AHC/WI: Hoover as a Multi-Term President

Could President Hoover have gone on to serve a second term, or perhaps even have become akin to President Roosevelt in becoming the first President to serve more than two terms? What would his domestic and foreign policies have been like if he had served longer, perhaps even into World War II?

Hoover's reaction to the Depression was too little and too late. He should have intervened to stop the bank collapses, for instance. This is a bit surprising, considering his resume as a brilliant and energetic technocrat in WW I relief efforts. But he did try some things...

However - I've been thinking about an alternate path for Hoover lately, and this is my idea. IIRC, Coolidge's decision not to run again in 1928 was in part due to depression over the death of his son, Cal jr. Young Cal had played tennis with no socks on; his feet got scratched, and then infected - and he died. Assume he finds a pair of clean socks, and Cal sr serves a second term.

The Depression hits in 1929-1930, but Coolidge doesn't want to do much of anything. His conservatism paralyzes him. Meanwhile Hoover, still serving as Sec of Commerce, wants to act. In late 1930, Hoover resigns and denounces Coolidge's inaction. Hoover then becomes the chief critic of Coolidge. He also becomes an organizer of relief efforts - not just charity, but schemes to reorganize failing enterprises on a new basis and get people back to work. Like TR in 1912, he embraces more and more of the semi-radical reform agenda. (Not the outright radicalism of socialism or communism, but drastic changes.)

In 1932, he gets the Democratic nomination and wins in a landslide over Vice President Dawes. In his famous "100 Days", he closes, stabilizes, and reopens the banks, establishes the Federal Housing Bank to finance construction of new housing and rehab of abandoned housing, sets up programs to buy up excess farm production and distribute basic sustenance to the unemployed and their families, and launches the New America program of public works: conventional dams, highways, and bridges, but also futuristic infrastructure like monorails, plus telecom and electric utilities, airports... everything to be ultra-modern.

The Corps of Engineers expands into a million-man volunteer force to build New America.

Some of Hoover's programs fail abjectly, but others are popular successes. Hoover becomes the hero who saved America from The Crash; he easily wins a second term and retires in 1940.
 
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