An untapped lode of PoDs

I've been reading 1920: The Year of the Six Presidents by David Pietrusza. Although somewhat popularized and a bit sensationalized in spots, it's an interesting read, furnishing several reasonable PoDs; e.g.:

* Charles Evans Hughes was approached (through an intermediary) by Henry Cabot Lodge with the concept of accepting the 1920 GOP nomination. Hughes declined since his daughter had very recently died (of tuberculosis). Suppose his daughter had not died and was in so-so but stable health?

* The notoriously ill-tempered Hiram Johnson was the second spot on Harding's ticket, which he declined vehemently and somewhat profanely. Suppose Johnson had a dose of humility and accepted?

* Early in the balloting, Harding was no better than a mild favorite son candidate. At that point, four key delegates in Ohio were on the edge of switching their votes to Leonard Wood. What happens if they made the switch?
 
I've been reading 1920: The Year of the Six Presidents by David Pietrusza. Although somewhat popularized and a bit sensationalized in spots, it's an interesting read, furnishing several reasonable PoDs; e.g.:
Interesting ideas, all.

* Charles Evans Hughes was approached (through an intermediary) by Henry Cabot Lodge with the concept of accepting the 1920 GOP nomination. Hughes declined since his daughter had very recently died (of tuberculosis). Suppose his daughter had not died and was in so-so but stable health?
If his daughter is ill, but living for the time being, he has less reason to run.
* The notoriously ill-tempered Hiram Johnson was the second spot on Harding's ticket, which he declined vehemently and somewhat profanely. Suppose Johnson had a dose of humility and accepted?
Could be interesting considering Johnson's progressive streak.
* Early in the balloting, Harding was no better than a mild favorite son candidate. At that point, four key delegates in Ohio were on the edge of switching their votes to Leonard Wood. What happens if they made the switch?
Wood serves two full terms. Coolidge is never POTUS. Maybe the Teapot Dome Scandal goes differently, or fails to occur? If the latter, then TR II might be Governor of New York in the 1920's.
 
If Wood got the 1920 GOP nomination, forget Teapot Dome: the key characters (Doheny, Sinclair, Fall, Denby) won't get near the White House unless they came as ordinary visitors. Here's how I see a Wood Administration stacking up:

Vice-president: Frank Lowden
Secretary of State: Charles Evans Hughes
Secretary of the Treasury: Charles Dawes
Attorney General: Calvin Coolidge
Secretary of War: John J. Pershing
Secretary of the Navy: Theodore Roosevelt Jr.
Secretary of the Interior: Herbert Hoover
Secretary of Agriculture: Irvine Lenroot
Secretary of Commerce: Earl Sproul
Secretary of Labor: James J. Davis

Dawes, it should be noted, would exercise considerable influence as Secretary of the Treasury to curb what he viewed as excesses in buying of stocks on margin, leading to the creation of the Securities and Exchange Administration in 1923. Many economic historians speculate that without Dawes' innovation, the mild recession of 1929-30 would have been a major depression.
 
I had Wood becoming President in my Rampolla becomes Pope TL (after Rampolla dies a deadlocked conclave made Gibbons of Baltimore Pope. Wilson's bad treatment of the American Pope costs him the 1916 election. Now with Hughes as President Gen. Wood not Pershing leads the AEF and he becomes something of a shoo in after the war).

You do know that Wood died in 1927?

Economic consequences. In my TL there is an earlier stock market crash. Woods will spend more on the military for "preparedness" and I assumed some increased taxes, most tariffs and this set of a wave of protectionism which resulted in certain key stocks having disappointing earning in 1927 triggering a sharp sell off. It was going to be less bad than OTL's Great Depression but Coolidge was not going to win reelection in 1928.

Wood is a bit of reactionary with respect to "anarchist" menace.
 
I had Wood becoming President in my Rampolla becomes Pope TL (after Rampolla dies a deadlocked conclave made Gibbons of Baltimore Pope. Wilson's bad treatment of the American Pope costs him the 1916 election. Now with Hughes as President Gen. Wood not Pershing leads the AEF and he becomes something of a shoo in after the war).

You do know that Wood died in 1927?

Economic consequences. In my TL there is an earlier stock market crash. Woods will spend more on the military for "preparedness" and I assumed some increased taxes, most tariffs and this set of a wave of protectionism which resulted in certain key stocks having disappointing earning in 1927 triggering a sharp sell off. It was going to be less bad than OTL's Great Depression but Coolidge was not going to win reelection in 1928.

Wood is a bit of reactionary with respect to "anarchist" menace.

Dates of deaths aren't etched in stone (pardon the quasi-metaphor); in this timeline, Wood didn't necessarily die in 1927--and if he did, Lowden probably would have been an acceptable interim for the short term. I maintain that Dawes as SecTreas would have had a real "money man" where it counted such that the crash of '29 would largely have been averted.
 
So how is the stock market behaving in the late 1920's? Is it growing at a slower rate with a medium sized correction somewhere around 1929-1930? Does this make the late 1920's "roar" less? Even something the size of the Panic of 1907--which Morgan kept from being much worse--could have serious repurcussions if Smoot Hawley is not nipped in the bud. (or in my intuition a smaller but still large version comes earlier with Wood to pay for his larger military expeditures).
 
So how is the stock market behaving in the late 1920's? Is it growing at a slower rate with a medium sized correction somewhere around 1929-1930? Does this make the late 1920's "roar" less? Even something the size of the Panic of 1907--which Morgan kept from being much worse--could have serious repurcussions if Smoot Hawley is not nipped in the bud. (or in my intuition a smaller but still large version comes earlier with Wood to pay for his larger military expeditures).

My sense is that Dawes' actions throttle back Wall Street: the late 1920s don't really roar but growl loudly, to continue the metaphor. Instead of stocks being bought on as little as 10% margin (as I've read they were), I suggest Dawes' regulations would have forced a minimum of 60% (and I believe it's higher still these days): after all, he was a highly successful banker and knew enough about financial risks to slam the lid on wild speculation if he had a chance.

Seems to me the Hawley-Smoot tariff was a misguided attempt to stimulate the US economy by erecting high tariff walls, thus discouraging imports/stimulating domestic production. If the recession of 1929 was on a par with the panic of 1923 in OTL, there would have been little/zero justification for anything along the lines of the Hawley-Smoot tariff such that it would likely be a moot point.

The economy would still have been sufficiently strong to allow Wood to keep the peacetime armed forces, particularly the army, reasonably strong to the point of being on a par with contemporary major powers in Europe of the day (don't forget, we're talking about the days prior to German re-armament--and that by 1932 the US army had fallen to 17th in the world in terms of standing forces, which meant that it was smaller than that of...Sweden). As a corollary, there wouldn't have been much of an issue with naval expenditures, especially in the Pacific, since the US had been more or less figuring that there would be a day of reckoning with Japan at some point: the planning and wargaming for a naval war against Japan went as far back as 1897 in OTL, and I don't see any reason why that would have changed.
 
Instead of stocks being bought on as little as 10% margin (as I've read they were)
This really needs to be laid to rest. It was nothing like common. Typical was more like 40-50%; only the fly-by-night operators would allow 10%. Which isn't to say they couldn't be found...
 
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