FDR as President in the 1920's

I'm thinking about a possible TL and I need help with some ideas...

I know that a Cox/Roosevelt victory in 1920 is unlikely but for the sake of discussion let's say that James M. Cox is elected that year and is soon assassinated anytime say during 1921-1923, by some Anarchist (from the First Red Scare-era) and a young, black-haired, polio-free, Franklin Delano Roosevelt assumes the Presidency.

What would an FDR Administration look like in the 1920's? What would he do without the Great Depression? What would his economic policy be in the middle of the prosperous Roaring Twenties, in an economic atmosphere that was the opposite of the one he presided over in the OTL 1930's?

What would his foreign policy be without the threat of Fascism in Europe? Japan was not yet that much of a threat in that time. Would he go after Communism instead and all kinds of revolutionary movements, his predecessor was after all assassinated by an Anarchist in this scenario?

And what other possible policies and features would this Administration have?
 
I don't think he'd do much, if anything, with respect to Fascism. In the 1920s, "dictator" wasn't a dirty word; indeed, Mussolini was rather admired in those days. Fascism was not a threatening phenomeon then.

His economic policies would have had to include some sort of move to rein in buying on margin; otherwise, there would likely have been no avoiding of the 1929 crash. I don't know whom he might have had in charge at the Treasury department who would have had the prescience to call for such a move--or the clout to make it happen, for that matter. (Had Calvin Coolidge had Dawes as his Treasury secretary, instead of his vice president, it might have happened, but that's another story for another time. I have doubts that Morgenthau could have carried it off in the '20s.)

Possibly Prohibition would have been recognized as a huge mistake and gotten repealed earlier (say, as a plank in the 1924 platform). It's difficult to imagine what FDR might have done with the KKK; by the time he took office in OTL it was a moot point, having collapsed of its own weight already.

All in all, I suspect FDR in the '20s would have been viewed as something of a lightweight without the coterie of advisors he attracted in the '30s. He probably wouldn't have gotten a term in his own right in '24, but at the same time, neither Harding nor Coolidge would have seen the Oval Office except as visitors. Don't look for Hoover to succeed FDR, either: he made the vault from a cabinet post under Harding/Coolidge to the White House. Rather, I suspect Lenroot, Sproul, Lowden or one of the other OTL also-rans would have been the GOP standard-bearer in '24, and win.
 
BUMP! Any more ideas?

His economic policies would have had to include some sort of move to rein in buying on margin; otherwise, there would likely have been no avoiding of the 1929 crash.
Would the nation have been receptive to such a policy? Was there enough foresight in the middle of the decade to predict the 1929 crash, for Americans to agree on the government taking preventive measures?

All in all, I suspect FDR in the '20s would have been viewed as something of a lightweight without the coterie of advisors he attracted in the '30s. He probably wouldn't have gotten a term in his own right in '24, but at the same time, neither Harding nor Coolidge would have seen the Oval Office except as visitors. Don't look for Hoover to succeed FDR, either: he made the vault from a cabinet post under Harding/Coolidge to the White House. Rather, I suspect Lenroot, Sproul, Lowden or one of the other OTL also-rans would have been the GOP standard-bearer in '24, and win.
Hmm... is there really no chance for Roosevelt to prove himself to be at least half of the great OTL President he was, in this scenario? Are there any possible 1920's era problems or crises that could arise ITTL and propel him to be a "historically remarkable", if not "great" President (just as the depression and World War II were), you know more than the Gerald Ford-type?
 
Here's my thought. Hughes elected 1916. Blamed for war. Democrats do very well.

FDR somehow elected to bigger office- maybe Governor or Senator.

Cox (or maybe a more powerful figure) elected as a Democrat in 1920. Said President dies with FDR as VP

I have to say that in this scenario I suspect that the Democrats would likely follow policies very similar to Harding and Cooleridge with the same outcome in 1929.
 
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