Gabriel Over the White House

A political hack becomes President during the height of the Depression and undergoes a metamorphosis into an incorruptible statesman after a near-fatal accident. Newly inaugurated President Judson Hammond is content to live out the next four years exercising a hands-off approach and leaving the problems of Depression America to local authorities. But after a miraculous recovery from an auto accident, Hammond is ready to take on every social ill and neither Congress, gangsters nor the nations of the world will stop him. —Erik Gregersen <erik@astro.as.utexas.edu> Bachelor Judson Hammond has just been elected President of the United States. He is a political lackey who tows the party line. He is more interested in maintaining a fulfilling personal life, such as with his "unofficial" girlfriend Pendola Molloy who he hires to be his personal assistant, and being the national figurehead than doing anything meaningful as president. Any actual work he foists onto his appointed secretary, loyal and hard working Hartley Beekman. Jud sees the national unemployment uprising, led by John Bronson, and the increase in racketeering, the most notorious of the criminals being Nick Diamond, as local problems, and as such does nothing to address these issues. Out for a joyride one day, he gets into a car accident, the severity of his injuries which look to kill him. He miraculously survives, seemingly a changed man. Pendy, who has mutually fallen in love with Beek in the meantime, can see in Jud's demeanor and more deeply into his soul that he is now guided by a higher force. Under this force, Jud begins a new type of presidency, one that may place him at odds with his party, with congress, and other global powers as he tries to do what he feels are the right things in dealing with the unemployment and racketeering issues, as well as national debt issues faced by countries following the Great War in his goal of world peace. —Huggo