Malaise Years

Howard Washburne of Southern Vandalia.

The Malaise Years were a period in the history of the Confederation of North America between the Years of the Pygmies and the Diffusion Era. The period was characterized by growing alienation from the urbanized, industrialized civilization that had spread across the country since the Rocky Mountain War. This growing mood of alienation was transformed into a national protest movement by the Chapultepec Incident of January 1916. The protests reached a violent climax in the summer of 1922, leading to the proclamation of the Galloway Plan in December, which ushered in the Diffusion Era.

The Chapultepec Incident

The Hundred Day War of 1914 between France and the United States of Mexico set in motion a parallel chain of events in Mexico and the C.N.A. that left both countries drastically changed. In the course of a French invasion of Mexico, thousands of Negro slaves fled captivity to join the invaders. After the defeat of the French at the Battle of Chapultepec, the escaped slaves were recaptured. Rather than return the slaves to their former owners for whatever punishment they chose to administer, Mexican President Victoriano Consalus chose to put them on trial for treason.

The Chapultepec Treason Trials drew outraged reactions from around the world, but in the C.N.A. the opposition was particularly intense. Slavery had been abolished in the C.N.A. over seventy years earlier, and Negroes had been largely assimilated into North American society and political culture. The furore over the treason trials was most intense in the Confederation of Southern Vandalia, which shared a thousand-mile border with the U.S.M., had a Negro majority, and over the decades had been the recipient of tens of thousands of runaway Mexican slaves.

In January 1915, the Governor of Southern Vandalia, Howard Washburne, demanded the release of the imprisoned Mexican slaves. On 10 February he went further, calling for the abolition of slavery in the U.S.M. The people of Southern Vandalia rallied behind Washburne, and within a week he had formed an organization called Friends of Black Mexico to work for clemency for the imprisoned slaves and the abolition of Mexican slavery. Thirty-four members of the Grand Council's Liberal Party caucus signed a petition supporting the Washburne statement, and Washburne himself stepped down as governor to devote all his efforts to the F.B.M. In Mexico, Consalus ignored the growing international outrage, and the trials continued.

Chapultepec: 4 January 1916.

On 4 January 1916, the day before the Mexico Tribunal was due to deliver its verdict, a crowd of over 2,000 young people stormed the Federal Prison in Chapultepec and freed the imprisoned slaves, at a cost of 1,166 dead and over 4,000 injured. It was soon learned that at least 200 of the 549 attackers who had died during the incident were North American citizens. Consalus and North American Governor-General Albert Merriman of the People's Coalition held a series of telephone conversations that allowed them to defuse the war crisis caused by the incident. 10,970 North Americans in the U.S.M. had their passports revoked and were expelled from the country, and 232 of these were arrested by the Confederation Bureau of Investigation and charged with "actions injurious to the nation;" 154 were eventually convicted and sentenced to prison terms. The arrests provoked a series of demonstrations by the F.B.M. which in several cases became violent when the demonstrators clashed with anti-Negro counter-demonstrators.

The New Radicalism

The violence came as a shock to white North Americans who had assumed that the country's Negro population was satisfied with the status quo. In fact, the C.N.A. had dealt with the legacy of slavery by racially segregating itself. Negroes outside of Southern Vandalia suffered discrimination at the hands of business and government. The heads of the hundred largest businesses in the C.N.A. were all white, and few Negroes had been granted business loans by the National Financial Administration.

Matters came to a head in 1920. On 14 May the Mexican Congress passed a bill abolishing slavery. That evening, at a victory rally, Washburn announced that he was transforming the F.B.M. into a new organization, the League for Brotherhood, that aimed to end racial discrimination in the C.N.A. Washburn sought to widen the League's constituency and leadership by attracting other reformers. He succeeded, but at the cost of diluting the League's program, and losing control of the League.

Calvin Wagner of Indiana.

Many of the reformers who joined the League rejected capitalism and republicanism, and even rejected the industrialized civilization that Washburne sought to gain greater entry to, which they called "the suffocation of the cities and the horrors of the factory," and called for a return to "a more natural way of life." Through sheer weight of numbers, these radicals were able to take control of the League in late 1920. By the summer of 1921, the League numbered seven million members, most of them dissatisfied middle-class whites and intellectuals. By this time, the League had expanded its program to include the issues of foreign policy, federalism, the use of natural resources, and the role of the N.F.A. The political leaders of the C.N.A. did not know what to make of this great reformist wave. Governor-General Calvin Wagner, who had succeeded Merriman in 1918, once said that "This is a business century, and we are a business country." However, the new radicals had come to reject the values of that business civilization.

There were major riots across the C.N.A. in the summer of 1922, the worst since the economic and social chaos of the Bloody Eighties. Wagner attempted to rally the nation behind him, but only succeeded in antagonizing the new radicals and making his own supporters more militant. James Kilroy of the New York Herald said, "The faint aroma of Starkism has made its appearance, and both the opponents of our civilization and its supporters seem pleased by the possibility of its return." Although the C.N.A. continued to prosper, the feeling of moral decay that had first appeared in the wake of the Chapultepec Incident was becoming dangerous.

There was a large minority within the opposition Liberal Party that sought to gain the support of the new radicals, and who were willing to nominate Washburne as their candidate for governor-general in the upcoming Grand Countil elections. They were opposed by Chester Phipps, the Governor of the Southern Confederation, and the Liberal nominee for governor-general in the 1918 elections. Phipps stated in August 1922 that "Mr. Washburne is a saint. But saints are notoriously poor politicians." At the Liberals' nominating convention in December 1922, Phipps and his supporters were able to deny the nomination to Washburne, instead nominating Councilman Henderson Dewey of Indiana. The P.C., in their own convention that month, renominated Governor-General Wagner. Thus, both major parties rejected the new radicalism, leaving it with no political means to accomplish its objectives.

The Galloway Plan

Owen Galloway of Indiana.

The political situation in the C.N.A. changed literally overnight, following the Galloway Speech of 25 December. Owen Galloway the President of North American Motors, proposed a plan to defuse the growing antagonism within the country by subsidizing emigration within, and from, the C.N.A. "We are a nation of two societies, each with different values, ideals, and goals.... If two peoples cannot live together, they may better live apart." As Galloway and his siblings established the Galloway Trust to carry out his program, thousands of would-be emigrants flocked to its headquarters, and their sub-stations in every large city in the C.N.A., asking to be placed on the rolls. The new radicals welcomed the opportunity to "denude the nation of its most precious possession, it's people," and declared that "Galloway has done more to destroy this corrupt society than any man in history." The anti-urbanist groups were able to take advantage of the Galloway Plan to emigrate to the unpeopled wilderness of the Confederation of Manitoba, and overseas to underpopulated countries such as Australia, New Zealand, and Scandinavia. In this way, Galloway's program succeeded in averting the impending conflict.

Although both major parties had already nominated candidates for governor-general, a group of Councilmen in Indiana suggested in mid-January the formation of a "Galloway Coalition" of politicians pledging themselves to select Galloway as governor-general after the elections. Galloway himself firmly rejected the possibility, insisting, "Even if selected for the post, I will not serve in it." This ended the movement, but not Galloway's influence. Governor-General Wagner endorsed the Galloway Plan "and all it entails," while Councilman Dewey went further, promising to bring Galloway into the government if elected. Wagner responded by claiming support for "Mr. Galloway's future plans, of which I have been informed by none other than that gentleman himself." However, Galloway denied talking to Wagner in anything other than vague generalities.

Both candidates appeared regularly on vitavision, and Dewey cleverly took advantage of the new medium by speaking in generalities in the Galloway manner, consciously imitating Galloway's prose, his speaking style, and even his appearance. Without saying so, Dewey was able to give the impression that he was closer to Galloway than his opponent. Dewey's plan was successful, and on 16 February 1923 the Liberals won a majority in the Grand Council for the first time in 35 years. Once in office, Dewey was able to take advantage of the Galloway Plan to further his own political program of decentralizing power within the C.N.A. Between them, the Galloway Plan and Dewey's decentralization program ushered in the Diffusion Era.

Sources

Sobel's sources for the Malaise Years include Winslow McGregor's A Child Shall Lead Them: The Idiocy of Our Times (New York, 1921); Jeremy Slater's Essays of the Revolution (New York, 1921); James Chester's Washburn of the C.N.A. (London, 1928); Farley Shaw's Voices of the Great Protest (New York, 1930); Fritz Webern's The Dilemma of Our Times (New York, 1933); Harold Walker's The Chapultapec Affair: Doorway to Today (New York, 1958); Will Scott's The Power Behind the Throne: A History of the C.B.I. (New York, 1960); Montgomery Farmer's Making a New World (New York, 1966); and Wilton Harmaker's The Genesis of Twentieth Century North America (New York, 1970).

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