Forging America: My Campaign Manager is Roosevelt

Chapter 446: Chapter 208: Blood-Stained White Dove

Cheers and the noisy chatter of debate echoed through the corridors of the Congress Building.

Just as Leo Wallace was about to leave, a hand shot out and seized his arm in a death grip.

It was an old hand, covered in liver spots, but its strength was astonishing.

Leo turned his head.

Daniel Sanders was standing in the shadows.

The Progressive leader, who had just won a victory inside, showed no hint of joy on his face.

He ignored the aides and reporters surging forward to congratulate him. Instead, he gave a hard tug, dragging Leo into a quiet side corridor.

Seeing their movement, the nearby aides and reporters tactfully stopped in their tracks.

On Capitol Hill, these moments of private conversation were sacrosanct. No one would be foolish enough to intrude and look for trouble.

They rounded a corner, and the uproar was cut off by the thick walls.

This was a dead end in the Congress Building, a place rarely visited.

The light fell on the marble pedestals lining the corridor, where two statues of the nation’s founding fathers stood, coldly observing these two allies from different eras.

On the left was Thomas Jefferson.

The author of the Declaration of Independence and the founder of America’s democratic ideals held a scroll, his gaze deep and melancholic as it stared into the distance.

He represented the nation’s most noble ideals—liberty, equality, and the yearning for an agrarian utopia.

But he was also a plantation owner with hundreds of slaves, a contradiction of a man who spent his entire life struggling in the quagmire between his ideals and reality.

On the right was Alexander Hamilton.

As the first Secretary of the Treasury of the United States and leader of the Federalists, his statue appeared sharper and more aggressive.

He single-handedly established America’s financial system, a firm believer in the power of industry and capital, even willing to use deals and compromise to consolidate the Federation’s power.

He once said: In this world, only power can check power.

Jefferson and Hamilton.

Idealism and realism.

Principles and deals.

The two statues stood like a metaphor set by fate, silent sentinels in the long, narrow corridor, with Leo and Sanders caught between them.

Sanders shoved Leo against the wall. His back hit the marble with a dull thud.

The old man turned, his back to the corridor’s exit. With his not-so-broad shoulders, he blocked all outside views and cut off all of Leo’s escape routes.

In that moment, a suffocating tension filled the air, as if even the two statues were holding their breath, listening for the impending judgment.

"Look me in the eye, Leo."

Sanders’s voice trembled.

He raised a hand, pointing toward the closed doors of the chamber, his finger shaking violently in the air.

"Tell me, what the hell did you do?"

The old man’s voice was low, a roar forced from the depths of his throat.

"Ackman, Brown, Rogers, Coburn."

Sanders’s teeth audibly ground together as he spat out the names.

"Do you know who they are, Leo?!"

"Ackman is the Koch Brothers’ watchdog in the Senate! He’s never approved a single cent for an environmental budget in his entire life! He’d love to tear down every wind turbine in the United States and sell them for scrap so his patrons can keep drilling for oil!"

"Brown’s campaign coffers are stuffed with checks from Chevron. The only things he sees are offshore drilling platforms and refineries!"

"Rogers is the coal king of West Virginia. He won’t even acknowledge the two words ’climate change.’ He thinks global warming is God’s way of turning up the heat for the poor!"

Sanders moved closer to Leo, his cloudy old eyes shot with blood, his nose almost touching Leo’s.

"These people... they have never, in their entire lives, supported a bill I’ve proposed!"

"Just a few days ago, they were on the news calling me a socialist bent on destroying America, swearing they’d obstruct this bill until hell froze over."

"But just now."

"They voted ’aye.’"

"In perfect unison. Without a moment’s hesitation."

Sanders stared at Leo, his gaze like a torch.

"Don’t tell me it was your silver tongue. What did you promise them?"

Sanders’s voice grew shrill.

"Did you promise to abolish the carbon tax? Or to loosen restrictions on shale gas extraction? Or something even more disgusting?"

"Tell me! Did you use money you don’t even have yet to make a deal with the Demon?"

Faced with the old man’s interrogation, Leo neither retreated nor flinched.

He leaned against the cold marble wall, feeling the shadow of Hamilton’s statue fall over him.

He watched Sanders in silence.

Leo reached out and calmly smoothed the sleeve Sanders had wrinkled, his face devoid of any guilt.

"Senator."

Leo began to speak.

"You ask what I did."

"I did what you couldn’t do."

Leo raised his head, his gaze traveling over Sanders’s shoulder to the statue of Jefferson.

"Look at the scoreboard, Daniel."

Leo had changed his form of address.

"Your comrades in the party, the Democrats who eat from the same pot as you—Mannheim, and Christo."

"They stabbed you in the back."

"They wanted to kill you."

"They would rather see this bill die, rather see Pittsburgh go bankrupt, than miss a chance to humiliate you and crush the Progressives’ momentum in its cradle."

"What were you doing then?"

"You were angry. You were helpless. You were watching the bill die."

Leo took a step forward, his aggressive aura momentarily overpowering the aging Sanders.

"But I saved you."

"I saved this bill."

Sanders opened his mouth to argue, but Leo gave him no chance.

"You ask if I sold my soul?"

Leo looked at the statue of Hamilton, as if seeking some resonance across the ages.

"No, I didn’t sell it."

"I just rented it out."

"For a term of ten years. Or less."

Leo looked at Sanders unflinchingly.

"I went to the energy giants."

"I promised that Pittsburgh would buy their energy, promised that we wouldn’t impose any radical, one-size-fits-all environmental policies."

"Yes, I did make a deal with the Demon."

"I used the Demon’s hand to give your City of God a push."

Sanders felt a wave of dizziness.

He steadied himself by grabbing the base of Jefferson’s statue.

"You... How could you..." Sanders murmured. "That’s our bottom line. We oppose war, we oppose fossil fuels. That is the cornerstone of the Progressive movement. What you’ve done is dig up our very roots."

"Roots?"

Leo scoffed.

"Without those two billion US Dollars, your roots would have rotted in the mud long ago."

"Do you think you can change this country by shouting a few slogans on Capitol Hill or posting a few articles on X?"

"Wake up, Daniel."

"When this two billion US Dollars gets to Pittsburgh, it will become wages in the hands of workers, and daycare centers in the community."

"If I hadn’t done this, if we hadn’t gotten this money, your bill would be a worthless piece of paper, and your ideals would be nothing but empty talk."

"Your so-called principles can’t save a single unemployed worker."

Leo pointed toward the window—though only a corridor wall was there—his gesture seeming to encompass the entire real world.

"This world is a filthy place, Senator."

"If you want to grow a lotus in the mud, you can’t be afraid to get your hands dirty."

"Your job is to be the pure white dove."

Leo’s voice carried a fatalistic certainty.

"You fly in the sky, enjoy the sunlight, receive the cheers. You represent the moral high ground."

"That’s fine. The world needs a symbol like you."

"But a white dove has to eat."

"It doesn’t eat air. It eats grain."

Leo patted his own chest.

"And me."

"I’m responsible for fighting with the worms and the rats in the mud for food."

"I’m responsible for feeding this dove."

"Only then can it fly."

Sanders looked at Leo.

He suddenly found he had nothing to say.

He wanted to curse Leo for being corrupt, for being an opportunist.

But he couldn’t.

Because the two-billion-US-Dollar bill was lying in his briefcase at that very moment. It was real.

The revival of Pittsburgh was real.

The jobs that would soon be created were real.

He realized that Leo had become a monster he could neither control nor even comprehend.

A monster who understood survival better than him, understood power better than him, and was far more ruthless.

A long silence fell over the corridor.

「After a long moment.」

Sanders slowly released his grip on the statue.

His back seemed to hunch a little more, as if he had aged several years in that instant.

He looked at Leo, his expression complex.

There was disappointment, there was pain, but there was also an imperceptible hint of relief.

’Perhaps this is the price. This is the price that must be paid to change this country. He was old. His hands were too clean to move such heavy stones. He needed a stronger pair of hands to do this work.’

"Leo."

Sanders’s voice was soft, like a sigh.

"You’re right."

"I’m old. I’ve been so busy watching the clouds in the sky that I’ve forgotten the path at my feet."

He reached out, wanting to pat Leo’s shoulder as he used to, to encourage the young man.

But his hand stopped midway, suspended in the air.

He looked at Leo’s dark blue suit.

In that instant, he seemed to see bloodstains and flecks of mud that weren’t there.

Sanders’s hand trembled, and in the end, he only brushed Leo’s shoulder lightly.

"Take care of yourself."

That was the last thing he could say.

With that, Sanders turned around.

He didn’t return to the chamber to enjoy the cheers of victory.

He shuffled down the corridor, heading in the opposite direction.

His retreating figure looked exceptionally lonely under the lights.

Leo stood rooted to the spot, watching Sanders walk away.

’He’s gone,’ Leo thought.

’Yes, he’s gone,’ Roosevelt replied. ’From this day on, you are no longer Sanders’s disciple.’

’You are Leo Wallace.’

’You must not only feed the white dove from the mud, you must also build a skyscraper in the mud.’

’This will be hard, my boy.’

’You will be very lonely.’

Leo adjusted the collar Sanders had wrinkled.

"I’m not afraid of being lonely," Leo said in a low voice.

"I’m only afraid of not having a sword in my hand."

He picked up his briefcase, a briefcase full of the spoils of war.

Two billion US Dollars.

Now, he would take this money and return to Pittsburgh.

His battlefield was there.

’Let’s go, Mr. President.’

Leo strode toward the elevator.

’The real show is just beginning.’

The moment the elevator doors closed, he took one last look at the quiet corridor.

Buried there was the innocence of an idealist.

But it was also the birthplace of a realist’s ambition.

The elevator descended.

Plunging into the mortal world.