"In 1909, Taft and Porfirio Diaz planned a summit in El Paso, Texas, and Ciudad Juarez, Mexico, a historic first meeting between a U.S. president and a Mexican president and also the first time an American president would cross the border into Mexico.[14] Diaz requested the meeting to show U.S. support for his planned eighth run as president, and Taft agreed to support Diaz in order to protect the several billion dollars of American capital then invested in Mexico.[15] Both sides agreed that the disputed Chamizal strip connecting El Paso to Ciudad Juarez would be considered neutral territory with no flags present during the summit, but the meeting focused attention on this territory and resulted in assassination threats and other serious security concerns.[16] The Texas Rangers, 4,000 U.S. and Mexican troops, U.S. Secret Service agents, FBI agents and U.S. Marshals were all called in to provide security.[17] An additional 250 private security detail led by Frederick Russell Burnham, the celebrated scout, was hired by Hays Hammond. Hammond was a close friend of Taft from Yale and a former candidate for U.S. Vice-President in 1908 who, along with his business partner Burnham, held considerable mining interests in Mexico.[18][19][20] On October 16, the day of the summit, Burnham and Private C.R. Moore, a Texas Ranger, discovered a man holding a concealed palm pistol standing at the El Paso Chamber of Commerce building along the procession route.[21] Burnham and Moore captured and disarmed the would-be assassin within only a few feet of Taft and Diaz. [22]"
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_United_States_presidential_assassination_attempts_and_plots
Suppose the gunman is not detected in time and succeeds in killing both Taft and Diaz. Does the Mexican Revolution start a year early? Vice President Ramon Corral was in poor health--what happens if he decides not to run for president? (That theoretically could abort the immediate cause of the OTL revolution--but if Diaz's supporters try to get one of their men in through fraud, there will likely still be a revolution.)
As for the US, Vice President James Sherman is a conservative, who like Corral is in poor health and will die in 1912. Very likely he will not run for president in 1912 (though in OTL he ran for re-election as vice-president, IIRC out of a sense of duty to Taft--he died a few days before Election Day). Anti-TR Republicans could then rally around a stronger candidate to oppose TR--maybe Hughes?
OTOH, even if Sherman is more conservative than Taft, this may paradoxically help his relations with TR in one respect: he is less likely than Taft to initiate an antitrust suit against US Steel. Taft's decision to do this and to implicitly criticize TR for allowing US Steel's 1907 acquisition of Tennessee Iron and Steel was the final breaking point in OTL. But if the split does develop, I can see people arguing that Taft would never have allowed the GOP to split--after all the joke in 1908 was that "Taft" stood for "Take Advice from Teddy"--and would be re-elected in 1912...
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_United_States_presidential_assassination_attempts_and_plots
Suppose the gunman is not detected in time and succeeds in killing both Taft and Diaz. Does the Mexican Revolution start a year early? Vice President Ramon Corral was in poor health--what happens if he decides not to run for president? (That theoretically could abort the immediate cause of the OTL revolution--but if Diaz's supporters try to get one of their men in through fraud, there will likely still be a revolution.)
As for the US, Vice President James Sherman is a conservative, who like Corral is in poor health and will die in 1912. Very likely he will not run for president in 1912 (though in OTL he ran for re-election as vice-president, IIRC out of a sense of duty to Taft--he died a few days before Election Day). Anti-TR Republicans could then rally around a stronger candidate to oppose TR--maybe Hughes?
OTOH, even if Sherman is more conservative than Taft, this may paradoxically help his relations with TR in one respect: he is less likely than Taft to initiate an antitrust suit against US Steel. Taft's decision to do this and to implicitly criticize TR for allowing US Steel's 1907 acquisition of Tennessee Iron and Steel was the final breaking point in OTL. But if the split does develop, I can see people arguing that Taft would never have allowed the GOP to split--after all the joke in 1908 was that "Taft" stood for "Take Advice from Teddy"--and would be re-elected in 1912...
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