Forging America: My Campaign Manager is Roosevelt

Chapter 391: Chapter 183: Slave of Capital

"Are you still worried about dignity?" Roosevelt scoffed. "Leo, look around you."

"Your allies are going bankrupt, your plans are collapsing. If you’re still clinging to so-called dignity at a time like this, then you’re not just a failure, you’re a butcher."

"Are you going to drag hundreds of thousands of people to their graves just to save face?"

"This isn’t about saving face!"

"It’s about principle! It’s my bottom line! If I kneel today, I’ll never be able to stand up again! She’ll devour me, bit by bit, until I become nothing more than a rubber-stamp puppet!"

"Then be a puppet."

Roosevelt’s voice turned severe.

"Listen, kid. Politics isn’t a fairy tale. You don’t get to be the hero every time."

"Sometimes, you have to learn how to be a dog."

"Only those who survive have the right to talk about the future. Only those still at the table have a chance to turn things around."

"If you flip the table now, you’re out of the game for good. Murphy will lose, Warren will be re-elected, and the Establishment Faction will regain control of everything. All your efforts up to now will become a joke."

"Bow your head."

"Concede to her. Accept her terms."

"As long as you can preserve the current situation, as long as you can keep this ship afloat."

"You can endure the humiliation. Wait for the day you’re strong enough, and then take back what you’ve lost."

"That is the law of survival for a politician."

The phone was still ringing.

It was Evelyn Saint Cloud’s death knell.

She was waiting for this young lion to lower his head, expose his vulnerable neck, and let her fasten a collar around it.

Leo stared at the phone.

His breathing grew ragged, his chest heaving violently.

All of his reason told him that Roosevelt was right.

Compromise was the only way out. Surrender was the best way to cut his losses.

But...

Something in the marrow of his bones was screaming, rebelling.

"No."

Leo forced the word through his clenched teeth.

"What did you say?" There was a hint of surprise in Roosevelt’s voice.

"I said, no."

Leo spun around abruptly, his back to the sunlight pouring through the window, hiding himself in the shadows of the office.

His eyes grew crazed.

"I will never bow my head."

"I will never be a dog."

"Mr. President, you taught me to find a way to survive in desperate situations, but you also taught me that some things can’t be sold."

"If I sell away even the courage to resist, then I’ll truly have nothing left."

Leo snatched the phone from the desk.

His finger hovered over the red "end call" button.

’Leo! Don’t do something stupid!’ Roosevelt shouted in his mind. ’This is suicide!’

’Then let it be suicide.’

’If I’m doomed to die,’

’I’ll die on my feet.’

In that moment, time seemed to freeze inside the office.

Ethan’s ragged breaths, Sarah’s gasp, even the sound of traffic from the street outside—it all vanished.

In Leo’s world, only that red button remained.

Just as his fingertip was about to touch the screen,

The anxious voice in his mind suddenly stopped.

Then, the old voice spoke again.

’Lower your hand, kid.’

Roosevelt’s voice had become exceptionally calm.

Leo froze, his finger hovering in mid-air.

The scenery around him began to distort and fade.

The walls of Pittsburgh City Hall vanished, and the modern office disappeared.

A bone-chilling wind howled past, carrying the salty tang of seawater and the thick stench of gunpowder.

Leo found himself standing on a pitch-black deck.

The steel behemoth beneath his feet rose and fell with the waves. In the distance, flames shot into the sky and thick smoke billowed, illuminating a tattered Stars and Stripes in a crimson glow.

"The winter of 1941."

Roosevelt sat in his wheelchair, draped in that black naval greatcoat, right beside Leo, silently watching the burning sea.

"That was the darkest moment in the history of the United States."

"Japanese bombs fell on Pearl Harbor, and German submarines frantically hunted our merchant ships in the Atlantic Ocean. The entire world was burning, and the lamps of freedom were being extinguished one by one."

"Back then, there were also people who advised me to compromise."

Roosevelt’s voice was exceptionally clear against the sea wind.

"They told me the United States wasn’t ready for war."

"They said that as long as we gave the Pacific Ocean to Japan and Europe to Germany, we could still close our doors and do business, still maintain our wealth and prosperity."

"They said that for the sake of peace, for survival, there was no shame in bowing your head."

Roosevelt turned his head, his deep-set eyes gazing at Leo.

"If I had agreed back then, the United States could have indeed scraped by, and our young men wouldn’t have had to go shed blood in Europe."

"But a United States that survived like that would no longer be a free country."

"We would become vassals of fascists, slaves to tyranny. Our prosperity would be built upon the charity of others, our survival dependent on the whims of dictators."

"So I refused."

"I chose war."

"I chose to let this country bleed, to let countless families be broken, to put the economy under wartime control."

"Because I knew that some things are more important than life itself."

"And that is the right not to be enslaved."

The scene changed. The burning sea vanished, replaced by the fireplace in the White House.

"Leo, I was once worried about you."

Roosevelt looked at Leo, his eyes filled with unconcealed admiration.

"I was worried that you’ve become too smart, too calculating. You’ve learned how to survive in the cracks, how to exploit human weakness, how to maximize your own interests."

"You’ve become an excellent politician."

"But I was always afraid that you would lose yourself in all this calculation, that you would forget your true self."

"In this world, you can make a deal with anyone."

"You can dance with the Demon, you can carve up the spoils with greedy capitalists, you can get your hands dirty to achieve your goals."

"But..."

Roosevelt’s voice became resonant and powerful.

"You must never become a slave to capital."

"When you made a deal with Morganfield, you held the executive authority. You gave him a concession, but you could also take it back."

"That’s why you were able to pull out in time during the court case. You could flip the table because you were equals. That was a transaction."

"But this time is different."

"If you agree to Evelyn’s terms, that is a sell-out."

"You can use Morganfield, you can use Evelyn, you can even use me."

"But when they try to put a collar on your neck, when they try to turn you into their property,"

"You must draw your knife."

"Even if that knife cuts you, even if it leaves you with nothing,"

"You must sever that hand."

"Because once you kneel, even just once, you will never be able to stand up again."

"And you just did that."

Roosevelt reached out a hand, resting it phantomly on Leo’s shoulder.

"In that moment of life and death, you chose freedom."

"You would rather destroy everything you’ve built than become Evelyn’s puppet."

"That is the mark of a leader."

"I didn’t choose the wrong person."

"You are even more outstanding than I imagined."

The mental space receded quickly.

The clamor of the real world rushed back into his ears.

Leo’s finger was still hovering above the red button.

Over the past year, Roosevelt had been teaching him how to make deals as a politician.

Leo once thought that was all there was to politics.

A grand exchange with no bottom line, where anything in the process could be sacrificed for the so-called correct outcome.

But today, Roosevelt had told him something else: deals have boundaries.

If you trade away things recklessly, you become the bargaining chip itself.

Roosevelt didn’t want to cultivate a broker who only knew how to sell out for profit, nor did he want to cultivate a saint with a moral purity complex.

He wanted to cultivate a ruler who walked on a knife’s edge.

One who dared to feed the tiger with his own flesh, but could also raise a knife to slay the wolf.

The path between them was so narrow it could only fit one foot.

One step to the left was pedantic incompetence; one step to the right was utter depravity.

It was truly like walking on thin ice.

Leo picked up the phone and pressed the answer button.

"Good morning, Leo."

On the other end of the line, Evelyn’s voice was devoid of any emotional inflection.

"Good morning, Miss Saint Claude."

Leo’s tone was just as calm.

"Your office phone must be quite busy right now, wouldn’t you say?"

Evelyn asked. Although it was a question, it sounded more like a statement.

"It’s manageable." Leo glanced at the still-flashing desk phone. "It’s normal. You know how it is, the Mayor is always busy."

"Is that so?" Evelyn let out a soft chuckle. "Well then, have you had a change of heart?"

"No."

Leo’s reply was crisp and decisive.

"My terms haven’t changed, Evelyn. The choice is yours."

"Very well."

Evelyn didn’t say anything more.

"Then I won’t disturb Mr. Mayor at work."

BEEP—

The line went dead.