alternatehistory.com

C.E. Hughes defeated Wilson in the 1916 presidential election by running as a moderate with an even hand instead of as an ultra conservative like Taft or a progressive like Roosevelt. He avoided the tariff issue, calling only for modest increases to fund the military expenditures that Wilson had created. He ran to be slightly more hawkish than Wilson, instead of as an isolationist or as an imperialist. What if he had run a different campaign, either to his right or to his left, causing him to lose the election? How would the Great War have gone were Wilson running the country rather than Hughes? Would Wilson have had a more difficult time getting the US in the League of Nations post-war without Hughes’ handling of the Senate Isolationists? Are there any other knock-on effects of no Hughes presidency we might be ignoring?
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