DBWI: The 1929 recession escalates

MrHola

Banned
All we have to do is to butterfly the famous letter J.P Morgan, Jr. wrote to Herbert Hoover, urging him to veto the Smoot-Hawley Tariff Act in 1929. Either Hoover decides to ignore it or, say, the housemaid carelessly drops it in the bin or something. It all comes down to this; what if the recession turned into an actual depression?
 
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Herbert Hoover has repeatedly demonstrated that he has the ability to lead during adversity. He as in China during the Boxer Rebellion and did terrific work under President Wilson. I think he would recognize that it is not necessary for the government to step in all of the time, tho it would have been very hard to maintain any sort of economy with some kind of foreign trade.

What would have been worse would have been for the nation to election a charismatic leader who would have offered an ambiguous idea of 'change' - which he himself has no idea about. For a likely lightweight thinker one only needs to consider Franklin Delano Roosevelt, Governor of New York. One can clearly tell that he learned the worst methods from the Wilson Administration in his advocation of government organizing running everything. Knowing him one can expect that he will try of whole host of programs in the hopes that he will find one that works. His actions would most likely far acclerate or deepen any recession into an outright depression. With folks like Roosevelt one would probably need a war to get the nation going again.
 
Speaking of Franklin Delano Roosevelt, imagine what a disaster his policies would have been in terms of foreign policy! He was afterall one of the most prominent internationalists in the Democratic Party. Had he come in (say around 1936) he might have just been able to push the US into a war with Germany especially if he was credited with alleviating the depression's effects.

Instead of fighting a manageable war with Japan (though one that was thoroughly mis-managed) the USA might have had to fight Germany and who knows maybe the Soviet Union as well! Imagine how many more young American boys would have lost their lives in such a futile struggle.

Furthermore with his cousin having attained the presidency, would TR Jnr. be as willing to pursue the Republican nomination? Not only would we have been stricken with an absolute disaster of a President, we would have lost one of the best presidents of the second half of the 20th century!
 
I agree with everybody else. This is near ASB! Only a complete moron would raise taxes during a recession. Tarriffs act as trade sanctions against oneself. Cutting off trade to yourself is the very height of stupidity and I have to think even without Morgan's letter Hoover would have vetoed it.
 
One thing to consider could be the effects on non-American politics, and I don't mean just the 'would the US have entered the War' kind.
Smoot-Hawley itself would have had some impact, and if the recession escalates into a deep depression...
Might we see increased radicalism in Europe, for instance? I mean, look at Germany: they ended up with a bog-standard military-conservative government (for a while, anyhow), but the USA's woes wouldn't exactly have strengthened the economy, and radical solutions (under a charismatic leader) could have been the call there, as well. Communist Germany, anyone?
 
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MrHola

Banned
Yeah, Germany was ruled throughout the 1930s by Kurt von Schleicher, right? I'm not sure about a communist Germany, though. That Adolf Hitler, the Butcher of Vienna, also had his sights set on Germany. In OTL, the Nazi party quickly lost all of it's money, the funds were simply exhausted. He went back to Austria and started a civil war which required intervention from the League of Nations, remember that one? If there was a depression could this Hitler became ruler of Germany?
 
Yeah, Germany was ruled throughout the 1930s by Kurt von Schleicher, right? I'm not sure about a communist Germany, though. That Adolf Hitler, the Butcher of Vienna, also had his sights set on Germany. In OTL, the Nazi party quickly lost all of it's money, the funds were simply exhausted. He went back to Austria and started a civil war which required intervention from the League of Nations, remember that one? If there was a depression could this Hitler became ruler of Germany?

Unlikely. Hitler was a total nut job, calling for the extermination of entire peoples and a Germanic empire in Europe.
 
Yeah, but that was still when he was on the edge. Put a man in the public eye, and he can't hide radical views like that.
 
Well, there was that matter of him running the show in Vienna for a couple of years through Seyss-Inquart... A guest speaker at my school last week was talking about how so many Austrian Jews were killed or expelled from the country... I shudder to think what would have happened if those nutjobs took Berlin, too...
 

mowque

Banned
I'm going to fall under the Communist option. If the USA did (somehow!) fall into a big depression, it might have hurt Europe badly...a poor nation right next to Russia? I can see it very clearly....

But why are we focused on Germany? Surely WW1 showed them enough of a lesson? i doubt they'd challenge the 'West' like that again! not matter what crazy might have taken power.
 
Another knock on effect might be the end of the Republican Consensus. In this TL "America's Natural Governing Party" might not be that, especially if the Democrats get behind some kind of pseudo-communist plan to "revive" the economy.
 
Why is everyone focusing on Communist Germany? I would imagine that there would be several small-scale revolts in the wake of the hardship in many countries, primarily in the US. Especially given the HUGE propaganda victory it would give to the Bolsheviks. It was bad enough as it was, remember all those "Capitalism Is Failing You" posters? Could it have meant a second civil war?
 
But why are we focused on Germany? Surely WW1 showed them enough of a lesson? i doubt they'd challenge the 'West' like that again! not matter what crazy might have taken power.
Because Germany was a state that happened to be- and remains today- one of the most powerful states in Europe, even after losing the Great War, and harboured ideas of 'revanche', just as France did after 1871. Now, in OTL those feelings were contained without leading to a major war- course, the Soviet thing might have helped- but think of what could have happened if someone more extreme took control... for that matter, the 'West' might not have been as willing to concede on matters if the German regime was more extreme- think of the outburst over Austria, and add to that a more disliked regime before the unification.
 

mowque

Banned
I think you, along with many others over-estimate the "Austrian Outburst". France just flipped out, and England got caught up in the propaganda. I can't see England getting stubborn about it, not with a cool-headed leader like Chamberlain in charge.

But back to the main topic, i have a hard time imagining the USA crumble to a second civil war. Surely, even in the event of a depression, the Socialists would be kept quiet? IF anything we might have become even more close-minded...

Sorry about my 'WW1' slip...i read too many sci-fi novels.....
 
I think you, along with many others over-estimate the "Austrian Outburst". France just flipped out, and England got caught up in the propaganda. I can't see England getting stubborn about it, not with a cool-headed leader like Chamberlain in charge.

But back to the main topic, i have a hard time imagining the USA crumble to a second civil war. Surely, even in the event of a depression, the Socialists would be kept quiet? IF anything we might have become even more close-minded...

Sorry about my 'WW1' slip...i read too many sci-fi novels.....
Hmm, I'm still not convinced. The Bolshies were miles ahead in the propaganda field. The only things that I can see to prevent it are:
1)A major distraction. Perhaps the pacific war goes badly wrong? Borderline ASB in my opinion, it couldn't have lasted longer than it did without serious changes.
2)Some kind of crackdown on soviet propaganda. Not really in line with the whole "freedom" image they were trying to put across. Could also have a huge backlash for obvious reasons.
 
The whole pre-1929 stockmarket was mostly de-regulated - a bit "law of the jungle" - anyone could buy and sell anything, no timelimits, no conditions, didn't matter if you had the cash or not. You could sell stock that lost value and still make money, somehow. Insider trading, I think it was called. It was about making money for individuals rather than firing investment into our nation's companies. Seems very... mercenary to us.

They weren't able to accurately value companies because you didn't need the transparency you get today.
 
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