DBWI: Coolidge wins re-election in 1924

Despite a very divided Democratic Party, John Davis was able to win the election of 1924 after Robert La Follette’s third party bid threw the election to the House, where Follette, Coolidge, and Davis were able to compromise by agreeing to support the Senate’s confirmation of Charles Dawes for VP, the House voting to put Davis in the White House, and Senator Burton Wheeler (Follette’s VP) would be the Attorney General. What if Follette’s campaign had been unable to do so well in the Midwest, Plains, and Rockies states as well as throw NY and PA to Davis, and Coolidge had won re-election? How would we remember Coolidge’s presidency?
 
Yeah, do you find this feasible?
Certainly, Davis was a fairly colorless candidate and later president, and few expected La Follette to pick up as many Western states as he did.

I expect Coolidge to be fairly hands-off regarding the economy, along with a general careful, conservative attitude. Not that different from Davis, though Coolidge definitely wouldn't have supported repeal of Prohibition.
 
Certainly, Davis was a fairly colorless candidate and later president, and few expected La Follette to pick up as many Western states as he did.

I expect Coolidge to be fairly hands-off regarding the economy, along with a general careful, conservative attitude. Not that different from Davis, though Coolidge definitely wouldn't have supported repeal of Prohibition.

Do you think Coolidge runs for re-election in 1928 as Davis did? Davis’s action (or relative lack thereof) and its impact on the 1929-1931 recession is much debated by historians—he quickly cut tariffs and expanded infrastructure spending, but many people wanted him to do a lot more. I wonder if a GOP President would’ve cut tariffs and what impact tariffs would’ve had
 
Well, Coolidge was an enemy of tariffs and great friend and supporter of free trade, so, if he run in 1928, probably he would eliminate tariffs as a plan to rebuild economy with more trade. But I don't know if it would work and we have to consider that Cooolidge died in January 1933, so, with all the Presidency and Great Depression stress, it seems probable he die during his second term. Charles Dawes as President? He could reduce or even halt German reparations (he was chosen for VP after he became famous for his Dawes Plan, after all) and in OTL he was involved in a major bank crash who he repeatedly attempted to avoid asking for government money, so he could also launch a plan so save banks. 1932 will be a Democratic year, because many people will be in every case jobless and there will be a GOP fatigue after twelve years at power: the Smith-McAdoo infighting that in OTL was sidelined thanks Davis Presidency but in this case will continued in 1928 and 1932. Newton Baker could be the compromise candidate but he would die before the next election and his VP would take the power. Democrats would do something but I don't put many money in: in OTL they did anything under Davis and Baker seems an Northern Davis. So 1936 would be an open year: maybe without his service as Attorney General Wheeler will be not so popular for his crackdown of monopolies and criminal gangs, the only hero during the Crash, and will be not able to mount the New Progressive campaign with Huey Long who elected him to the White House in the same year. Maybe Long himself could run?
 
Well, Coolidge was an enemy of tariffs and great friend and supporter of free trade

OOC: This is the opposite of Coolidge's actual record. As I noted elsewhere,

"Coolidge's whole record was pro-tariff; he not only supported Fordney-McCumber https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fordney–McCumber_Tariff but implemented it in a very protectionist way: "Fordney-McCumber let the president raise or lower individual tariffs, and when Coolidge used this power he almost always raised them. Coolidge also inherited (and declined to change) a Tariff Commission populated with representatives of the industries it controlled—-an unholy arrangement that lasted until eventually Congress cried foul." https://books.google.com/books?id=ogc9EZf8Ry8C&pg=PA73"
 
Well, Coolidge was an enemy of tariffs and great friend and supporter of free trade, so, if he run in 1928, probably he would eliminate tariffs as a plan to rebuild economy with more trade.

Coolidge was a devout opponent of free trade, the only reason he vetoed the 1924 tariff bill was because it included too much spending
 
I know, he was a typical 1920s GOP protectionist, but we know that because he was President between 1923 and 1929. In this TL where he lost reelection we know only that he vetoed 1924 Tariff bill. And he was not so protectionist, I remember he opposed Smooth-Hawley Act for example. So in the TL where he loses he is remembered as a laissez-faire President, who would not impose high tariffs against trade. We, who lived in the right TL, know that he was not so, but in the alternative Timeline where he loses they can't know that while they are imagining a world where Silent Cal is reelected. This happens often in DBWI threads.
 
If the Great Depression had happened under a Republican President we might well have seen a shift in the parties.

The GOP under Hoover dominated US politics for most of the 20th century, especially with them occupying a centrist "broad tent" position while the Democrats came under increasing conservative domination from the Southern faction.

And of course the Progressives would probably not have become a semi permanent 3rd party

Could we have had a scenario where the roles were reversed, with the GOP increasingly isolated and the Democrats dominant ?

Might the Democrats had been able to use economics to shift the African American vote from the GOP ?
 
I know, he was a typical 1920s GOP protectionist, but we know that because he was President between 1923 and 1929. In this TL where he lost reelection we know only that he vetoed 1924 Tariff bill. And he was not so protectionist, I remember he opposed Smooth-Hawley Act for example. So in the TL where he loses he is remembered as a laissez-faire President, who would not impose high tariffs against trade. We, who lived in the right TL, know that he was not so, but in the alternative Timeline where he loses they can't know that while they are imagining a world where Silent Cal is reelected. This happens often in DBWI threads.


AFAIK Coolidge never expressed opposition to Smoot-Hawley. Even a conservative defender of Coolidge states "We don't know his stand om the Smoot-Hawley tariffs." https://books.google.com/books?id=4CKHfGfNhIQC&pg=PT220 As I note below, Coolidge was still defending protectionism in late 1932, a few months before his death.

Nor would there be any reason to think, even based entirely on his record through 1924, that he was a free trader. Where did you get the idea that he vetoed a tariff bill? His only vetoes in 1924 listed at https://www.senate.gov/reference/Legislation/Vetoes/Presidents/CoolidgeC.pdf were of spending bills, notably the bonus bill. He wasn't altogether happy about the Revenue Act of 1924, but that was because he thought it didn't cut the income tax enough (and anyway he did sign it)--it had nothing to do with tariffs. Coolidge was worried that the government was taking in too much revenue, and he wanted to stop that by lowering income taxes, not lowering the tariff.

In addition, Coolidge's whole record had been protectionist. In 1922, he praised Alexander Hamilton and said that the Republicans were the descendants of the Federalist and Whig Parties, not of the laissez-faire Jeffersonians: "The party now in power in this country, through its present declaration of principles, through the traditions which inherited from its predecessors, the Federalists and the Whigs, through their achievements and through its own, is representative of those policies which were adopted under the lead of Alexander Hamilton[1]" https://www.coolidgefoundation.org/...sts-calvin-coolidge-and-the-full-dinner-pail/ Not surprisingly, he praised McKinley's protectionism, stating in 1923 "He [McKinley] at once revised the tariff and strengthened the law establishing the gold standard. Prosperity immediately returned. There was not only a domestic market but immense exports. The foreign trade increased more under the first term of McKinley than it had ever increased in any other four years." " Coolidge praised McKinley's “...application of his principle of a protective tariff, which furnished the initial opportunity for laying down of the greatest industries of America and the development of her entire resources.” Ibid. The GOP platform on which Coolidge ran in 1924 was strongly protectionist: "We reaffirm our belief in the protective tariff to extend needed protection to our productive industries....The enormous value of the protective principle has once more been demonstrated by the emergency tariff act of 1921 and the tariff act of 1922." https://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/documents/republican-party-platform-1924.

Calvin Coolidge was a protectionist before he became president, as his tributes (while still vice-president) to Hamilton and McKinley showed. He was of course a protectionist while he was president. And he was still a protectionist after leaving the presidency. "The greatest asset of our whole economic system is its effect upon commerce, agriculture, industry, the wage earner, and the farmer, and practically all our producers and distributors, is our incomparable home market. It has always been a fundamental principle of the Republican Party that this market should be reserved in the first instance for the consumption of our domestic products…Our only defense against the cheap production, low wages and low standard of living which exist abroad, and our only method of maintaining our own standards, is through a protective tariff. We need protection as a national policy, to be applied wherever it is required.[7]" Calvin Coolidge, “The Republican Case, The Saturday Evening Post, September 10, 1932,” https://www.coolidgefoundation.org/...sts-calvin-coolidge-and-the-full-dinner-pail/ This was just a few months before his death.

Calvin Coolidge was protectionist, protectionist, protectionist. There was no time he could reasonably have been seen as anything else. Period.
 
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Ok, you win. I was only thinking Collidge was a notorious silent man, and so, without his (main part) Presidency, we would not have a so clear vision of his positions, as now we and (clearly more) you have. I was thinking that, as its improbable Coolidge making public declarations about policies when he did not OTL, simply a person in a different TL could think and remember him under a different (and of course mistaken) point of view. But if it is so clear Calvin Coolidge was so strickly protectionist I'm ok, I change my previous position.
 
OOC: In this TL, he vetoed a tariff in 1924 which caused him to lose popularity among the GOP, but led modern regular people (unaware of his early presidency) to believe he was anti tariff instead of anti spending.
 
IC: Hoover’s evolution on the tariff question throughout the late 1920s was paramount in his victory over the moderate Democrat John Garner from Texas in 1932. He did lose to Wheeler/Huey Long in 36, but he came back and dominated 40 and 44 due to rising tensions in Europe, which finally ended the Democrats as a national party until the 1970s.
 
Despite a very divided Democratic Party, John Davis was able to win the election of 1924 after Robert La Follette’s third party bid threw the election to the House, where Follette, Coolidge, and Davis were able to compromise by agreeing to support the Senate’s confirmation of Charles Dawes for VP, the House voting to put Davis in the White House, and Senator Burton Wheeler (Follette’s VP) would be the Attorney General. What if Follette’s campaign had been unable to do so well in the Midwest, Plains, and Rockies states as well as throw NY and PA to Davis, and Coolidge had won re-election? How would we remember Coolidge’s presidency?

OOC: The idea that La Follette could throw NY and PA to Davis is far-fetched. (For one thing, it is generally agreed that La Follette took more votes away from Davis than from Coolidge--so if La Follette did better, Davis might do still worse.) PA--always a strong GOP state since the Civil War (except when it went Bull Moose in 1912, but TR, one should remember, had the support of the GOP boss of Pittsburgh)--went 65.3 (!) percent for Coolidge, 19.1 percent for Davis, and 14.34 percent for La Follette. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1924_United_States_presidential_election_in_Pennsylvania NY was almost as hopeless for the Democrats--Coolidge won 55.8 percent, Davis 29.1 percent and La Follette 14.6 percent. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1924_United_States_presidential_election_in_New_York Davis did not carry a single county in New York--and that includes all five boroughs of New York City! (La Follette didn't win any, either.) One thing to remember is that some New York Catholic voters were disappointed that Al Smith didn't win the presidential nomination, and while they supported him for governor, split their tickets, voting for "Cal and Al."

Coolidge would really have to be caught with the proverbial dead girl or live boy to lose PA. NY was only slightly less certain.
 
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