The American Experiment (Riot Quest)

On the Way to Britain

The ship creaked ominously in the night, prompting another round of grumbles from the passengers. Hiram looked around, glancing at faces he had become very familiar with. There were the formal delegates, from a half-dozen groups - the Society of Universal Suffrage, led by the famous white-haired Valkyrie, the Revolutionary Federation of American Anarchists, who practically dominated New York City, the All-Continential Union Association, proud as peacocks with their new name, and his own Forty Acre Movement, black men (and women, he made sure to add, hoping to avoid another lecture) who simply sought the liberty and prosperity they had been denied. And that was not even getting into the couple of gentlemen from organizations not formally part of the United Front, merely sharing some common interests.

It was a diverse and divided bunch. They argued about everything from how they would present themselves to their positions to where they should sleep in London for hours on end. And yet somehow, they had become odd sorts of friends, sitting with each other at mealtimes and snubbing the other passengers traveling to London for business or pleasure.

They still argued though, and sometimes these arguments were far worse. It stung to have Susanna, one of the delegates from the SUS, throw the shameful indiscretions he had admitted to her in his face. It clawed at his guts when he spat at Johnson of the ACUA, reminding him of how far his comrades had to go if he wanted those pasty-pale union organizers to support the black man in his struggle for freedom from the new slaver's yoke.

It made Hiram wonder what it would be like when they got to London. Part of what kept them together was simple hostility from the other passengers, who were mostly upper-crust sorts, the sort who only tolerated the existence of workers because they needed someone to extract profit from. There had been fights, those first days aboard, until fancy-pants bourgeoisie who had been in nothing more serious than a bar brawl found themselves trading punches with hard-bitten men and women who had broken their knuckles on the jaws of pigs and Leaguers.

He shrugged. He couldn't imagine they would simply fall into recriminations and petty fights over doctrine again. They might cease being friends, but they would still be comrades. And if things changed, they would. Years of organizing and struggling had taught him not to waste energy worrying about might-bes. Instead, he would try to get some sleep as their uncomfortable second-class quarters rocked and creaked in the storm.

As the next day dawned and faint rays of sunshine came in through the porthole, Hiram rose with a groan. His joints were aching far more than they had any right to, and his head felt stuffed with the cotton he had harvested as a child. He dressed clumsily, somehow managing to avoid colliding with his roommates this time, and they all stumbled out to get their breakfast. The other passengers in their section gave them nods of respect and plenty of space as they met with their comrades, who had spent the night in similar disarray if the grunts he heard and dark circles they saw were any indication.

He might find the ship loud, the sea air foul, and the journey dull, but he would admit the food was good. And perhaps more importantly on mornings like this, there was plenty of it. They filed through the line, filling bowls with porridge and adding a few drops of honey or cinnamon. And then they went to their table. It was all done in silence, the remnants of an argument from last night about the Appalachian Brotherhood and the historical role of the "poor white man" in the maintenance of the planter hegemony still hovering around them.

No one wanted to start it again, he could tell. No one had been convinced, and all that had resulted were bad feelings. Hopefully, they would stay in silence and no one would start to stir the pot for the sake of clarifying some meaningless point (he glared at Carl as he thought that).

And then, for some reason only known to the Lord Above, Carl started to open his mouth. Before any words could come out though, there was a sharp cough. Hiram spun around to find a pair of well-dressed men standing there, looking at everything with faint distaste. "Excuse me, good sirs and madams," one said, with a mid-Atlantic accent, and a tone so smug it made Hiram want to punch him.

Hiram spent the next several seconds whispering a prayer of gratitude that their tempers would get a chance to cool some more before Carl ruined everything again (fucking Carl). He had heard this same sort of speech often enough. Some smugly privileged fellow born with three silver spoons in his mouth would show up, insist he just wanted a conversation, attack you and mock you constantly, insist he was simply playing Devil's advocate...

But he could let his comrades handle it this time. Even Carl.

As the rich bastards insisted they simply wanted a civil debate and then started discussing phrenology, Susanna began to rip into them, attacking the validity of their sources, while Carl challenged them to any competition of wits they would like, unless of course, they were cowards. He sat down and began eating his porridge, watching with unabashed amusement as the bourgeoisie dogs lost total control of the conversation and were forced to retreat in disarray, cheeks burning red enough they could be used as flags.

And then Carl sat down and took a big scoop from his own bowl. Food in his mouth, he started to say "I think we should continue our earlier discussion."

"Don't talk with food in your mouth, Carl," Hiram told him.

And onward the ship sped towards London.


I am using this omake bonus to benefit the UF in London for the Internationale.

After Lessons

The bar was cool, dim, private, and most of all reasonably priced. Just the place if you wanted to drown your sorrows with a friend or two, and didn't want anyone to disturb you. Alice, Gertrude, and Margaret all had plenty of sorrows to drown. The three of them were nearly sisters, if not by birth then certainly by closeness. They had shared countless triumphs and travails together. And right now, they were discussing one of the latter.

Gertrude knocked back a cheap beer. "And then he said, 'Well what about my nose, love?' and I just completely lost it! I had to kick him out of the room! And the rest couldn't stop laughing."

Her two friends managed to suppress their giggles in favor of commiserating sounds. And if those sounds were a bit choked, no one was going to point it out.

"Yeah, most aren't taking things seriously. One asked me if I was going to rap his knuckles like a schoolmarm. I mean, he stopped making jokes like that after I broke his nose, but it shouldn't have come to that in the first place," Alice grumbled, taking a swig of her own drink - while her friends drank beer, Alice insisted on whiskey.

She sipped the cheap alcohol, barely better than rotgut, and frowned into her glass. What little liquid was left swirled around as Alice contemplated various weighty matters.

Margaret only grunted. Of the three, she was the least talkative, but the others had learned to interpret the noises she made. This one meant "I had a bad time too, but I don't feel like talking about it without a lot more alcohol in me."

For a few minutes, the only sound was sipping and swallowing.

Then Gertrude started telling another story, voice strident as she relayed the embarrassment. "So after all that, after I told him he cannot just speak to people with such disrespect, he asks me if its ok if they are Dutch? What could anyone possibly have against the Dutch?"

Alice shrugged. "Maybe he is from those islands they conquered?" she suggested.

"He's Polish, he's not from anywhere the Dutch have colonized. I doubt he could even point them out on a map. This is the same blockhead who makes a point of breaking policemen's truncheons with his skull."

The three shared a small chuckle, and then Margaret grunted again. This grunt meant approximately "So things went badly for all of us, huh?"

Alice cocked her head, and drank some more. "It could be worse, I suppose. No one threw anything. No one tried to hit us. No one walked out. There was a lot of grumbling. I think people see the point, they just don't want to put in the work."

Margaret signaled the bartender for another glass of whiskey. She drained half of it in a single gulp. "Firstly: if they don't put in the work, it's nothing more than a patch job. Secondly: someone actually did throw things in my class. There was this brat, he couldn't have been older than fifteen. I think he sold newspapers. And he wouldn't stop talking about some strike in New York, even when I was speaking. He threw a spitball at me when I told him to stop."

Then she knocked back the other half of her drink and grunted a third time. This one meant "Someone took care of things though."

And once more the three of them sat in contemplative silence, simply enjoying their companionship.

"Even if we fail, it's amazing that we were in a position to try. Think of how many people were in our class, and how many classes are being held. Even if only a tenth take the lessons to heart...we have won an amazing victory, my dear sisters," Gertrude said eventually, and she raised her glass.

"To our victories, and to our Valkyrie!" she said, and the other two matched her.

The three of them sat down for a long time, the mood lightened, sharing jokes and ribald stories, mocking the fools they had seen throughout their long, tiresome days. And as the hours stretched on, they found themselves leaving the bar, tabs heavier but hearts lighter, practically skipping down the Chicago street arm in arm in arm. Down they went, through the winding maze of streets, into the house they shared, a quiet little place rented from a priggish landlord who seemed to have memory problems with how often he forgot they already paid the rent.

Up the stairs, the three of them went, into the narrow bedroom they shared. Onto the bed the three of them shared they collapsed into fits of exhausted giggles. Into slumber the three of them fell, drained from a long and difficult day.

Into dreams, the three of them stepped, into dreams of a better and brighter tomorrow.

This omake is for the SUS's action to do this:


-[c] Establish training for members in regards to teaching them against prejudice towards minorities and against misogyny. -2 funds per turn
--[c] Make this training mandatory

Over the Wall

Dissenting and former policemen had been a part of the RFAA since its inception, yet occupied an awkward place within it. None could deny the benefits of having men within the police force: they provided warning of raids, security for soup kitchens and societies, and in many cases a more legitimate air that helped break the Anarchist stereotype of mad bomb-throwers with no wider goal.

And yet, the hostility between the radical left and the police was not so easily quelled, even among those who were supposed to be comrades. Some members even questioned whether, when the lines were finally drawn, if the RFAA-aligned police would be on the right side of the barricades. To this, the Anarchist policemen fired back, declaring that the rest of the RFAA's struggles had neglected their sacrifices in turn, living outnumbered and amongst enemies with little help from the outside, despite vast lists of raids foiled, comrades defended, and meetings held in safety of both body and mind due to their efforts. If the RFAA wanted the police on the right side of the barricades, why did they not do more to ensure it?

It was in 1896 that these arguments bore fruit, with a somewhat chastened New York Council began truly undertaking efforts with the ultimate goal of "proletarianizing" the city police. The first step, discrediting or disgracing the most reactionary of the upper echelons, would be simple in theory: the Anarchists had no shortage of sympathizers with stories of police abuse, and in a city as large and rapidly growing as New York, there was always something you could nail someone for.

Finding enough to make a difference across the entire police department was expected to be more difficult. At least it was until the same men who had called for such an effort to be made in the first place began naming names, times, and places and drawing up lists. Having friends on the other side of the wall of silence that separated police and public had its benefits, it must be said.

With that wall surmounted, now all that was needed was to get the information to the public. In some places that would be a challenge, but this was New York City: It would be, quite literally, child's play.
—
"Extra! Extra! Read all about it! Unprovoked attacks! Extortion! Corruption! Abuses of Power by the policemen of our city!" Thompson Thompson Jr. (Tommy Twos to his mates) grinned as he saw another pair of interested buyers pause for a moment, before each took a paper from his stack for a penny each.

Tommy Twos knew that today was going to be a good day for newsboys like him. It always was when he could shout things like that: Grown-ups' favorite news was the kind that had some grown-ups fighting other grown-ups. It wasn't even evening yet and he'd already managed to sell half of his stack.

Most days, that'd just be enough to break even, but he'd been lucky today, what with the Worker's Post dropping the price for their papers to 30 cents a hundred for what they'd called "a week of Very Special Editions." If they kept to that and Tommy managed to sell full stacks, he could have three and a half dollars to add to his savings!

A few minutes later he checked the next street before he started brandishing papers in the air and hollering slogans again. There was an officer who'd probably seen which paper he was selling given the dirty look the cop was giving him, and he'd heard of his mates having trouble when they sold Worker's Post too close to a man in uniform. But there were also enough street toughs with red and black armbands here that he probably wouldn't try something. And if he did, well… he'd already made a profit today and was a fast runner.

Thankfully, a call of "Fresh news from the Worker's Post!" got Tommy a dozen more people looking to buy papers instead of an angry copper with a stick. One of the toughs even came up and tipped him an extra penny. "Keep up the good work." The man said with an approving nod.

Oh yeah. Today was a good day to be a newsie.
----
@Physici If accepted, I would like this Omake bonus to be dedicated to boosting the RFAA's action to defame the most reactionary parts of the NYPD.

Not too long ago a new, vile, pestilence was introduced to our land. It spread far an wide, ravaging our lively hoods, and brought ruin to many a good man. This new blight is small, insidious, and at times hard to spot but with due diligence and careful observation a select few have been able to identify our assailant, a small grey beetle with a thin and long snout called the boll weevil. As the name suggests they attack the cotton plant in the early stages of the plant's lifecycle just as the cotton boll in forming, ruining the plant while it's growing making it very hard to catch afflicted plants until it's well too late. What we aim to do is propose possible solutions to the infestation issue.

Solution one is basically starvation, switch off growing cotton for a whole year in favor of a crop that may not be as profitable but ultimately is not being targeted by the pest. Some downsides to this technique is obviously profit loss, but also relying on neighboring farms to also avoid growing cotton for a year. Another issue that unfolds is of course the local and current textile industry is still heavily geared to the usage of cotton in just about all their products. An idea that some have proposed is shifting farmland into pastures for sheep, but the start up costs alone were considered too prohibitive for the general populous of the cotton industry.

Solution two is potentially more expensive with little to no chance of getting a return, and that is finding and introducing a predator animal for the weevil into afflicted fields. First problem with this solution is of course finding something to constantly and successfully predate upon the boll menace in order to eradicate them. The second issue of course is how to get the predator to the fields, and the final issue is of course what to do when they are no longer needed. While this solution has a chance of being the cheapest it leaves a lot up to chance and requires time in order to find a good match.

The third option is akin to the solution for too many strays, poison. Finding, and possibly synthesizing, an appropriate poison that will kill the weevil upon ingestion is a choice. Biggest issue here is of course cost unless synthesized or grown locally any poison for this pest will need to be manufactured at a dedicated chemical plant. This means increases in annual costs for purchasing these poisons, leading to an overall increase in price across the board. If an effective poison is found and utilized soon however there is a chance that no other state will have to witness this blight outside of a farmer's almanac.

Last possible solution we would like to offer is of course personally going out and killing the damn bugs manually. This is the most labor intensive, and possibly the most expensive if you need to hire farmhands in order to cover you field in a timely manner. While ultimately it is up to you how you treat these infestations we implore that you at least try something, instead of stand idly by as you and your neighbor's lively hood is ravaged by these voracious boll weevils.

AN: wanted to try something...not sure if it fits the vibe but it's essentially a pamphlet that might've been given out by FAM sponsored newspapers

edit: ah pls let whatever bonus be applied to the FAMs efforts to mitigate the impact of the boll weevil edit2: the one with hemp growing