John Sharp Williams 2: Southern Boogaloo
27. John Sharp Williams/Murphy J. Foster (Democratic)
(March 4, 1905-March 4, 1917)
1904 Def: Frank S. Black/Mark Hanna (Republican)
1908 Def: Joseph G. Cannon/William Warner (Republican)
1912 Def: L.M Shaw/George L. Sheldon (Republican)
The first Williams administration was known for it's vehement anti-northern stances, opposition to labor laws and love of the navy. Williams would see the increased expansion of the U.S Navy. Picking fellow southerner Murphy J. Foster seemed to go against conventional ticket balancing, yet managed to narrowly carry the day in Indiana and Illinois following tight races there against Black.
The Mississippian would appoint a large majority of southerners into his cabinet, while forced to deal with republican majorities in the House and Senate throughout his entire administration. He threw himself into various international affairs and domestic ones, with the forced quelling of a major slave revolt in 1906 finally convincing the republican majorities to sign some sort of amendment to abolish slavery. While the Democrats kicked and screamed about mongrelization, Williams would see to the task of twisting political hands in an effort to push it through.
Finally, after many late night phone calls and errands, Congress would officially pass the 14th Amendment to abolish slavery. Well, officially, anyways, with loopholes being riddled throughout southern bills that would continue to disenfranchise African american communities and begin the process of segregation throughout the south which it is known for to this day.
In terms of foreign affairs , he charged the nation into World War I before the country was ready and against the advice of much of his cabinet, simply because "wars and elections are both around the corner", referring to the upcoming 1912 election. He was fortunate enough to have a lackluster democratic opponent in Shaw, as opposed to the more exhaustive Cannon. The War raged for a good six years until the dropping of the bully mine on London, powerful enough to level the city in a single night. With the loss of british morale, the Allied powers finally capitulated as the new world order began to take shape.
28. Woodrow Wilson/William Sulzer(Democratic)
(March 4, 1917-January 11, 1918)
1916 Def: William H. Taft/Charles E. Hughes (Republican)
The Virginian born man vowed to carry on with William's legacy of progressive reforms, starting with the appointment of the first female cabinet secretary and former senator Rebecca L. Felton to the honorary post of Mary of America, though she would alter and enhance the power of this position enough to be rumored as the real president, though this is disputed by historians and conspiracy theorists. However, trips abroad to Europe were not good on his overall health, and planned speeches to vote in favor of admission into the newly founded Union of Countries and Colonies only exacerbated the problem to his untimely death in 1918.
29. William Sulzer/Vacant (Democratic)
(January 11, 1918-March 4, 1921)
Shit hit the fan pretty fast for Sulzer, from avoiding knives from the still resentful Edith Wilson, to a rapid resurgence in KKK activities that actively threatened the progressive minded New York Governor. An economic farming meltdown with the end of the war hammered farmers in the Great Plains, with a spike in left wing movements throughout the late 1910s. In an attempt to fix his first issue, he would fill the Supreme Court vacancy of Benjamin Tillman with Indiana Governor Edward L. Jackson, winning praise from southern conservatives and the KKK and scourge from progressives and republicans. He also found another opportunity with the Courts following the assassination of Charles Evan Hughes in 1919, appointing the first female on the court, Rebecca L. Felton.
30. Henry Ford/James J. Pershing (Republican)
(March 4, 1921-March 4, 1925)
1920 Def: James Taliaferro/Morris Sheppard (Democratic)
Balancing out his relative political inexperience with war hero Black Jack Pershing, Ford would inherit and america still struggling with the problems unfixed by Sulzer, who had been too busy avoiding socialist assassination plots and impeachment attempts to really govern effectively. These socialist plots would give him the excuse to tighten a grip on american life, blaming "socialist jews" for many of the ails and issues of the society. This combination of saber rattling against the newly founded soviet western russia would also lean itself into heavy intervention against the reds regarding their civil war. Thousands of american boys would continue to die, with mud soaked fields and dry dusty deserts against Canadian and Mexicans being replaced with the bitter cold and unflinching heartlessness of Russian steel and sniper fire in Russian Alaska. Eventualy, even the most jingoistic supporter of the republicans began to have second thoughts about the gun ho attitude the president displayed. It would reach a climax
31. John Sharp Williams/Charles S. Thomas (Democratic)
(March 4th,1925-March 4th,1929)
1924 Def: Henry Ford/James J. Pershing (Republican)
Guess who's back
back again
Willie's back
bring a friend
Managing to pull a Grover Cleveland despite his first mandate's....mixed legacy, Williams found himself back at the White House. Almost immediately he found the same allies as he had last time, though he had to throw out much of his old cabinet's more complicated officials. The economy continued to hum along like a well oiled machine, and he founded numerous federal departments and programs during this time, such as the Department of Northern Security, which was a federal law enforcement agency meant to spy on northerners or "damned yankees", recruited entirely from people south of the mason-dixon line. On the personal intervention of the vice president, he exempted Colorado from the final draft, which gave rise to general lawlessness within that state.
32. Rebecca L. Felton/Ellison D. Smith (Democratic)
(March 4th,1929-March 4th,1933)
1928 Def: Franklin D. Roosevelt/William Borah (Republican)
Continuing the Democratic winning streak against the conservative FDR/Borah noninterventionist powerhouse (albeit only by 5 million votes in a "slightly rigged" election), the Felton Administration would pass sweeping reforms in the arenas of public saftey, narcotics and the military. While she was forced to endure spending cuts, she would co-operate with the Democratic super majority in order to pass the culmination of her legacy, the passage of the 24th Amendment, which overturned the 21st Amendment against alcohol, being the second Amendment to overturn a previous Amendment (after the passage of the 15th Amendment to abolish the 14th Amendment's prohibition on slavery). Felton herself would scramble to put together some sort of relief packages and reforms to the millions of out of work americans. While not wanting to go too far left into socialist welfare benefits, she found a compromise in the Felton-Care, which provided government dental care and a small stipend for each american regardless of dental history.
Even historians with a bone to pick with her agree that her policy of intervention within the economy was enough to slowly fix it, if not get it back on the right track for Williams to come in later and say hello.
33. Jack Sharp Williams/George Patton (Republican)
(March 4th,1933-March 4th,1953)
1932 Def: Rebecca L. Felton/Ellison D. Smith (Democratic)
1936 Def: John N. Garner/Huey Long (Democratic)
1940 Def: Augustine Lonergan/James Pope (Democratic)
1944 Def: C. Douglas Buck/William M. Citron (Democratic)
1948 Def: Katherine Byron/Hale Boggs (Democratic)
The son of the long serving president, Jack would be the first on the political dynasty of the Williams, and the first to belong to the Republican Party. Rallying against the increased unpopularity of Felton and Smith, the relatively young (at least by presidential standards of 38). Winning an unprecedented five terms in office, Jack would prove to be a popular president, known for his down to earth folksy charm and pleasant demeanor. He is also the first incumbent president to travel into space during the early 50's successfully. He would take an active role in the economic turmoil gripping the nation, assembling various federal projects and largely expanding on the work done by Felton.
He would compound Felton-Care into his own Jack Medical Aids, which improved infrastructure programs throughout the nation and put large sections of people back to work, though not nearly enough as to lessen the blow of the economic malice. Knocking the former Secretary of Agriculture in his re-election bid, Jack looked ever wearily at the british rebuilding under the nationalist rhetoric of former secret agent turned Lord-Protector Neville Chamberlain. Openly decrying the policy of Befriedung, or pacification undertaken by the German and Austro-Hungarian governments, Jack would watch as the British occupation of the Scottish Highlands sparked the Glasglow Conference, only to lead to Chamberlain's invasion of Ireland to "unify the country" which sparked the Second World War.
Balancing an act of diplomacy from the German allies and the English, whom still harbored ill feelings with his father's actions during the First World War, he would maintain neutrality until his hand was forced. The forced movement of his hand was the Mexican attack on the american naval base in Guantanamo Bay. The invasions of Mexico and Canada proved to be rather difficult for the tiny peacetime american army. This forced Jack to bolster american defenses instead of launching northern and southern assaults against America's belligerents. The sinking of Mexican-British Carriers near the Danish Straits brought hope to America, and a handy election victory over Buck and a Connecticut representative. The liberation of France in 1945 bolstered his approval rating, though increased fears agaisnt a re-emerging soviet threat and blame over who lost India to the communist Mahatma Ghandi would sink it enough for him to pull out a narrow upset victory in his last term.