done?
TALMADGE:
You're not pinning this all on Georgia, Franklin. Your damn State Department let those Italians set up shop in Savannah like it was a Roman colony. They were fanning the flames of rebellion. I won't apologize for defending my state.
WALLACE:
Defending it? By lynching men in broad daylight? By letting white mobs burn down half the Black side of Savannah? You turned a consulate into a charnel house! There are Black veterans—men who fought for this country—lying dead in the gutters.
ROOSEVELT:
And now we're getting telegrams from the Vatican! The Archbishop of New York is threatening to denounce the Democratic Party from the pulpit. You think the Irish and Italians in Boston and Chicago are going to vote for us now? You've sabotaged 1944.
TALMADGE:
You want to talk sabotage? How about Rome issuing passports to American Negroes? That's not diplomacy. That's infiltration. That's incitement!
WALLACE:
You don't get it, Eugene. The world has changed. The colonies are rising. Africa is watching. Harlem is watching. And Rome is offering a future that we won't. You've singlehandedly destroyed the fragile coalition we built because you couldn't keep your boys under control!
ROOSEVELT:
And now we're being dragged with you. I've got Churchill on the phone asking if we're slipping into fascism while Mussolini is handing out civil rights like they're candy! What the hell am I supposed to say?
TALMADGE:
Tell Churchill to worry about his own empire. We don't answer to Rome. Not now, not ever.
WALLACE:
Tell that to the corpses in Savannah.
ROOSEVELT:
Enough. God damn it, I should've put you on a leash a year ago. But now we're bleeding support in the North and losing it in the South. I have Catholic mayors threatening to break with us. Progressives walking out. Wallace's people are ready to bolt, and honestly, so am I.
WALLACE:
If we don't hold someone accountable, Franklin, the progressives will walk. And I don't know if I can stop them.
TALMADGE:
If you throw me under the bus, you'll lose the South.
ROOSEVELT:
If I don't, we'll lose everything. God help you, Eugene—you may have lit the match that burns this party to the ground.
[END TRANSCRIPT]
---------------------------------
Transcript: Emergency Cabinet Meeting – June 14, 1943
Location: White House, Cabinet Room, Washington D.C.
Time: 11:00 PM
Attendees:
President Franklin D. Roosevelt (FDR)
Secretary of State Cordell Hull
Attorney General Francis Biddle
Secretary of War Henry Stimson
FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover
Vice President Henry A. Wallace (briefly present)
Other senior advisers and military aides
---
[BEGIN TRANSCRIPT]
FDR:
(paces the room, voice heavy with frustration)
Gentlemen, we stand on the edge of a knife. Savannah has exposed the rot at the core of our nation—and it's bleeding out in plain sight. Photos of Black corpses in church clothes, priests nailed to poles, fires burning neighborhoods... And all while our allies in Europe are trying to build a new world order. This is the image we project? God help us.
We cannot allow this to continue. Not only is it a moral stain, it's a strategic disaster. I want the FBI to crush the Klan—root and branch. J. Edgar, I'm counting on you to shut down those cells, and fast. No more tolerance, no more turning a blind eye. This isn't a Southern problem; this is an American problem.
HOOVER:
(nods, grim)
Mr. President, I've already been moving on this quietly. We have informants in several chapters. But the Klan is deeply entrenched, especially in local law enforcement. It won't be easy.
FDR:
Easy? No. Necessary? Absolutely. We must break their back. If not, the violence will spread to cities in the North. The party's chances in '44 depend on it.
(turns to Secretary Hull)
Cordell, what about these Italian consulates? They're functioning like mini-embassies of Rome in our backyard. Offering citizenship to African Americans, openly defying our sovereignty. We've got mobs burning homes and lynching men in front of their doors. It's chaos.
HULL:
Mr. President, it's a diplomatic nightmare. The Italians have been careful to keep things just below open war. But public opinion is a powder keg, especially after Savannah. Closing the consulates would send a clear signal, but it risks escalating tensions with Rome.
FDR:
(voice rising)
We have to close them. We have to preserve peace here at home before it becomes a war abroad. I don't want another Rangoon or Kiev in the streets of Savannah. The consulates must be shuttered—tomorrow.
BIDDLE:
Mr. President, legally, we can revoke their privileges, citing incitement and interference in domestic affairs. It's a justified action.
FDR:
Good. Do it.
(paces again, rubbing his face tiredly)
I'm worried—no, terrified—about the party. The Catholics in the North, the progressives on the left, African Americans who see Rome as a beacon, and the Southern Democrats clinging to their old ways. We are tearing ourselves apart. I'm the only thing holding this coalition together.
(pauses, voice dropping to a quiet resolve)
I'll run for a fourth term. I hate it, but I see no other way. No one else can hold the party together. Not in these fractured times. The nation needs a steady hand to secure a post-war peace, to rebuild our shattered world and to reclaim our standing.
But... the world is watching, and they're judging. Mussolini—that bastard—he has outplayed us. Declaring himself Emperor Constantine XII, restoring the Roman Empire, preaching civil rights and decolonization while we bicker over lynchings and consulates. Rome has stolen the moral high ground from us.
It's brilliant, and it's infuriating.
STIMSON:
His gambit in Africa and the American South is shrewd, but fragile. The new Empire lacks the economic and military strength to hold it for long. We must focus on winning the war and shaping the post-war order.
FDR:
Exactly. But that means winning back our narrative. We have to act fast, decisively, or this moment will define us—not the New Deal, not the war effort, but Savannah and the broken promise of America.
HOOVER:
If I may, Mr. President, taking down the Klan will send a strong message domestically and internationally. But it must be thorough. Half-measures will only embolden extremists.
FDR:
Do whatever it takes, J. Edgar. And make no mistake, I'll be watching. We cannot allow this country to be divided by hate—not while the world looks to us for leadership.
(leans forward, voice low but fierce)
Gentlemen, the stakes have never been higher. We are fighting for more than victory overseas—we are fighting for the soul of this nation. And I intend to see that fight through to the end.
---
[END TRANSCRIPT]
-------------------------
Transcript: Democratic Party Emergency Leadership Meeting
Date: June 15, 1943
Location: Roosevelt Room, The White House
Time: 3:00 PM
Attendees:
President Franklin D. Roosevelt
Vice President Henry A. Wallace
Senator Robert Wagner (NY) – Labor wing
Senator Alben Barkley (KY) – Majority Leader
Representative Sam Rayburn (TX) – Speaker of the House
Senator Theodore Bilbo (MS) – Southern wing
Senator James Byrnes (SC) – Southern moderate
Senator Claude Pepper (FL) – Progressive
Senator Harry S. Truman (MO) – Seen as a compromise figure
Democratic Party strategists and aides
---
[BEGIN TRANSCRIPT]
FDR:
(seated, hands folded, unusually grim tone)
Gentlemen, I won't waste time. Savannah changed everything. We're bleeding—morally, politically, internationally. The Roman Empire is back, and it's wearing the cloak of anti-racism, civil rights, and decolonization. And what are we offering? Lynchings in the streets of Georgia.
We're being outflanked—by Mussolini, of all people.
(murmurs ripple across the room)
If we don't come together now, we lose the White House, we lose Congress, and mark my words—we lose the New Deal and segregation. The Republicans won't stop at busting unions. They'll burn both ends of the house down if they take over. The only chance we have is unity.
(leans forward)
I'm telling you all now—I'm going to run again in '44. I don't want to. God knows I don't have the strength. But there's no one else who can hold this damned party together.
(glances toward Wallace)
We're going to have to make changes. Serious ones. We will move on civil rights—not for votes, not for optics, but because the world is watching. Mussolini is handing passports to Black Americans while we let them get lynched outside a consulate. If we don't do something, our credibility is gone. Forever.
WAGNER:
Mr. President, I agree entirely. Labor's with you. We've been pushing for anti-lynching legislation for years, and now we have the moment. But the Southern boys—
BILBO:
(slamming the table)
The Southern boys aren't going to be sold out to Mussolini's moral sermonizing! You want to hand the government over to the NAACP and call it progress? You want Federal troops in our towns?
WALLACE:
(cold, furious)
Maybe if Southern towns stopped acting like fascist colonies, the President wouldn't have to consider it.
BILBO:
You watch your tongue, Henry. You talk about fascism, but you're backing one in Washington!
WALLACE:
You're calling me a fascist while defending lynch mobs! You are the reason Black Americans are turning to foreign powers for dignity and protection!
FDR:
(banging his cane on the floor)
Enough! ENOUGH!
(room falls silent)
If you think I'll sit here and watch this party tear itself apart while the world burns, you are out of your minds. You want to fight? Fine. But if you don't shut up and listen, I swear to God I'll resign tomorrow and leave you bastards to choke on Dewey's dust in '44.
(all stunned into silence)
You want to keep the South? Fine. We give them someone they can stomach. Wallace, you've been loyal, but you know as well as I do you are poison to the Southern vote now.
WALLACE:
(visibly shaken)
So that's it. I've spent my life building a better America, and you're trading it away like chips at a card game?
FDR:
No, Henry. I'm buying time. Without time, we get nothing. No labor reforms. No integration. No victory. No world peace. Nothing.
I propose we run with a compromise. A moderate. Someone they can live with—someone who won't excite the mobs but won't drag us into the swamp either.
BYRNES:
Who do you have in mind?
FDR:
Harry Truman.
TRUMAN:
(startled)
Me?
FDR:
Yes. You're labor-friendly, no firebrand, and Southern enough for the Dixiecrats. You're clean, respected, and dull enough to avoid headlines. Which is what we need now.
RAYBURN:
(grumbling)
It could work. He's Missouri. Border state. Not Deep South, not New York. He's a bridge.
BILBO:
I don't like it. But it's better than Wallace.
WALLACE:
This is a betrayal! You're throwing away the progressives to appease those damn racists in the south!
FDR:
I'm not throwing them away goddamn it! If we don't do it, we'll all regret it when Mussolini's "Roman civil rights empire" is welcoming American refugees with olive branches and we're left explaining why we shot priests and mothers in the street.
(long silence)
FDR:
This is the deal: we put Truman on the ticket. We move on civil rights—quietly, incrementally, but firmly. We shut down the damn Klan. We close the consulates. And we take back the moral high ground from that son of a bitch in Rome.
Take it or leave it. But this is the only path forward.
WALLACE:
(rising to his feet, voice sharp, eyes blazing)
You want to run with Truman? Fine. But I won't be part of it. And don't think I'll go quietly. The progressive wing of this party will walk with me. I'll take every labor leader, every farmer, every Black voter who still believes in this country's promise—and we'll bury this party before we let it sell its soul to Dixie.
BILBO:
(grinning smugly)
Let 'em walk. Maybe then we'll have a party that actually represents the South again.
WALLACE:
(turning on Bilbo)
We're not the ones who killed negroes because we don't like them being next to white people! The whole world saw what your ilk did in Savannah. You're a walking gift to fascism. If we let you keep setting the rules, we don't deserve to win.
FDR:
(roaring now, slamming his fist into the table, voice like thunder)
HENRY. Sit. Down damn it!
(Wallace freezes. The room goes quiet. FDR's face is red, his breathing heavy.)
You think I want this? You think I enjoy playing goddamned puppeteer? But this isn't about you, or your pride, or the south's! This is about survival. Of the New Deal. Of the labor movement. Of democracy.
You walk—and the Republicans will annihilate us. They'll repeal every reform we've fought for since '33. Social Security? Dead. WPA? Gone. Union protections? Gone. Housing, banking, regulation? Dead. And in their place? Taft, Hoover, and a thousand little fascists with American flags in one hand and Wall Street checks in the other.
You think Dewey gives a damn about civil rights? You think he'll do a damn thing for the poor, the Black man, the farmer, or the working mother? He'll smile and gut everything we built while patting you on the head.
(points a finger directly at Wallace)
You want to walk out? You want to split this party and hand the country over to the bankers and Taft? Be my guest. But don't pretend it's moral. It's not. It's surrender dressed up in principle.
WALLACE:
(teeth clenched, voice lower but angrier)
You're choosing appeasement. You're choosing comfort over courage.
FDR:
I'm choosing victory. And the chance to live and fight another day. This is chess, Henry, not a sermon.
TRUMAN:
(quietly)
Look, I don't want to be the wedge here. If it's going to split the party, maybe I'm not the right—
FDR:
No, Harry. You're exactly right. Because you won't split it. You'll hold it—barely—but just enough to win. That's all we need.
(long silence. Everyone is drained, except Roosevelt, who still burns with controlled rage.)
FDR (cont'd):
This is the deal. We run with Truman. We move on civil rights. We take the hit now to keep the future intact. We fight Mussolini's narrative not with purity, but with progress. Inch by inch.
Because the world is watching. And history will remember what we chose to do now.
(No one speaks. Even Wallace stays seated, seething but quiet. One by one, heads begin to nod. Slowly, bitterly—but they nod.)
[END TRANSCRIPT]
Participants:
President Franklin D. Roosevelt
Vice President Henry A. Wallace
Governor Eugene Talmadge of Georgia
Location: White House, Washington D.C.
Time: 8:45 PM
---
[BEGIN TRANSCRIPT]
ROOSEVELT:
(slamming hand on desk)
Goddammit, Eugene—have you seen the front page of The New York Times?! Le Monde?! Do you even know what they're calling us in Rome right now? "The Butchers of Savannah." That's what! You have singlehandedly ruined America's name in every capital from London to Canberra.
TALMADGE:
Mr. President, with all due respect, this didn't start with us. That consulate was harboring radicals, terrorists! They opened fire on our boys. They started it.
WALLACE:
Bull shit, Eugene. They were handing out passports, not weapons. It was the National Guard that opened fire on unarmed civilians. You slaughtered people in front of the goddamn Italian consulate! Do you have any idea how this looks?
TALMADGE:
They were harboring seditionists—Negro agitators, thugs, communists. It was a powder keg. They lit the match, not me.
ROOSEVELT:
You nailed a priest to a telephone pole, Eugene! You let mobs run wild through the streets like it was 1865. We have photos of priests cradling shot children, for God's sake! Do you have any concept of the damage you've done?
TALMADGE:
You're not pinning this all on Georgia, Franklin. Your damn State Department let those Italians set up shop in Savannah like it was a Roman colony. They were fanning the flames of rebellion. I won't apologize for defending my state.
WALLACE:
Defending it? By lynching men in broad daylight? By letting white mobs burn down half the Black side of Savannah? You turned a consulate into a charnel house! There are Black veterans—men who fought for this country—lying dead in the gutters.
ROOSEVELT:
And now we're getting telegrams from the Vatican! The Archbishop of New York is threatening to denounce the Democratic Party from the pulpit. You think the Irish and Italians in Boston and Chicago are going to vote for us now? You've sabotaged 1944.
TALMADGE:
You want to talk sabotage? How about Rome issuing passports to American Negroes? That's not diplomacy. That's infiltration. That's incitement!
WALLACE:
You don't get it, Eugene. The world has changed. The colonies are rising. Africa is watching. Harlem is watching. And Rome is offering a future that we won't. You've singlehandedly destroyed the fragile coalition we built because you couldn't keep your boys under control!
ROOSEVELT:
And now we're being dragged with you. I've got Churchill on the phone asking if we're slipping into fascism while Mussolini is handing out civil rights like they're candy! What the hell am I supposed to say?
TALMADGE:
Tell Churchill to worry about his own empire. We don't answer to Rome. Not now, not ever.
WALLACE:
Tell that to the corpses in Savannah.
ROOSEVELT:
Enough. God damn it, I should've put you on a leash a year ago. But now we're bleeding support in the North and losing it in the South. I have Catholic mayors threatening to break with us. Progressives walking out. Wallace's people are ready to bolt, and honestly, so am I.
WALLACE:
If we don't hold someone accountable, Franklin, the progressives will walk. And I don't know if I can stop them.
TALMADGE:
If you throw me under the bus, you'll lose the South.
ROOSEVELT:
If I don't, we'll lose everything. God help you, Eugene—you may have lit the match that burns this party to the ground.
[END TRANSCRIPT]
---------------------------------
Transcript: Emergency Cabinet Meeting – June 14, 1943
Location: White House, Cabinet Room, Washington D.C.
Time: 11:00 PM
Attendees:
President Franklin D. Roosevelt (FDR)
Secretary of State Cordell Hull
Attorney General Francis Biddle
Secretary of War Henry Stimson
FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover
Vice President Henry A. Wallace (briefly present)
Other senior advisers and military aides
---
[BEGIN TRANSCRIPT]
FDR:
(paces the room, voice heavy with frustration)
Gentlemen, we stand on the edge of a knife. Savannah has exposed the rot at the core of our nation—and it's bleeding out in plain sight. Photos of Black corpses in church clothes, priests nailed to poles, fires burning neighborhoods... And all while our allies in Europe are trying to build a new world order. This is the image we project? God help us.
We cannot allow this to continue. Not only is it a moral stain, it's a strategic disaster. I want the FBI to crush the Klan—root and branch. J. Edgar, I'm counting on you to shut down those cells, and fast. No more tolerance, no more turning a blind eye. This isn't a Southern problem; this is an American problem.
HOOVER:
(nods, grim)
Mr. President, I've already been moving on this quietly. We have informants in several chapters. But the Klan is deeply entrenched, especially in local law enforcement. It won't be easy.
FDR:
Easy? No. Necessary? Absolutely. We must break their back. If not, the violence will spread to cities in the North. The party's chances in '44 depend on it.
(turns to Secretary Hull)
Cordell, what about these Italian consulates? They're functioning like mini-embassies of Rome in our backyard. Offering citizenship to African Americans, openly defying our sovereignty. We've got mobs burning homes and lynching men in front of their doors. It's chaos.
HULL:
Mr. President, it's a diplomatic nightmare. The Italians have been careful to keep things just below open war. But public opinion is a powder keg, especially after Savannah. Closing the consulates would send a clear signal, but it risks escalating tensions with Rome.
FDR:
(voice rising)
We have to close them. We have to preserve peace here at home before it becomes a war abroad. I don't want another Rangoon or Kiev in the streets of Savannah. The consulates must be shuttered—tomorrow.
BIDDLE:
Mr. President, legally, we can revoke their privileges, citing incitement and interference in domestic affairs. It's a justified action.
FDR:
Good. Do it.
(paces again, rubbing his face tiredly)
I'm worried—no, terrified—about the party. The Catholics in the North, the progressives on the left, African Americans who see Rome as a beacon, and the Southern Democrats clinging to their old ways. We are tearing ourselves apart. I'm the only thing holding this coalition together.
(pauses, voice dropping to a quiet resolve)
I'll run for a fourth term. I hate it, but I see no other way. No one else can hold the party together. Not in these fractured times. The nation needs a steady hand to secure a post-war peace, to rebuild our shattered world and to reclaim our standing.
But... the world is watching, and they're judging. Mussolini—that bastard—he has outplayed us. Declaring himself Emperor Constantine XII, restoring the Roman Empire, preaching civil rights and decolonization while we bicker over lynchings and consulates. Rome has stolen the moral high ground from us.
It's brilliant, and it's infuriating.
STIMSON:
His gambit in Africa and the American South is shrewd, but fragile. The new Empire lacks the economic and military strength to hold it for long. We must focus on winning the war and shaping the post-war order.
FDR:
Exactly. But that means winning back our narrative. We have to act fast, decisively, or this moment will define us—not the New Deal, not the war effort, but Savannah and the broken promise of America.
HOOVER:
If I may, Mr. President, taking down the Klan will send a strong message domestically and internationally. But it must be thorough. Half-measures will only embolden extremists.
FDR:
Do whatever it takes, J. Edgar. And make no mistake, I'll be watching. We cannot allow this country to be divided by hate—not while the world looks to us for leadership.
(leans forward, voice low but fierce)
Gentlemen, the stakes have never been higher. We are fighting for more than victory overseas—we are fighting for the soul of this nation. And I intend to see that fight through to the end.
---
[END TRANSCRIPT]
-------------------------
Transcript: Democratic Party Emergency Leadership Meeting
Date: June 15, 1943
Location: Roosevelt Room, The White House
Time: 3:00 PM
Attendees:
President Franklin D. Roosevelt
Vice President Henry A. Wallace
Senator Robert Wagner (NY) – Labor wing
Senator Alben Barkley (KY) – Majority Leader
Representative Sam Rayburn (TX) – Speaker of the House
Senator Theodore Bilbo (MS) – Southern wing
Senator James Byrnes (SC) – Southern moderate
Senator Claude Pepper (FL) – Progressive
Senator Harry S. Truman (MO) – Seen as a compromise figure
Democratic Party strategists and aides
---
[BEGIN TRANSCRIPT]
FDR:
(seated, hands folded, unusually grim tone)
Gentlemen, I won't waste time. Savannah changed everything. We're bleeding—morally, politically, internationally. The Roman Empire is back, and it's wearing the cloak of anti-racism, civil rights, and decolonization. And what are we offering? Lynchings in the streets of Georgia.
We're being outflanked—by Mussolini, of all people.
(murmurs ripple across the room)
If we don't come together now, we lose the White House, we lose Congress, and mark my words—we lose the New Deal and segregation. The Republicans won't stop at busting unions. They'll burn both ends of the house down if they take over. The only chance we have is unity.
(leans forward)
I'm telling you all now—I'm going to run again in '44. I don't want to. God knows I don't have the strength. But there's no one else who can hold this damned party together.
(glances toward Wallace)
We're going to have to make changes. Serious ones. We will move on civil rights—not for votes, not for optics, but because the world is watching. Mussolini is handing passports to Black Americans while we let them get lynched outside a consulate. If we don't do something, our credibility is gone. Forever.
WAGNER:
Mr. President, I agree entirely. Labor's with you. We've been pushing for anti-lynching legislation for years, and now we have the moment. But the Southern boys—
BILBO:
(slamming the table)
The Southern boys aren't going to be sold out to Mussolini's moral sermonizing! You want to hand the government over to the NAACP and call it progress? You want Federal troops in our towns?
WALLACE:
(cold, furious)
Maybe if Southern towns stopped acting like fascist colonies, the President wouldn't have to consider it.
BILBO:
You watch your tongue, Henry. You talk about fascism, but you're backing one in Washington!
WALLACE:
You're calling me a fascist while defending lynch mobs! You are the reason Black Americans are turning to foreign powers for dignity and protection!
FDR:
(banging his cane on the floor)
Enough! ENOUGH!
(room falls silent)
If you think I'll sit here and watch this party tear itself apart while the world burns, you are out of your minds. You want to fight? Fine. But if you don't shut up and listen, I swear to God I'll resign tomorrow and leave you bastards to choke on Dewey's dust in '44.
(all stunned into silence)
You want to keep the South? Fine. We give them someone they can stomach. Wallace, you've been loyal, but you know as well as I do you are poison to the Southern vote now.
WALLACE:
(visibly shaken)
So that's it. I've spent my life building a better America, and you're trading it away like chips at a card game?
FDR:
No, Henry. I'm buying time. Without time, we get nothing. No labor reforms. No integration. No victory. No world peace. Nothing.
I propose we run with a compromise. A moderate. Someone they can live with—someone who won't excite the mobs but won't drag us into the swamp either.
BYRNES:
Who do you have in mind?
FDR:
Harry Truman.
TRUMAN:
(startled)
Me?
FDR:
Yes. You're labor-friendly, no firebrand, and Southern enough for the Dixiecrats. You're clean, respected, and dull enough to avoid headlines. Which is what we need now.
RAYBURN:
(grumbling)
It could work. He's Missouri. Border state. Not Deep South, not New York. He's a bridge.
BILBO:
I don't like it. But it's better than Wallace.
WALLACE:
This is a betrayal! You're throwing away the progressives to appease those damn racists in the south!
FDR:
I'm not throwing them away goddamn it! If we don't do it, we'll all regret it when Mussolini's "Roman civil rights empire" is welcoming American refugees with olive branches and we're left explaining why we shot priests and mothers in the street.
(long silence)
FDR:
This is the deal: we put Truman on the ticket. We move on civil rights—quietly, incrementally, but firmly. We shut down the damn Klan. We close the consulates. And we take back the moral high ground from that son of a bitch in Rome.
Take it or leave it. But this is the only path forward.
WALLACE:
(rising to his feet, voice sharp, eyes blazing)
You want to run with Truman? Fine. But I won't be part of it. And don't think I'll go quietly. The progressive wing of this party will walk with me. I'll take every labor leader, every farmer, every Black voter who still believes in this country's promise—and we'll bury this party before we let it sell its soul to Dixie.
BILBO:
(grinning smugly)
Let 'em walk. Maybe then we'll have a party that actually represents the South again.
WALLACE:
(turning on Bilbo)
We're not the ones who killed negroes because we don't like them being next to white people! The whole world saw what your ilk did in Savannah. You're a walking gift to fascism. If we let you keep setting the rules, we don't deserve to win.
FDR:
(roaring now, slamming his fist into the table, voice like thunder)
HENRY. Sit. Down damn it!
(Wallace freezes. The room goes quiet. FDR's face is red, his breathing heavy.)
You think I want this? You think I enjoy playing goddamned puppeteer? But this isn't about you, or your pride, or the south's! This is about survival. Of the New Deal. Of the labor movement. Of democracy.
You walk—and the Republicans will annihilate us. They'll repeal every reform we've fought for since '33. Social Security? Dead. WPA? Gone. Union protections? Gone. Housing, banking, regulation? Dead. And in their place? Taft, Hoover, and a thousand little fascists with American flags in one hand and Wall Street checks in the other.
You think Dewey gives a damn about civil rights? You think he'll do a damn thing for the poor, the Black man, the farmer, or the working mother? He'll smile and gut everything we built while patting you on the head.
(points a finger directly at Wallace)
You want to walk out? You want to split this party and hand the country over to the bankers and Taft? Be my guest. But don't pretend it's moral. It's not. It's surrender dressed up in principle.
WALLACE:
(teeth clenched, voice lower but angrier)
You're choosing appeasement. You're choosing comfort over courage.
FDR:
I'm choosing victory. And the chance to live and fight another day. This is chess, Henry, not a sermon.
TRUMAN:
(quietly)
Look, I don't want to be the wedge here. If it's going to split the party, maybe I'm not the right—
FDR:
No, Harry. You're exactly right. Because you won't split it. You'll hold it—barely—but just enough to win. That's all we need.
(long silence. Everyone is drained, except Roosevelt, who still burns with controlled rage.)
FDR (cont'd):
This is the deal. We run with Truman. We move on civil rights. We take the hit now to keep the future intact. We fight Mussolini's narrative not with purity, but with progress. Inch by inch.
Because the world is watching. And history will remember what we chose to do now.
(No one speaks. Even Wallace stays seated, seething but quiet. One by one, heads begin to nod. Slowly, bitterly—but they nod.)
[END TRANSCRIPT]
Last edited: