Chapter 429: Opponents in Congress
At this time in the early 20th century, it was easy to manipulate the death toll. If you wanted to do it, you could do it, and there was support from the slave owners among the people. This was the established truth.
As for the real death toll, there is no need to count it. What's the point of counting it? It's useless to keep it. On this day, the martial law in California was officially announced to last for one month. This one month is enough to wipe out all traces.
On the outskirts of San Francisco, the citizens of San Francisco who were given temporary tents were relatively orderly under the supervision of the San Francisco Police Department. Mayor Eugene Smith arrived here and vowed to severely punish the suspects who took the opportunity to rob and set fire, and to seek justice for the law-abiding citizens.
As for the impact of this earthquake on the outside world, it caused a short-term shock in the New York stock market, but the stock market returned to a stable state a few days later. Although in Los Angeles, this impact was not ignored by the slave owner. Anne in Arlington sent a telegram to inform him of this incident.
"After the Boer War, Britain began to raise banking interest rates in order to make up for its losses. A lot of capital has been withdrawn from the United States. In this Russo-Japanese War, the Russian Empire was defeated and urgently needed investment, and capital from many other European powers was leaving the market. Central banks in European countries generally raised interest rates, which led to a large amount of gold capital quickly flowing back to Europe from the United States." Sheffield's reply telegram stated, "After the San Francisco earthquake, once the federal government invests huge sums of money in reconstruction, cash on the market will be even scarcer."
Since Morgan entered the real industry and caused a demonstration effect, enterprises have been hungry for capital. In the United States, many individual enterprises have transformed into joint-stock companies in recent years, issuing watered-down stocks and making huge profits. The huge demand for capital has prompted American institutions and individual investors to over-leverage, which gave birth to a financial institution - trust investment companies. Trust companies, like investment banks and hedge funds in later generations, enjoy many investment businesses that commercial banks cannot operate, but they are extremely lacking in government supervision, which has led to trust companies being able to excessively absorb social funds without restrictions and invest in high-risk, high-return industries and stock markets.
"But the steel industry is still much safer than other stocks, dear. Be careful of a stock market crash. As far as I know, half of New York's bank loans are in the stock market. If something goes wrong, I don't know how many people will jump off the building. But I believe Morgan will be fine. This old man is so smart. He will take action only when a crisis comes."
"The last point is to contact Edith Rockefeller and ask her to contact Republican congressmen she is friendly with to oppose the federal government's reconstruction of San Francisco. Given our president's personality, opposition will definitely be ineffective, but I only need a reason to manipulate public opinion. It would be enough to delay the reconstruction resolution for a few days. Edith must have friends in this regard."
After dictating the telegram, he had it sent to Arlington. He should do some serious work now. It was not about what Morgan should do. Morgan must be having a headache now. More than 60% of the insurance business in the United States was either under Morgan's direct control or under his indirect control. Now that the urban area of San Francisco was destroyed, there must be countless people holding insurance policies ready to claim compensation.
If it were normal times, it would definitely be nothing. Although it may not be a big deal now, after the dismantling of Northern Securities and the company, the inability to recover the Russo-Japanese War loans, and other factors, it is definitely enough to make Morgan sweat.
That was Morgan's problem. Evelyn would naturally handle the compensation issue. The slave owners had forced the Chinese workers to transfer their properties to themselves, and then they were all given to Evelyn. This matter had nothing to do with Sheffield.
All he had to do now was wait for Republican lawmakers to raise objections to the reconstruction proposal, and then use newspapers to let the citizens of California know about it.
Then he began to think about the San Francisco Shipyard. In Sheffield's impression, the peak of the San Francisco Shipyard was after the San Francisco earthquake. The shipyard's dock was once the largest in the world, and the entire site was nearly 3,000 acres. The scene of its glory days was only seen in the Newport News Shipyard later.
Being able to be compared with the Newport News Shipyard for a period of time is enough to prove the strength of the San Francisco Shipyard. You should know that the Newport News Shipyard is not only the largest shipyard in the United States, but also the only shipyard that can design and build nuclear-powered aircraft carriers, and replace nuclear fuel and overhaul nuclear-powered aircraft carriers. The Newport News Shipyard is responsible for the construction of all nuclear-powered aircraft carriers of the Federal Navy. It is also one of the two major nuclear submarine manufacturers in the United States and the construction of half of the destroyers. Judging from the products produced by Newport News Shipbuilding, it is not an exaggeration to call it a national treasure.
As for another national treasure of the United States, it is of course Lockheed Martin. Lockheed Martin and Newport News Shipyard's parent company Northrop Grumman are companies that cannot be measured by money. Lockheed Martin alone has more codes than the world-famous Microsoft.
These two companies represent guns, and three of the world's four largest grain traders represent grain. Military and agriculture together are the basis for the United States' hegemony, which allows it to remain calm.
As for the basic industrial field, the United States is definitely not invincible, not to mention the Republic that will have an invincible industrial scale a hundred years later, because before the Republic surpassed the United States in scale, the United States had already faced such an opponent once. The Soviet Union surpassed the United States in most industrial fields, and the extent of the surpassing was not small.
Sheffield is determined to acquire the San Francisco Shipyard, but he has to wait for news from Washington.
President Roosevelt was still very concerned about the earthquake in San Francisco, but the main railway to California was not able to operate. Moreover, the owners of the railways into the West were the two giants of the Northern Securities Company that had just been dismantled, Hartman and Hill.
After the Northern Securities Company was dismantled, Hartman and Hill now thought of Roosevelt with a feeling of irreconcilable hatred. What's more, they had a legitimate reason. The two men did not deliberately want to interrupt the railway. On the surface, they responded to the call of the federal government, but in fact they were repairing the railway step by step. No one could do anything to them.
On Capitol Hill, Roosevelt was explaining to members of both parties when to start the plan to rebuild San Francisco. Although Roosevelt was born in New York and was a senior Republican, he knew that these were not the main factors at this time. San Francisco must be rebuilt. If a city was destroyed by a natural disaster and the federal government did nothing, it would be a huge blow to the authority of the federal government.
You have to know that the federal government has long been regarded as a decoration by big companies. President Roosevelt happened to be a strong president who had just passed a series of antitrust laws to dismantle trust companies and re-empower the federal government. If the situation in San Francisco is ignored at this time, the authority that the federal government has just established with great difficulty will disappear in an instant.
The most important thing is that the owner of a large company has already arrived at the disaster area, moving faster than the federal government.
So it was not a question of whether to rebuild, but when to pass the decision to rebuild. Roosevelt thought it would not be a big problem, but he did not expect that after he finished his presentation, the first opposition came from the Republican camp. Senior Congressman Mitchell, who had received endorsement fees in New Orleans, was already very old and had low support, so he decided to cash out and speak out against reconstruction.
After President Roosevelt finished his speech, Mitchell spoke first, "Mr. President, this is an unprecedented earthquake. The intensity of the earthquake has caused the interruption of major railways into California. The earthquake was even felt in Nevada, but the death toll reported by the San Francisco City Government is only a few hundred. I suspect that the California government is concealing the death toll."
If the slave owner were here and saw this scene, he would definitely exclaim in admiration, asking where Edith Rockefeller found this congressman from, and why she was so smart and could see through the truth at once.
"San Francisco has been damaged so badly that there is no need to rebuild it. This is tantamount to letting the citizens of San Francisco live on the crater of a volcano." Mitchell's voice echoed in Congress, causing many people to whisper, thinking that what he said made sense.
This earthquake was the largest earthquake ever to hit the United States, and compared with the death toll reported in California, it seems very suspicious.
Even the Democratic Party members chimed in, not because they had achieved a great cross-party alliance, but because they saw opposition voices emerging from within the Republican Party and chimed in to block Roosevelt's every day.
"As the central government, the federal government should be responsible for the citizens of the entire country, instead of calculating the cost and whether it is worthwhile to allocate funds for reconstruction. Now the citizens in the disaster area are suffering. We are actually here to consider whether it is worth it." President Roosevelt said in a tough tone, "The citizens of every state are very precious, and they are watching the response of the federal government."
"Then we need to make a careful calculation of how much money is needed for the appropriation." Mitchell's goal was not to oppose it to the end, but to prevent the proposal from being passed so smoothly. He immediately said, "I require the Ministry of Finance to come up with a detailed plan before I agree to this. Taxpayers' money cannot be spent so easily."
This time the proposal was not passed on the same day. Sheffield, who learned the news, immediately reported the process to the Los Angeles Times. First, a fixed impression was created, and finally it was passed. Californians would not thank the Republicans.
(End of this chapter)
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