The American Business Freedom Act

In the aftermath of the Carnegie Complex uprising, it isn’t just the American military that has been shaken by the incident.

The death of J.P. Morgan Jr., while having no impact on the working men he had exploited to the point of inciting the incident at the Carnegie Complex, was deeply upsetting and alarming to the monopolists who knew him well as one of their own. What, they wondered, was to stop their own factories and farms from rising up in the same fashion? Who would protect them if their employees chose to follow Seagrave’s example? What if they succeeded?

The question gnawed at them, drove them mad with anxiety, and it was only a matter of weeks before they began to reach out to their contacts in the government. Congressmen, Senators, Governors, and Mayors of all states and cities soon found themselves endlessly hounded by handwringing executives and concerned lobbyists all asking the same question; What protection was the United States going to give its most important business leaders? The answer then became one hotly debated on the floors of Congress, all seeking an answer that would protect business interests and keep the American economy from collapsing as its leaders fled the country to avoid the retribution of angered masses of Communist agitators.

The first major push from the House was the Company Safety Act, which would outlaw the ownership of weapons by persons living on company property unless that property was specifically permitted by the company. While this act was very popular with the corporate interests pushing for its passage, it was met with strong resistance from gun lobbyists and arms manufacturers who saw it as an underhanded means for their business rivals to short them on sales. Despite a valiant effort, the Company Safety Act was ultimately crushed a few weeks later.

Though the Company Safety Act failed, corporate interests refused to let the issue drop, as they found it a crisis of an existential level that desperately needed intervention. The French, closely tied to Americans by two centuries of cultural exchange and friendship, had gone full Communist, and it was surely only a matter of time before the working class of America learned that they too had nothing to lose but their chains - and a few factory boss’ heads! The failure of the Act had however demoralized congress and they were seemingly unwilling to attempt to pass anything similar after such a humiliating defeat, one that had exposed many of them as working in the interests of companies rather than their electorate.

The helping hand that was needed came from an unexpected source in the form of Mafia families. While organized crime was ultimately disinterested in the ebb and flow of the peoples’ class consciousness, what was much more important to them was that business and the flow of money not be disrupted. The nationalization of French and Canadian industry practically overnight was a wound felt sorely by the families, and they were not eager to repeat the experience in America. Where the corporations failed, the Mafia chose to press their influence to its limits, and with a rash of blackmailings, threats, media exploitation, and good old-fashioned intimidation, the House was soon discussing the American Business Freedom Act.

The American Business Freedom Act sought to protect American industry in two main ways. The first part of the Act involved extensively expanding the amount of control companies were allowed to exert over their own property to help prevent the spread of unions or other disruptive efforts among their employees, permitting them to tap phones, have company jails, and expand the authority of their security forces on company grounds - both allowing them to carry significantly greater firepower but also to enforce company law with less government interference.

The other portion of the Act involved a massive reworking of the role of the Secret Service. A branch of the Department of Treasury, their primary duties involved the protection of banks and mints and the investigation and prosecution of forgery, as well as their more prominent and famous role as bodyguarding the President of the United States. The Act effectively expanded the role of the Secret Service to not only protecting federal assets, but select company assets as well. In addition to supplementing company security with their expertise and manpower, their bodyguarding duties expanded massively beyond government figures and included major industrial centers and, most unusually, a handful of the country’s most prominent businessmen and capitalists. This massive expansion in their duties also would require a massive expansion in budget and manpower, and would ultimately require a reduction in the standards of recruitment to accommodate this new role.

While many within the Service were opposed to the Act, and populist interests in the general public considered this to be the creation of a “Secret Police” of sorts, the Act was much more successful, and within a few months of Carnegie’s bloody disaster, the American Business Freedom Act crossed the desk of President Rockefeller, who signed into motion a new era of safety for the industrialists that made America wealthy. The effects of the Act were seen soon after, as the sight of black-painted Badger suits and Rhea walkers became commonplace in many American cities, carefully guarding the businessmen and factories of America from what they considered a dangerous, unpredictable public.