A different American Century, A TL.

This doesn’t help the Republican’s prospects though, but the Democrats don’t take advantage of this, leading to somewhat of a boost for the Socialist Party.

The Dems should have at least had an opportunity to win in Pennsylvania in my mind. It was a Republican stronghold, but a Progressive Republican stronghold.

Perhaps with Bryan, but still.
 

Redcoat

Banned
The Dems should have at least had an opportunity to win in Pennsylvania in my mind. It was a Republican stronghold, but a Progressive Republican stronghold.

Perhaps with Bryan, but still.
Good point. Keep I mind both candidates are conservative, another reason for the spiked socialist vote.
 
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The Murphy Presidency

Redcoat

Banned
1904-1905

1904
January 25th: A mine in Cheswick, Pennsylvania explodes. Interestingly enough, the workers were planning a strike against their employers at the time….The accident is blamed by many as an intentional sabotage by the company, unlikely as it is, and the incident is officially declared an accident. Still this incident does not stop a growing sense of mistrust many miners have in their employers.
March 14th: The Supreme Court rules that the Sherman Antitrust Act does not apply to the case of the Northern Securities Company, a loss for many progressives fighting to “bust up the trusts”.

1905

January 2nd: The syndicalist Workers of the World union is created.
March 4th: President-elect Murphy is inaugurated
August 1st: The Russo-Japanese War ends with the treaty of Graz, with Sakhalin being split in two between Japan and Russia. Though Russians feel like they could have extracted more out of the Japanese, other powers like the British feel like they need to keep the balance of power in East Asia. Manchuria is unofficially now under the Russian sphere of influence.

***

The McClellan presidency

The Democrats have now finally elected one of their own for the first time since Grover Cleveland. So how was his presidency like? Domestic policy wise George McClellan was unsurprisingly much like a cookie cutter Democrat. Progressives like William Jennings Bryan were discontented as the progressive movement in the party was slowly fading away in power. The topic of the Silver Standard, something Bryan had championed, wasn’t the hot button issue that it was merely a decade ago either. Populists on both sides of the aisle didn’t have popular figures to advocate their policies, and without the threat of any strong opponents, Democrats and the Republicans were returning to the state of being the parties of big businesses. George McClellan and his congress were on the whole conservative, vetoing many progressive bills, much to the ire of both the progressives in the Republican and Democratic parties. 1896, it seemed was just a glimmer of change in a corrupt age, but not much of a change in things. It wasn’t all doom and gloom for the working class, as McClellan and his surrogates advocated more protectionist tariffs. This had let him win support from the Northeastern factory workers who were thankful for such a maneuver. This did though anger many of the wealthy elite. McClellan quickly backed down from this aspect of his platform after getting elected.

It probably is fit to understand here that the new president was likely in over his head to try to jump from being just some city mayor to running national politics This was quite a sudden jump for a man who didn't fully expect having a chance of winning the nomination anyways. He really he only won the democratic nomination anyways as they wanted to seize the
opportunity to get New York. Which explains partially why McClellan so readily had delegated responsibilities of his job to his staff members and his benefactors in the higher ups of Tammany Hall. One of them being Charles Murphy, the leader of Tammany himself. Murphy was always was a man of few words, and his time as leader in Tammany Hall was often shrouded in mystery. Only his closest friends and family fully knew his true motivations, but it's rather obvious what one of them was. A want of power. And it's because of this that as time went on, Tammany slowly seemed to be taking on more of the powers of the presidency then McClellan had. Murphy was a kingmaker, like many other leaders of Tammany Hall that used their position behind the scenes to promote favored candidates in city and state politics. And in a way Murphy did this too on Murphy's behalf, cajoling the different interests and lobbies in exchange for their support. And it's by no means a coincidence that the local Democratic Party in many states began to see the rise of Tammany-affiliated political machines during his time.
tammany-hall-nyc.jpg

Once a Tammany Boss, always a Tammany boss?

McClellan's presidency isn't as well remembered in popular culture, but as many Americans know, if there's one thing the Murphy presidency is associated with, it was corruption. And the way McClellan often had supported the policies of the man who had the most to offer, to the average American seemed like an inability to stand up to himself against either the big lobbies or Tammany Hall, which really seemed in control. Contemporaries stereotyped McClellan as a puppet being controlled by two hands representing Tammany and the trusts. McClellan presented himself as a populist to win votes in the election, but then quickly sold out to the highest bidder behind closed doors.

After one term in office, McClellan did not run for another, deciding one was enough for him. Later on he seemed to take an interest in philanthropy, spending much of his personal wealth to help the poor of the city, and funding the creation of many soup kitchens.

On the national level though, McClellan overall was a forgettable one term president, whose administration had been plagued by corruption over a wide scale. The fact his presidency had been plagued by corruption had tarnished his family name…..
 
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I'll be honest, I don't think a Catholic, especially a Tammany Boss could become President. The prejudice against Catholics was immense at the turn of the 20th century (look at Smith just around a quarter century later) and Tammany Hall across the nation was the brand of corruption. A corrupt Pennsylvanian boss would have an easier time skipping by. Tammany Hall was so ingrained for its corruption and (seen bad at that time) pro minorities and immigrants, especially Irish Catholics. Germans, even Catholic, were more accepted. So I'd have to call ASB on that.

Still really like the TL, but I don't see how this specific aspect would happen at all.

But I'm glad someone used him in a TL. He's not as famous as I thought he'd be. Tammany's Reformer.


The miner incident and the governing structure was accurate. Honestly, if you wanted (and I don't want to dictate your TL @Redcoat), you could just replace Murphy with a Protestant New York politician who was not an enemy of Tammany (Murphy would have backed him and he would have won New York).
 

Redcoat

Banned
you could just replace Murphy with a Protestant New York politician who was not an enemy of Tammany (Murphy would have backed him and he would have won New York).
Yeah any member of Tammany could've worked. Or anyone supported by them as a matter of fact. I just thought the boss himself could've been fine. I'll fix that.
 
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