"A law is no better than its enforcement. That's what I learned in law school and it still goes. Can you imagine what would happen to the Wagner Act if Hoover were back in the White House?"
"You don't need too much of an imagination to figure that one out," Hall said.
"Of course," Margaret said, "Gamburdo will need more finesse than a Hoover." There was the little matter of the arms everyone knew were in the hands of the miners in the north. There was also the still painful memory of the one-day general strike called by the transport workers and the longshoremen when the Supreme Court delayed its decision on the validity of the Tabio labor codes. Gamburdo, she explained, would have to plan his acts like a military strategist. "Because unless he does, he will need a military strategist to pull him out of the hole."
"You don't mean a civil war?"
That was exactly what Margaret did mean. But Gamburdo had a plan for averting such a war, or, if it had to come, to guarantee the victory for the forces of sound government when the issue was drawn. He would begin gradually by restoring to their army commissions the old officers trained in Segura's military college. This he would do before attempting to circumvent the labor laws. "Then, when the war ends in Europe, a lot of good professional military leaders will be out of jobs," she said. "Gamburdo plans to give them jobs."
"How about the troops? Will they be loyal to the new order?"
Gamburdo had provided for this, too. The army would have the best of everything; it would be made more attractive than life as a miner or a soy-bean cultivator. "But a boy will have to have the O.K. of his priest before he will be taken in. And what a priest learns at confession is nothing to be ignored. The Church will keep the unreliable elements out of the army." Once he had an army, Gamburdo would then be ready to restore sound government in the nation.
"He's a clever guy," Hall said. "I had a hunch he was the coming strong man on the continent when I applied for an interview."
Margaret thought that this was very funny. "Don't be a child," she laughed. "He won't admit to anything like this for publication."
"That doesn't matter. What counts in my business is that I'll be on record as the first American to interview him, and that I'll get the credit for discovering him before his name is a household word."