Joe Steele by Harry Turtledove

it looked as if he was going to lose? Was anybody who did something like that fit to lead the land of the free and the home of the brave?
    The problem was, most people didn’t want to believe it. Easier to think Roosevelt died in some sad accident. Then you wouldn’t have to wonder about yourself when you voted to toss Herbert Hoover on the rubbish heap of the past. And people had voted that way. Joe Steele got one of the biggest wins in the history of the USA, the kind of win that would change politics for years to come.
    It would unless people decided Joe Steele was a murderer, anyway. Would they impeach him and throw him out of office? Or would they just not reelect him? But that would bring back the Republicans. Wasn’t the cure worse than the disease? Wouldn’t most people think it was?
    So they went by on the other side of the road. They turned their eyes away from the burnt bodies in the ditch. Pharisees, the lot of ’em.
I’ll show them what Joe Steele did
, Mike thought.
I’ll show them whether they want to see it or not.

V
    During the special session, Joe Steele fed bills to the leaders of the House and Senate one after another. After the brief pause at nationalizing the banks, those bills went through, lickety-split—the advantage of winning an election by a landslide, and the advantage of putting the fear of God (or at least of embarrassment) into Representatives and Senators. More new laws regulated Wall Street. They tried to make sure financiers’ foibles didn’t send the economy crashing down in ruins again. Bills regulating banks did their best to keep the bankers from lending money they didn’t have.
    Charlie Sullivan got calluses on the tips of his index fingers banging out stories about the start of the President’s Four Year Plan. He had plenty to write about. Every day, Joe Steele seemed to sign a bill that would have been a good year’s work in ordinary times. On a lively day, he’d sign two or three bills like that.
    The country’s never going to be the same
seemed to be the theme of the special session. Bills regulated what management could do to labor. More bills set out how labor could and couldn’t dicker with management. There were massive public-works programs. Roads, canals, tunnels, airstrips . . . Joe Steele had swarms of hungry men—and not a few hungry women—eager to dig in with a shovel or swing a pick in exchange for three square meals, a place to sleep, and a little cash in their pockets now and then.
    Foreclosures and dust storms meant big stretches of farmland in theMidwest lay idle. Joe Steele’s bill set up community farms on abandoned land. People lived on the land together, worked it all together, and shared whatever they got from the crops they raised. The Republicans asked how that was any different from what was going on in Russia.
    Joe Steele went on the radio to answer them. “Some people would rather keep the country hungry and farmers out of work,” he said. “If you want to see food on the table and men proud of what they do, let your Senators and Representatives know about it.” The people who listened to him must have done that, because the farm bill passed with all the others.
    After it did, Charlie took a few days off so he could go back up to New York and marry Esther Polgar. Mike was his best man. At the reception, Mike asked him, “Do you really like that SOB so much? I swear to God, he murdered Roosevelt to get the nomination.”
    â€œIf you can prove it, I’ll worry about it then,” Charlie answered. “In the meantime, he’s doing the country good. People have hope again. When Hoover was sitting there twiddling his thumbs, everybody just wanted to lay down and die.”
    â€œLie down,” Mike said automatically.
    Charlie thumbed his nose at him. “You didn’t put on that monkey suit to be my copy editor.”
    Mike laughed, but