Amerikan Eagle

A pause. “It began in occupied Paris, with a trade delegation led by the secretary of the Treasury, Morgenthau. Probably the smartest Cabinet officer Long’s got. He’s also done his best since the war to get more Jewish refugees here, with no success. Too much resistance from Congress and everybody else. Nobody wanted them here, competing for jobs and housing. But in Paris, Morgenthau and some businessmen came upon a train shipping French Jews out to the east. There was a confrontation, and the ranking SS officer said to Morgenthau, ‘Fine, you’re so concerned about the Jews, take them.’ Which is what he did. They got off the train and found their way here.”

Sam said, “The news I saw before I came here said Morgenthau couldn’t get any more Jews into the country. He’s been trying and trying.”

“Sure, publicly,” Hanson said. “But he and his friends in industry have been doing it secretly for years. All that stuff you hear on the radio or see in the newsreels about him fighting Congress is all a lie. He makes a fuss in public, while in private, he makes it happen.”

“How do they get here?”

Hanson said, “After England was defeated, the Germans took possession of one of the largest merchant fleets in the world. English ships, crewed by Germans and a few American overseers to make sure the Jews arrive here alive, bring them over. They land in military ports, so security is maintained.”

“That’s unbelievable,” Sam said.

“When you get right down to it, the Germans want the Jews out of Europe, by either expelling them or killing them,” Hanson explained. “Hell, even the guy running the SS, Himmler, said something like that in a book a year or two back, about sending all the Jews overseas. They’re only doing worse to them because they can’t ship them out easily.”

“But the expense…”

“Sam, the Germans are locked in a death struggle with the Soviets. Once the offer was made for us to take the Jews, what made sense to them? To use their army and their train systems to ship Jews to concentration camps out to the occupied east, or to use their army and their train systems to supply the eastern front against the Russians?”

“And the secretary of the Treasury went along with this?”

“Morgenthau eventually came up with the arrangement, as tough as it was. The Jews would come here secretly, not as refugees but as labor. The Nazis get their Jew-free Europe, and we get workers.”

“Slave labor, you mean.”

“They get paid.”

“A dollar a week!”

Hanson said, “Which is more than they got back in Europe. A few thousand came out here at first, to work in some copper pits in Montana, and it started succeeding. They’re hard workers, Sam, happy to be here and not there. They clear lumber, work in mines, quarries, and even some scientific facilities and shipbuilding. So money was made, and you know how President Long operates. He gets a kickback on everything, just like when he was governor. Donations were made to his campaign funds as well as the program grew.”

“Money? This is all for money?”

Hanson nodded. “Yes, money, as crass as that might sound. For Christ’s sake, this country is broke. It’s been broke for years—even with Long’s nutty wealth confiscation and redistribution plans and everything else, we’re broke. We’ve been in this Depression for over a decade. So the country needs money. These laborers make money for exports. Hard currency. Money we couldn’t get if those jobs went to the regular workforce at regular wages.”

“Why can’t the money be used to put people back to work?”

Hanson had a grim look on his face. “What’s worth more to Long and the Party? Free Americans working at real jobs, or Americans on the dole who have to sign a loyalty oath to get relief money, who’ll vote the right way when the time comes?”

“Sweet Jesus,” Sam muttered.

“Some of the money goes to other things as well. You’re a smart fellow, Sam. Look around your hometown, you’ll see where it goes.”

Sam didn’t know what Hanson was getting at, and then it came to him. The Navy Yard. The fleet expansion. The new buildings, cranes, docks…

“For the military? That’s it?”

“Mostly,” Hanson said. “But it goes to other places as well. Some relief. Road and bridge work. The President and his boys get their cut, as well as the Party. Sam, Long is a fat, drinking, whoring criminal who happens to be our President and will be our President for the foreseeable future. But the future has something else waiting for us, and it’s a man with a funny mustache and an army uniform. Once Hitler crushes Russia and takes a breath, he’s going to look across the Atlantic. Maybe his slant-eyed friends in Tokyo will look across the Pacific at the same time. So we need to be ready.”

“This summit deal coming up with Long and Hitler,” Sam said. “There’s more than just money being made. We’re going to get our aircraft and arms factories up and running so we can be ready down the line—is that it?”

Hanson said, “True. And these poor Jews, they’re our seed corn. Our way of funding what we can… and there’s the humanitarian side.”