Charles Evans Hughes as the republican nominee in 1920!

Hi all,
I think I posted this idea a couple of months ago, but got no responses. Not sure whether it's been done before that point though. In 1920 Charles Evans Hughes daughter was taken ill and died, what if this didn't happen and Hughes ran for (and received) the 1920 nomination?

Who does Hughes run with in 1920? I think we can safely asume Hughes wins that election (he only just lost in 1916 and Wilson and the democrats were deeply unpopular in 1920).

What does a Hughes administration look like throughout the 'roaring 20's?'? Who's in his administration? Hughes was quite the internationalist I understand, how does he deal with the isolationist sentament amongst the public at large? Can he push to join the league? Does a Hughes administration affect the Great Depression in any meaningful way?
 
I've had a few thoughts that I've kept to myself along these lines. For what it's worth:

  • A push by the more conservative wing of the party to have one of their own on the ticket in the name of balance is not out of the question. I see that as a possible avenue for the nomination of Warren Harding as Hughes' running mate. Hughes was not an exceptional speaker, nor particularly charismatic; Harding would have gotten the bulk of the flesh-pressing/meet-and-greet heavy lifting work. (NOTE: to those who may say this opens the door for a scandal, I think not. The vice presidency was then largely a dead end, with no patronage or power. The Ohio Gang would have had few if any opportunities for graft, and those would have been very small indeed. Today, Harding would have been little more than a footnote to history.)
  • A Hughes cabinet would have had some fairly strong players. I'm thinking in these terms:
    • STATE: Elihu Root
    • JUSTICE: Philander Knox
    • TREASURY: Charles Dawes
    • INTERIOR: Calvin Coolidge
    • COMMERCE: Herbert Hoover
    • NAVY: Theodore Roosevelt Jr.
    • WAR: Leonard Wood (ret.)
  • The inclusion of a hands-on financial type like Dawes would, I think, have had a significant impact upon the economic conduct of the times. My sense is that Dawes would have been appalled at the free-and-easy rules (or lack thereof) on Wall Street, especially buying on margin. He probably would have worked to rein in that sort of trading, forcing the minimum margins significantly higher, and thus reducing the size and fragility of the bubble. Thus, if and when an upset occurred ca. October 1929, the impact would have been less widespread and less severe.
  • It's possible Dawes could have worked with Lodge, Brandegee, Borah, Johnson et. al. in the Senate and accepted the League with reservations. Given that, and TR's son in the cabinet pumping for a major navy (make the US in the Pacific analogous to Great Britain in the Atlantic, let's say), it's quite possible the foundations of isolationism as we knew it in the '30s wouldn't have been laid.
  • As a jurist, Hughes would likely have realized that Prohibition was unenforceable, and probably would have said so, laying the groundwork for early repeal (guessing by the 1924 election).
  • Likewise, Hughes would probably have taken a no-nonsense anti-Klan, anti-lynching stance. True, he wouldn't have been popular for those in the south but he wasn't going to win any states there anyhow.
 
Interesting points. I originally thought Coolidge might end up as Hughes running mate but on second thoughts Harding might make a better candidate for the reasons you've listed. Apart from anything Harding can go on the 'return to normalcy' line running up to he election.

You're probably write about the lack of a scandle too-from what I know Harding didn't like being president all that much, so I can't see him trying to exercise even the power of the Vice Presidency, which as you say was pretty non-existent at that point anyway. With this reduced responsibility in mind, is it safe to asume Harding lives longer than IOTL?

I've often heard it said that Dawes would have been an excilent secretary of the treasury and would have at least tried to tackle the stock market before it got to the point it did IOTL.

I must admit Prohibition and the clan both slipped my mind until after I posted the original thread. Interesting points you make about both of them. Wonder how an early end to Prohibition and harsher anti-clan laws would affect the 1924 dem nomination, considering both issues dominated the democratic convention of that year IOTL?
Personally I think Hughes would win a second term against whoever in 1924, as the economy will probably still be doing well.
 
Assuming Hughes makes a forceful stand against both the Klan and prohibition around the midpoint of his (first) term, the Democrats are going to be forced into a "me too" situation, at least on the former issue. That dictates a northerner like perhaps William McAdoo as the presidential candidate or perhaps an anti-Klan southerner (yes, at least one existed in the form of Oscar Underwood of Alabama). The vice-presidential nominee would probably be a nonentity provided in the name of balance.

If the stance is made closer to the election such that both become issues, then the Democrats are going to tear themselves apart, and the convention could be even longer and more dysfunctional than in OTL (and in reality, it took 103 ballots to agree upon John Davis as a no-hope compromise candidate). It's not out of the question that the southerners split off in a proto-Dixiecrat, prohibitionist / pro-Klan / nativist move that does nothing but reduce Democrat chances from slim to none. And that sort of a rift could last a generation or more. You might even see more progressive northern Democrats jumping ship for the GOP.

Either way you slice it, there's no way a Democrat wins in 1924. And if the economy is good and Dawes has reined in the insanity on Wall Street, there's not much of a bubble to burst, and 1928 will see another Republican (possibly Dawes himself?) elected.
 
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