The American System: A Henry Clay TL

[TheHedgehog]

56. A Forceful Intervention

Tim ROBERTS: Today’s top story concerns the island nation of Cuba and the ongoing American military intervention in war-torn Nicaragua. For more on this, we go now to our Central American correspondent, Arthur Kemp. Hello, Arthur.

Arthur KEMP: Hi, Tim. I’m standing here in Havana, Cuba, right in front of the National Congress building. As you can see, there is a large crowd of protestors gathered at the steps and President Castillo is about to speak.

ROBERTS: Now Arthur, as our viewers already know, the American involvement in Nicaragua has grown a lot over the past two years from military advisors to aerial missions and limited ground deployments. Can you explain to our audience at home what this has to do with a Cuban protest?

KEMP: Of course. Ever since the Spanish-American War ended in 1899, the United States has had a degree of influence in Cuba. This influence has waxed and waned but has always been present and is the reason for American naval and airforce bases at Caimanera in Guantanamo Bay and Nueva Gerona on the Isle of the Pines. Many Cubans, including the ones protesting behind me, oppose the U.S. military presence…

PROTESTOR [standing behind Kemp, waving sign]: Yankees go home! Get out! Yankees go home!

[Cuban police ushers the protestor back to the rest of the crowd.]

KEMP: As you can see, there is a lot of anger. As I was saying, many Cubans oppose these American bases as a violation of their sovereignty. This has only increased as President Breathitt has used the air squadrons based at Nueva Gerona to launch air strikes on Nicaraguan rebels.

ROBERTS: I can understand the anger. Why is the Cuban President, President Castillo, speaking?

KEMP: Since taking office last year, Julio Castillo has aligned Cuba with the Anti-Imperialist League, a group of left-wing central American countries that want to remove both American and Argentinian influence. He has also been a vocal supporter of the Nicaraguan Freedom Front, which is fighting the U.S.-backed Nicaraguan military junta of Omar Rosario. The fact that American fighter jets and marines based in Cuba are being used to attack a Cuban-aligned group is naturally something Castillo wants to stop.

ROBERTS: Thank you very much Arthur. Arthur Kemp, everyone, with excellent analysis as usual. We’ll take a quick break and when we come back, we’ll discuss midterm strategy with Senator Thad Marshall, who’s with us in the studio right now. All that, after the break…

-From ABC EVENING NEWS WITH TIM ROBERTS, June 19th, 2022

“The arrival of two American warships in Havana harbor dramatically heightened tensions. Local officials regarded the ships as a prelude to invasion. Some citizens, meanwhile, viewed the ships as a sign that liberation would soon come. When American sailors went into the city on leave, they were often greeted by excited locals who plied them with food and drink [1]. While captain Alton Crowninshield, the commander of the ships, tried to prevent his sailors from getting drunk, he was largely unsuccessful.

Things were quiet, if tense, for almost three weeks. Then, on April 9th, 1898, five American sailors who were partying in the streets with several locals were arrested for public intoxication and assault by the Havana authorities after they got into a fight with several loyalist Cubans. Crowninshield demanded that they be handed over to him for discipline, but the Spanish refused – they had gotten into trouble on Spanish soil and would be tried in Cuba. The two imprisoned Americans had become seven. After a week the Spanish fined each of the sailors $25 and returned them to their ships [2]. Crowninshield was furious and demanded an apology. This was refused and Governor-General Weyler demanded that the US ships leave Havana harbor. Crowninshield, under orders from Elkins not to leave until Spain released the Roosevelts, informed Weyler of this once more. In retaliation, Weyler ordered the Santa Clara coastal battery to fire a warning shot at the USS Bowling Green. Crowninshield reported that he had been fired upon and hastily withdrew from the harbor.

President Elkins was irate, along with many Americans. The newspapers, from the Chicago Tribune to the Pennsylvania Advocate and the Brooklyn Sun-Herald, furiously denounced Spain as “a nation of jailers and thugs” and “cruel tyrants.” Elkins told his cabinet “Our sympathies for the rebels are not enough. American citizens have been unjustly imprisoned, and an American warship being fired upon is only the latest injustice.” Despite escalating tensions and the loud calls for war on both sides of the aisle, Elkins made one last, halfhearted attempt to negotiate, telling Secretary of State Mark Hanna to demand an apology, the release of the Roosevelts, and compensation to the Roosevelts for being falsely accused and imprisoned. Elkins ordered Hanna “not to accept any compromise or half-measure – we have been wounded enough.” Predictably, Prime Minister Sagasta refused these demands, privately calling them “outrageous.”

On April 23rd, Elkins signed a joint Congressional resolution condemning Spanish conduct and threatening war if they did not apologize, release the Roosevelts, and withdraw altogether from Cuba. The next day, Spain severed all diplomatic relations with the United States, expelling the American embassy from Madrid and recalling its own from Washington. In response, President Elkins ordered a full naval blockade of Cuba, and asked Congress for a declaration of war. Elkins declared that “the Spanish government has far outstepped the bounds of decency and compassion. Instead, they oppress the Cuban people and commit egregious abuses against the innocent both foreign and domestic.” Congress voted to declare war on Spain by a wide margin, dating the declaration of war to April 25th, the date the American blockade began.

U.S. strategy focused on liberating Cuba and Porto Rico as the main goals, with a secondary objective of securing Spanish Guam as a forward naval base in the Pacific. The navy was considered the prime method of securing these aims, and the powerful Caribbean fleet had been mobilized in anticipation of the outbreak of hostilities. Admiral William T. Samson commanded the Caribbean fleet. His plan called for the Spanish fleet in Santiago de Cuba to be neutralized while U.S. marines seized Guantanamo Bay as a forward operating base. However, the U.S. army was quickly found to be neglected since the Civil War and unprepared for large-scale warfare, and the plans were revised to supplying the Cubans with arms and a small American expeditionary force until the main army was in a sufficient state of readiness to fight the Spanish…

The marines took Guantanamo with great speed, overwhelming the defending Spanish garrison and linking up with Cuban rebels to secure the city and port. Within weeks, American supply ships had arrived and were offloading guns, food, and ammunition. 5,000 American soldiers under the command of General William R. Shafter disembarked once the port and city were fully secured and headed west to aid the revolutionaries under General Calixto Garcia in taking Santiago de Cuba…”

-From TO THE BRINK: AMERICA AND SPAIN by Llewellyn Carroll, published 2003

“The Spanish fleet had been blockaded in Santiago harbor for some three months while the Americans patrolled outside. Admiral Pascual Cervera wanted to protect his ships, which included the modern battleships Espana and Pelayo [3] and the modern cruisers Cristobal Colon, Carlos V, and Felipe II. However, the approach of Cuban revolutionaries and a contingent of Americans on the outskirts of Santiago forced Cervera to attempt an escape, which he did in the early hours of August 6th, a Sunday. At 8:30 that morning, Cervera led his fleet out from the safety of the guns of Santiago harbor and made to run the American gauntlet. At that time, the American sailors would be in religious services and the fleet would be hobbled.

In an unplanned twist of fate, Admiral Sampson wasn’t aboard his flagship, the USS Jefferson, as he was en route to Daiquiri for a meeting with General Shafter [4]. Two other battleships and the armored cruiser Minnehapolis had gone to Guantanamo Bay to refuel. In Sampson’s absence, the fleet was paralyzed and while he hastened back, Cervera retained the initiative, and the Americans were forced to give chase. The faster USS Illinois and USS Florida were able to outpace the Spanish lead ships and force Cervera to give battle, but the Spanish ships were still better positioned. Sampson ordered the faster battleship Illinois and Florida, as well as the armored cruiser USS Lynchburg and destroyers USS Perry and USS Truxtun to “do as much damage as possible” to the Spanish battleship Espana, while the slower Jefferson, Louisiana, New York, and Pennsylvania trained their fire on the slower, weaker Almirante Oquendo, Vizcaya, and Infanta Maria Teresa.

In a series of running duels, the Jefferson was able to disable the Vizcaya and left the Almirante Oquendo damaged enough that it was finished off with ease by the New York. The Infanta Maria Teresa, meanwhile, was able to land three solid hits on the armored cruiser USS Elyton, but her escape was arrested by the return of the USS Georgia, USS Tennessee, and USS Minnehapolis from refueling. In a brief gun duel, the Infante Maria Teresa was heavily damaged and sank after her aft magazine detonated. The protected cruisers USS Cairo and USS Albany, meanwhile, successfully ran down and destroyed three of the five Spanish destroyers, while the rest fled for Havana. Amid the fighting the Felipe II was able to escape west, using the burning wreck of the Infanta Maria Teresa as cover.

At the fore of the Spanish fleet, the Espana and Pelayo were holding her own against the Illinois and Lynchburg, while the Florida dueled with the Cristobal Colon and Carlos V. The latter ship was able to slip away to Havana while the Cristobal Colon and Espana fended off the two American battleships. The battle was evenly matched, but Cervera knew that continuing the engagement would allow the rest of the American fleet time to catch up and obliterate him. Thus, Cervera ordered the rest of the fleet to resist as long as possible, knowing that a collection of obsolete protected cruisers and destroyers stood little chance of victory against the most modern battleships in the world. Cervera was able to disengage from the battle and retreat to Havana, although as he withdrew the Pelayo was torpedoed by the Perry, damaging the battleship’s steering.

As Cervera withdrew to Havana, Sampson pursued and in the following days US ships picked off two additional protected cruisers, knocked out the Felipe II’s aft turret and nearly forced her aground, and the battleships Jefferson and Illinois caught the wounded Pelayo and sunk her in the Gulf of Batabano. Cervera’s much-reduced fleet slipped into Havana harbor on September 19th, while the US fleet was handicapped by poor visibility. Though Sampson failed to destroy the Spanish fleet in its entirety, he had crippled it and the Battle of Santiago de Cuba, and its ensuing pursuit action was a decisive victory that made the Caribbean effectively an American lake. With this victory, the United States could blockade Cuba with impunity. Still, Spain refused to sue for peace. Not only would a humiliating defeat destroy Sagasta’s embattled government, but it would plunge the country’s fragile democracy into chaos…”

-From A HISTORY OF AMERICAN POWER AT SEA by Edgar Willis, published 1974

[1] This is not to say that all Cubans supported independence, merely that those sympathetic to the rebels used treating the US sailors to a good time as a subtle form of resistance to Spanish authority.
[2] Inspired by a mix of the OTL Baltimore Incident and cause of the occupation of Veracruz.
[3] OTL, the Spanish didn’t send their most powerful ships. TTL, their Caribbean fleet is kept reinforced. Not that it does them much good.
[4] OTL, Sampson was sufficiently removed from the battle that one of his subordinates oversaw the crushing American victory.

 

[TheHedgehog]

57. Over the Top, Across the River

“Historians have long debated Carlos Pellegrini’s precise motivation for aiding the Colorados and steering Argentina into war with Brazil. On paper, there was a tremendous disparity between the two nations, one quite unfavorable to Argentina at that. In 1898, Brazil had an estimated population of 17.4 million people, compared to just 8.2 million Argentines. The Brazilian army numbered some 45,000 [1], while Argentina boasted a force of just 20,000 full-time soldiers. This may make Pellegrini’s decisions in the July Crisis of 1899 seem suicidal, but army strength is just half of the equation. Argentina possessed a fleet equal to the Brazilian fleet, with ships of arguably better construction (depending on whether one views American or British shipyards as superior). Further, the Argentine economy was heavily industrialized, far outpacing Brazil in railroad mileage, industrial agriculture, and coal and steel production. Brazil’s economy depended heavily on cash crops like coffee, exports of which could be easily disrupted in a war.

Finally, there is the societal aspect. Brazil at the close of the 19th century was far from the golden age of democracy and progress it had been under Pedro II. His son, Pedro III, was very unpopular, having alienated both conservative landowners with his staunch abolitionism and the liberal intelligentsia with his devout ultramontane Catholicism. The army rank-and-file suffered from poor discipline, the army’s officer corps had become disillusioned with the monarchy and a number of generals were increasingly enamored with declaring a republic. Argentina, meanwhile, was incredibly united. It was enjoying a period of mass immigration from Europe, worker discontent was low, and its government was stable. The student protests that would grip the country in the early 20th century had yet to happen and were in some ways directly caused by the war. As a result of its prosperity and sense of national unity, Argentina was a far more united and stable country than Brazil as the two finally came to blows in the summer of 1899. Not only was internal dissent in wartime lessened in Argentina, but greater national unity meant that there was a steady stream of eager volunteers (at least at first) for the army, while Brazil’s army relied on conscription from the start to expand its ranks.

This brings us to the outbreak of hostilities. Pedro III’s commanding general, Deodoro de Fonseca, envisioned a grand sweep south, in which the Brazilian army would seize the Argentine provinces of Misiones, Corrientes, and Entre Rios, cutting Argentina off from Uruguay and allowing the defeat of each state’s army in detail. To accomplish this ambitious plan, the army’s numbers were bolstered with conscription, mostly of rural peasants and immigrants. Initially, there was much enthusiasm throughout the country, with patriotic parades and public fantasizing about delivering a swift, knockout blow to the upstart Argentines. Meanwhile, the Argentine plan was to reinforce the beleaguered Colorado army in Uruguay and besiege Salto to crush the Blanco army. Pellegrini and his general staff did not envision any sort of decisive defeat of Brazil, rather they wanted to flex Argentina’s military muscles and secure Uruguay within its sphere of influence.

Another key Brazilian weakness emerged as Fonseca initiated his battleplan. Fonseca, a monarchist, was overseeing an officer corps that was primarily Republican and therefore in opposition to both him and Emperor Pedro III. One of Fonseca’s top-ranking subordinates was the Republican general Floriano Peixoto. Peixoto spread rumors within the army that the emperor didn’t trust Fonseca and wished to remove him while secretly meeting with fellow Republicans in the army to plot a coup. Peixoto planned to depose Fonseca as the commanding general and, using the fame from winning the war, depose the emperor. Despite his scheming, Peixoto publicly played the part of loyal general and followed his orders, at least until he was in a good position to set his plans in motion…”

-From THE HOMEFRONT: A CLOSER LOOK by Heather Neuman, published 2018

“General Peixoto had arranged to be in command of the forces along the border with Corrientes and Misiones, where he could enjoy success without the risk of decisive failure. Fonseca oversaw offensive preparations, as Brazilian troops reinforced Blanco lines and prepared to assault Colorado positions along the Yi River, and concentrated forces in Salto to attack the Argentines across the Uruguay River. To achieve these aims, conscription swelled the ranks of the army to 90,000 men. Meanwhile, the Argentines were not idle – Generals Manuel Campos [2] and Pablo Riccheri [3] prepared a broad defensive strategy, while Miguel Espina [4] oversaw offensive preparations in Uruguay. Volunteer drives and mobilization of reservists brought Argentina’s army up to 75,000.

The Brazilian attack began on August 15th, after a period of build-up in Uruguay and along the Argentine border. While Peixoto was initially challenged by the rapid flow of the Uruguay River, he successfully established a crossing at Restauracion, across the river from the Brazilian city of Uruguaia. This provoked momentary panic in the Argentine general staff, as the garrisons north of Restauracion now faced being cut off from supply. Both Campos and Riccheri agreed on withdrawal, and President Pellegrini reluctantly assented to the plan. The retreat was in general good order, and the troops rejoined the rest of the army at Monte Caseros, just south of the Brazilian breakthrough. However, the garrison in the city of Corrientes remained, protected by the Ibera wetlands.

With Misiones and much of Corrientes abandoned to Fonseca, Campos and Riccheri focused on defending Entre Rios from Concordia south. To protect the northern flank of the city, Riccheri ordered a series of long trenches constructed with artillery batteries, observation balloons, and machine gun nests at regular intervals from Concordia to the Parana River. Barbed wire, requisitioned from civilian factories, added to the defenses. Further trenches and redoubts were dug along the lower Uruguay River, which was easier to cross. Within the first two months of the conflict, Argentina had ensconced itself in a maze of trenches, machine gun nests, and barbed wire that was initially viewed as an inconvenience at best at by Brazilian commanders.

The initial Brazilian offensive struck the Colorados before Espina’s Argentine reinforcements could arrive. Under a barrage of artillery fire, Brazilian and Blanco troops crossed the Rio Negro and swept south towards the Yi River and Montevideo beyond. The first signs of trouble came when General Spina’s advance units arrived in Fray Bentos, at the mouth of the Rio Negro, right as it came under Brazilian attack. The added Argentine reinforcements enabled the Colorado defenders to put up stiff resistance. After three days of brutal urban warfare in the northern neighborhoods, the Brazilians withdrew on August 23rd, preserving a tenuous land connection between Argentina and Uruguay. The trickle of reinforcements became a flood after the Battle of Fray Bentos, and Fonseca’s advance slowed considerably. As the Brazilians neared the banks of the Yi, resistance increased sharply and Fonseca, seeking a decisive breakthrough, concentrated his forces in a strike on Durazno, the former capital of Uruguay which lies on the south bank of the Yi.

The attack commenced on September 1st and the Brazilian army was confronted with an entrenched and heavily armed enemy. Both Espina and his Uruguayan counterpart Maximo Tajes were present and coordinated the defense. In a portent of the bloodshed in the trenches of Entre Rios, three Brazilian waves were repulsed with heavy losses, while the Argentines and Colorados suffered far fewer casualties. After a fourth attack failed and with reports of an Argentine attack at Paysandu on the Uruguay River (which was unsuccessful), Fonseca broke off the engagement and withdrew to the north bank of the Yi on September 4th. The next week saw a near-constant Brazilian artillery barrage rain shells down on Durazno, and after receiving additional conscript reinforcements, Fonseca mounted a second attack on September 12th, which lasted for a whole week. Initially, Brazilian troops were able to establish small toeholds on the south bank of the river, but further advances became prohibitively costly in both lives and supplies, and by September 18th, had been driven back from the city itself. With the Argentinians beginning an artillery barrage of their own on Fonseca’s logistics centers, he finally withdrew his forces back north on the 20th.

Meanwhile, the Brazilian army approached Riccheri’s trenches in Entre Rios. This army was commanded by General Peixoto, who had bypassed the city of Corrientes in favor of taking Buenos Aires and returning home a national hero. “Trenchwork is nothing artillery and determination cannot handle,” he wrote to Fonseca on September 10th, hours before launching his offensive. “We have the greatest army on the continent, and the finest tacticians. The radical state will be crushed.” Confident in success, Peixoto had an ambitious strategy: break through the trenches west of Concordia and encircle, then capture the city, and then sweep down Entre Rios, cross the Parana, and lay siege to Buenos Aires itself. Peixoto planned to use the prestige such a victory would confer to return to Rio de Janeiro with his army and depose Pedro III. His soldiers were also confident of victory, with one writing that the Brazilian army would be in Buenos Aires “within a month.”

At 5:00am on September 10th, a withering artillery barrage began, bombarding the Argentine positions. Five hours later, the bombardment ended and Peixoto’s army advanced with a great roar towards the trenches ahead. Within fifteen minutes, the cries of victory turned into screams of pain as Brazilian soldiers became ensnared by barbed wire, bayoneted at the parapet of the trench, or mowed down by machine gun fire. Riccheri gloated in a telegram to President Pellegrini that “we have won a great triumph today… the ground is stained with Brazilian blood alone.” Peixoto initially believed that he could exhaust the Argentines with continuous frontal assaults until the trench defenders broke and fled.

After two days without success, Peixoto pulled his forces back and resumed the artillery barrage, which lasted for 12 hours on September 13th. A second wave of assaults saw the Brazilians overpower the Argentines in three locations, and Riccheri ordered a fallback to the secondary trenches. The Brazilians, exhausted by another two days of vicious fighting, were in no shape for storming a second set of trenchworks. Meanwhile, Argentina went on the offensive in eastern Uruguay in mid-September, with Espina pushing north from Maldonado with the goal of taking Melo. However, Brazilian and Blanco defenders dug their own trenches just north of the town of Aigua, 55 miles north of Maldonado. The ensuing battle was very bloody and Espina fought for six days to break through the trenches. He was unsuccessful and was forced to return to Aigua after suffering nearly 3,000 casualties. In Aigua, he dug his own trenches to ward off a counterattack and the frontlines in Uruguay settled into a similar stalemate to that in Entre Rios.

The initial offensives, both successful and unsuccessful, had resulted in Brazil burning through much of its artillery shell stockpiles. By the end of October 1899, reserves were running low, and Fonseca was forced to adopt a defensive posture while the government procured more shells. Also, the Brazilian riverine fleet was outdated, mostly consisting of ships from the late 1860s. By comparison, the Argentine riverine fleet was somewhat more modern, consisting of eight steel-hulled American-built gunboats.

In a series of engagements, the Argentine monitors crippled Brazil’s naval presence on the Uruguay River. These factors together allowed the Argentines to go on the offensive on December 18th, 1899. General Campos oversaw a massive attack along the lower Uruguay River under the cover of a bombardment from artillery and riverine gunboats. Campos attacked at Paysanu, the site of a previous failed attempt. This time, however, the Argentines were much more successful, outflanking the city in the south. With the city nearly cut off from supply and under heavy bombardment, Fonseca was forced to withdraw his forces shortly after the new year. The Argentine army entered Paysanu on January 3rd, and Campos managed to push east until his advance was halted by a combined Brazilian-Blanco army just west of the key river ford at Santa Isabel [5] in a costly battle.

The failure of Fonseca’s grand battleplan and the brutal trench warfare that followed forced Peixoto to change tack – if he usurped Fonseca, there was no victory to claim credit for. However, his accusations that Fonseca was wasting men and material while “adhering to the same disproven, blood-stained strategy” did have the desired effect: Pedro III dismissed Fonseca and asked Peixoto to replace him. Peixoto, feigning humility, declined and instead offered the name of one of his Republican coconspirators, Benjamin Constant. The emperor followed Peixoto’s suggestion and appointed Constant as the commanding general of the Brazilian army.”

-From THE GREAT PLATINE WAR by Peter Vale, published 2002

“The other nations of South America were reluctant to get involved in the escalating Platine conflict. Chile was the most likely nation to get involved, but the country had been greatly weakened by its defeat in the Atacama War and a civil war that raged from 1887 to 1891 that saw the President defeat a hostile legislature and rule by decree with military backing. The civil war had left Chile in ruins, with disease and poverty rampant in parts of the country. Total Argentine control of the Tierra del Fuego put a chokehold on Chilean trade and restricted the already poor economy from booming like it was in the rest of the continent. Thus, while Emperor Pedro III and his cabinet appealed to President Eulogio Robles Pinochet, who cited the nearly nonexistent Chilean navy (much of it had been sunk or disabled during the civil war) and poor state of the army when he declined to declare war on Argentina.

Peru and Bolivia, despite being allies of Argentina in the Atacama War, remained neutral. While both countries had border disputes with Brazil in the Acre region, neither country wanted to fight in the jungle. Both countries did support Argentina by selling them discounted raw materials, however. Peru also helped Argentina secure arms deals with the United States and Prussia. After the Argentine fleet’s victory at Punta del Este [6] prevented Brazil from blockading the Rio de la Plata, foreign countries were eager to sell arms and ammunition, and many of these deals were concluded through intermediaries in Lima. The influx of American rifles, barbed wire, Tredegar artillery helped sustain Argentina’s defensive strategy, while Britain sold weapons to Brazil and loaned Pedro III large sums. French companies, meanwhile, gleefully sold to both sides.

With the coming of 1900, a new year and a new century, the weary soldiers in their trenches hoped peace would come. Pedro III and Carlos Pellegrini each planned to deliver the knockout blow and emerge as the triumphant master of the Rio de la Plata. The year 1900 would bring major upheavals, as wars are not won on the field of battle alone…”

-From A CONDENSED HISTORY OF SOUTH AMERICA by Juan Morales, published 2019

[1] Much larger than OTL, thanks to Pedro III’s spending spree.
[2] OTL and TTL, Campos aided the RCU in the 1890 revolution.
[3] OTL, Riccheri oversaw the reform of the Argentine army along with Campos. He does the same ITTL.
[4] Based on Mariano Espina, an army officer who was IOTL a military leader in the Revolution of 1890.
[5] OTL, Santa Isabel was renamed Paso de los Toros in 1929.
[6] Not a knockout blow, but a clear Argentine win, like the Battle of the Coral Sea.

 

[TheHedgehog]

58. A Splendid Little War

“It was fortunate that the United States had committed relatively few ground troops to Cuba, as the small force that they did send was beset first by costly battles against the Spanish in the San Juan Hills, and then by yellow fever. The American Expeditionary Force was all but disabled by the disease just weeks after the capture of Santiago. Presented with a petition by several officers in the American Expeditionary Force, Elkins ordered the withdrawal of all army units from Cuba on August 18th, 1898, sending the afflicted men to bases on Long Island for quarantine. While American ground forces left the island, Elkins resolved t0 return once disease season had subsided.

The experiences of the Cuban forces and the American observers accompanying them allowed the army to gain a better understanding of Spanish equipment and tactics. After American troops experienced heavy losses on the Santiago campaign, largely from costly civil war-style frontal assaults. The opportunity to analyze Cuban struggles against Spanish troops was very valuable, and when Nelson Miles returned to Cuba with a recovered American army, he was far better prepared for the march to Havana than he had been for the march to Santiago de Cuba. This time, nearly 40,000 men comprised the AEF, and were to advance west in two columns: one on the north coast towards Havana and one on the south towards Cienfuegos [1].

Faced with a better prepared American army and total American domination of the seas, the Spanish army was forced into a fighting retreat. Meanwhile, the US navy bombarded Havana, seeking to destroy the city’s fortifications. Under the weight of this concerted offensive, the Spanish defenders were continuously forced back. Finally, by March 1899, the northern American column was at the gates of Havana, supported by a large contingent of Cuban revolutionaries. Initially, Weyler ordered the army to defend Havana at all costs, but with the city under naval and land bombardment, and with revolutionaries within the city harassing the defenders, the general public protested. With the city itself falling into mayhem, Weyler was forced to surrender to General Miles.

With the fall of Havana, the fighting largely came to an end. Cienfuegos surrendered on April 17th, 1899, just under a year since the war began.”

-From TO THE BRINK: AMERICA AND SPAIN by Llewellyn Carroll, published 2003

“With victory in sight, Congress turned to the future of Cuba after the war. Though the Bland Amendment [2], passed shortly before the fall of Havana, had forbidden the annexation of Cuba, many in Congress still wanted the United States to maintain significant influence in the newly independent nation. Senator Matthew Quay of Pennsylvania proposed an amendment to the 1899 army appropriations bill imposing several restrictions on the Cuban Republic. Cuba was prevented from making treaties with other nations that “inhibited Cuban independence,” the Isle of Pines was excluded from Cuba until its status could be formally settled, Cuba was required to lease ports to the United States to serve as naval bases, and that the United States had the right to intervene into Cuban affairs unilaterally to “preserve Cuban independence.” The Quay Proviso [3] was approved by Congress, and Cuba was forced to accept the provisions in the 1901 Cuban—American Friendship Treaty.

There was also a debate over acquiring naval bases in Cuba. While the anti-imperialist Democrats largely opposed such an endeavor, President Elkins and the Whigs were eager to secure American naval dominance in the Caribbean. As the Isle of Pines was excluded from Cuba’s formal borders, several politicians including Secretary of State Hanna and Senator Russell Alger urged the President to use the Quay Proviso to lease the island for an American naval base. Cuba was forced to lease the Isle of Pines, along with Guantanamo harbor, to the United States in July 1902. The American imposition of the Quay Proviso was unpopular in Cuba, and Jose Marti, despite being barred from politics by the American-backed regime, continued to work for Cuban freedom [4] …”

-From THE AMERICAN EMPIRE by Frederick Kent, published 2001

“With Cuba under joint Cuban American occupation, Porto Rico under total American control, and the navy in tatters, there was little reason besides pridefulness for the Sagasta ministry to prolong the conflict. On April 30th, 1899, Spain sued for peace under the condition that the United Kingdom serve as an intermediary. Prime Minister Arthur Balfour was viewed as a neutral presence, having worked to rebuild Britain’s relationships with both the United States and Spain. President Elkins accepted, and the negotiations were set to be held in London under the supervision of future prime minister Archibald Croft [5], then the British ambassador to Spain.

The American negotiation team was led by Secretary of State Mark Hanna and Ohio Senator Whitelaw Reid, a former diplomat. They were under secret instructions from Elkins to insist upon the “total independence” of Cuba from Spanish sovereignty and the cession of Guam and Porto Rico to the United States. The Philippines had been largely ignored by the United States, and so Elkins instructed that “the Philippine archipelago is not to be demanded as a territorial concession… economic and trade concessions are acceptable, however.” The Spanish delegation was led by Eugenio Montero Rios, a member of Sagasta’s Liberal Party. Spain was willing to concede control of Cuba and even Porto Rico and Guam, but Montero Rios was under instructions to try as hard as possible to avoid Spain being forced to assume the Cuban national debt. Indeed, it was the national debt that Spain was most unwilling to budge on, and Montero Rios began negotiations refusing to assume Cuba's debt. Ultimately, after nearly a month of negotiation, the United States agreed to evenly split the Cuban debt with Spain, along with paying Spain $15 million for Spanish-owned infrastructure in Cuba.

Shortly after the treaty was ratified by the Cortes and the American Senate, Sagasta resigned. While there had not been a motion of no confidence, he nevertheless resigned as Prime Minister, feeling humiliated. New elections were therefore called in December 1899. The Liberals remained the largest overall party, but their commanding majority had been reduced by 57 seats to a plurality. Eugenio Montero Rios was invited by King Amadeo I to form a minority government, though his government was incredibly unstable. The Cortes was divided, and conservative parties made up a majority. However, these conservatives were unable to form a coalition, as Antonio Maura’s Conservative Party refused to work with the Carlists.

Amid the parliamentary deadlock, the various parties were unable to agree on the 1901 budget. With a government funding crisis looming, Montero Rios unilaterally decreed on June 8th, 1900, that the current budget would be carried over into the next year. This was protested by the conservatives as an authoritarian move and a “liberal dictatorship.” While Antonio Maura planned to hold a vote of no confidence, General Jose Lopez Dominguez, a centralist liberal, plotted to keep Montero Rios in power. On June 10th, as Dominguez waited nearby, the confidence vote was held and Montero Rios lost, forcing him to resign. Just ten minutes later, Dominguez’s soldiers stormed the Cortes building and he declared the chamber dissolved. The deputies were expelled from the building as Dominguez sent telegraphs to his fellow generals calling on their support, which he readily received. Almost overnight, Spain’s flourishing, if chaotic democracy had been snuffed out by Dominguez’s pronuniciamiento [6].

Montero Rios refused to serve as the leader of Dominguez’s “denatured democracy,” as he derisively called the new regime. King Amadeo reluctantly invited Dominguez to form a government, but he was deeply disillusioned with the country that he had only reluctantly come to rule. He would largely step back from his public duties, even refusing to attend the opening of the Cortes. Amadeo lived as a recluse in a countryside palace, depressed and bitter. He could not abdicate lest Spain fall into chaos and potentially civil war, and so he remained in his self-imposed internal exile. By the time of his death in 1904, he hadn’t left his estate in three months. Meanwhile, Prime Minister Dominguez enforced a centralist junta, ruling with the support of a rump Radical-Liberal Cortes and the army. The Democratic Era had come to an end, eroded by defeat abroad and gridlock at home…”

-From DENATURED DEMOCRACY: A HISTORY OF SPAIN by Oliver Ickes, published 1987

“The treaty established Cuba as an independent nation. And Cuba was independent, on paper at least. The United States forced the Quay Proviso on the Cuban government, effectively suborning the new nation to American imperialist ambitions. American businessmen secured broad commercial rights to sugar production in Cuba, allowing them to force out native Cuban sugar businessmen and dominate a major sector of the Cuban economy. American-owned sugar mills paid their workers pitiful wages and jointly controlled the nation’s railroads as a single monopoly [7], the infamously corrupt National Railway Corporation. Under American dominance, the Cuban people were left impoverished and locked out of their own country’s government.

This neo-colonialism left Cuba poorer and more unstable than it had been even under the Spanish. Even worse, the United States forced Cuba to amend its constitution – not just to incorporate the Quay Proviso, but to add qualifications to the guarantee of universal male suffrage. In a country 32% Black, American imperialism led to these people – many of whom who had fought for independence – being excluded from the franchise. The addition of a property qualification of at least $250 and a literacy qualification [8] are tactics straight out of the white supremacist southern states of that era, and they were being imposed on the Cuban people at bayonet’s point.

What Mark Hanna called a “splendid little war” may have enriched American businessmen and benefited the revolving door of Cuban caudillos and corrupt oligarchs, but it resulted in nothing but poverty and chaos for the Cuban people. The Cuban Republic swiftly devolved into instability and political violence. Jose Marti, the leader of the revolution and an opponent of American imperialism, won the 1901 presidential election in a landslide. Yet Military Governor Nelson Miles, acting on the orders of President Weldon, invalidated the election results on the grounds that Marti had used fraud to win. He then installed Tomas Estrada Palma, who was living in Florida at that point, as President. The remaining US troops in Cuba suppressed the ensuing riots and protests, and Marti was arrested while holding a rival inauguration. The revolution he had led had been corrupted and perverted by the American Empire.

Cuba may have become independent, but it was by no means free. It had gone from the frying pan into the fire.”

-From THE REAL HISTORY OF AMERICA by Thaddeus Flagg, published 2020

[1] OTL the Spanish surrendered once their navies had been savaged. TTL, they have just enough of a fleet left to not rush to seek peace.
[2] Just the Teller Amendment from OTL.
[3] The same as the OTL Platt Amendment.
[4] Marti will be back, as he attempts to make Cuba more like America, against America’s wishes.
[5] I will get into Britain in more detail as the TL moves into the 20th century. This guy is fictional, though.
[6] Based on the OTL 1874 Paiva Coup.
[7] The sugar and railroad stuff is all based on OTL.
[8] Sadly, this happened OTL.

 

[TheHedgehog]

59. How the Mighty Fall

“…the Spring Offensives of March and April 1900 proved more of the same bloody disappointments that had become the mainstay of Brazilian military planning since September of 1899. A scant eleven square kilometers of land had been taken by Benjamin Constant, at the cost of thousands more killed or severely wounded. Ammunition shortages were becoming more constant, and Argentine domination of the rivers severely hampered the supply of the Brazilian troops in Entre Rios. Pedro III had grown increasingly frustrated by the stalemate and the inability of his generals to achieve a breakthrough.

On April 16th, the Emperor dismissed Constant from command and replaced him with Gumercindo Saraiva, a monarchist and able commander. Seeking to revive flagging morale among the troops, Pedro III also announced a visit to the trenches in Uruguay. His influence in the general command threatened, Floriano Peixoto hastily set the Republican coup in motion. Peixoto traveled to Rio de Janeiro with Constant, ostensibly to help defend him in a meeting with the War Ministry. However, the two would upon their arrival proceed to the local barracks and rallied the troops there. Peixoto and Constant led the garrison in a march on the government offices, arresting the emperor’s cabinet and forcibly dissolving parliament. Simultaneously, Republican generals on the frontlines arrested Saraiva and placed the emperor under house arrest in the field headquarters in Rivera, where he was forced to abdicate.

Peixoto and his allies drafted a declaration establishing Brazil as a republic. In the Rio de Janeiro city hall, the Brazilian Republic was declared, with Peixoto as President. News of the coup and formation of the Republic came as a shock to most Brazilians. Just days after the coup, a series of monarchist mutinies on the frontlines had to be suppressed. Monarchist protestors in the streets were arrested and monarchist publications forcibly closed down as Peixoto moved swiftly to cement his regime’s authority. While the Republic was consolidated, the deposed Emperor Pedro III was kept in a Uruguayan country house while his son Afonso plotted the restoration of the monarchy…”

-From A HISTORY OF BRAZIL by Julia Peterson, published 2013

“Although Argentina weathered the storm far better than Brazil did, the war effort was not without its struggles. Rationing of food, coal, and metals had been implemented in 1900 [1], and martial law was imposed nationwide. Pellegrini had refrained from ordering many offensives in order to conserve manpower, but this resulted in accusations of cowardice and weakness. The draft proved incredibly unpopular with university students, but the wartime atmosphere of unity meant that their protests were shut down with little protest outside of radical organizations.

Pellegrini also encountered protests from labor unions, whose power had greatly increased under Alem. Workers objected to the lengthening of hours demanded by coal and steel companies, and Pellegrini faced the threat of wartime strikes. Using wartime national unity as an excuse, Pellegrini secured passage of the Wartime Labor Act of 1901 that forbade strikes during “periods of national conflict.” To prevent strikes in protest of the law, he publicly urged companies to raise wages, and encouraged them to hire women so that shifts would not have to be lengthened. Fortunately, the unions understood the necessity of unity during wartime, but they wouldn’t forget Pellegrini’s policies.

It was under the conservative Pellegrini that the seeds for some of the greatest social and economic upheaval in Argentine history would occur, perhaps second only to the Revolution of 1890…”

-From A CONDENSED HISTORY OF SOUTH AMERICA by Juan Morales, published 2019

Feet of Clay said: It’s definitely possible for Brazil to defeat Argentina. If Brazil maintains dominance over the rivers, then they can keep supplying their armies in Entre Rios. Then, if you prevent the Coffee Recession – say Pedro III imposed a restriction on wartime coffee exports which prevents the dramatic price crash, that prevents the farmworkers’ strikes of 1902 and then their armed rebellion a few years after that.

ProgCon said: None of that would lead necessarily to a Brazilian victory in the Platine War. First, it’s ridiculous for Brazil to restrict exports during the war – how else would they get the cash for weapons? Second, you’d have to go back decades to get Brazil to properly modernize its monitor fleet, at which point you might as well have Brazil industrialize more as well.

TheArchive said: Yeah, that’s another thing, Brazil had great railroads if you wanted to export coffee, but terrible if you wanted to supply a large invasion force in Uruguay and Argentina. You’d have to have Brazil expand its rail network in the south much earlier, as the expansion program was still less than halfway done in 1899. I also think that a POD would have to be thrown in preventing the army from getting so damn republican.

ProgCon said: Honestly, you’d have to create a different Brazil to have them win, one with better infrastructure, less reliance on conscription, and a diversified economy that doesn’t implode as soon as the price of coffee dips slightly. The pressure of war just caused all of these underlying issues to bubble up all at once, and what you get is the farmhands’ collectives and the giant mutinies. Just keeping Pedro III in power won’t stop the army from mutinying after the Uruguay Offensive of 1901.

-From COULD BRAZIL WIN THE PLATINE WAR? on whatif.net, posted 2022

“However, after over two years of mounting casualties and with no end to the war in sight, Brazil began to feel the economic strain of the conflict. While Argentina’s industry and diversified economy allowed the country to keep the economy stable, the Brazilian economy was heavily dependent on coffee cultivation. The conscription program that was instituted at the outbreak of hostilities took many coffee plantation workers away from the fields, raising the cost of labor dramatically. Meanwhile, the huge amounts of coffee that Brazil produced and exported caused prices to fall considerably, beginning in March of 1901. As a result, a number of plantations went bankrupt throughout April and early May that year, precipitating financial trouble for railroads and shipping firms. With the bankruptcy of the Sao Paulo & Paraiba railroad on May 23rd, a financial panic ensued that caused the bankruptcy of five other railroads, including the Sao Paulo & Santos, and three major shipping companies. The shockwaves spread as foreign investors dumped their Brazilian stocks, which also decimated the booming rubber industry in the Amazon.

The sudden economic depression presented a major headache for Peixoto and his junta. The offensives in Entre Rios and Uruguay had ground to a bloody halt, and the depression not only threatened the government’s ability to raise funds, but also the tenuous social stability. With an unending stalemate on the frontlines and a crumbling economy, conditions were rife for a revolution. However, a tense calm held in the weeks immediately following the panic, as many Brazilians weren’t quite sure how to react. By the middle of June, the effects of a recession were being felt. Nearly 70 plantations had declared bankruptcy, and the ones that remained open announced wage reductions. The railroads and other businesses still solvent followed suit, and worker resentment began to build. The booming economy that had fueled Brazil’s army and navy expansion was gone, the crash leaving in its wake rising unemployment and falling revenues [2].

Peixoto was still determined to continue with the war and began planning another grand offensive to force the Argentines out of Uruguay. A massive diversionary assault would proceed in Entre Rios, while the real offensive would seek to cut the Colorado-Argentine forces in half at Colonia, isolating Montevideo from Buenos Aires. Peixoto promised victory within 72 hours, dramatically raising morale. The Entre Rios army was understrength due to the riverine blockade imposed by Argentine monitors, and when their diversionary attack began on August 18th, the Argentine defenders easily repelled the Brazilian waves. In Uruguay, Brazilian troops made minimal gains over four days of brutal fighting as the entrenched Argentine defenders inflicted heavy casualties. Having failed to achieve the strategic aims set out at the outset of the offensive, the fighting died down by August 23rd.

The morale of the Brazilian army subsequently plummeted. The promised total victory had proven to be just another costly stalemate, this time with nearly 10,000 casualties. Poor logistics meant that ammunition and rations were scarce, and the prowling Argentine monitors meant that supply in Entre Rios was extremely limited. Worse, the offensive had burned through a good deal of the remaining supplies, and Riccheti ordered the Argentine army to stage a counter-offensive in September. The weakened Brazilian defenders initially put up a stiff resistance, but Riccheri was relentless. Gatling guns and even tear gas shells were used to soften up the Brazilian positions, and three days of heavy fighting saw the Brazilian trenches breached in five locations. As the Brazilian lines in Entre Rios collapsed, soldiers began surrendering en masse rather than fight on.

Constant was able to evacuate most of his 30,000 remaining soldiers across the Uruguay River, but Entre Rios, Corrientes, and Misiones were abandoned to the Argentines. Defensive positions were set up along the river to prevent Riccheri from crossing into Brazilian territory. Peixoto ordered renewed conscription drives to replenish the ranks, but news of the disastrous defeat had spread. Draft offices were burned across the country as conscription protests became riots. These were brutally suppressed, and Peixoto turned once more to planning an offensive even as his country was coming apart at the seams. He readjusted his grand battleplan: rather than try and take Buenos Aires, his goal was to secure the whole of Uruguay and then sue for a favorable peace.

The troops were unenthused to hear of yet another all-out offensive, and across the frontlines soldiers simply refused to go over the top [3]. They would defend against Argentine attacks but would not participate in Peixoto’s offensive. Peixoto ordered the mutineers arrested and court-martialed, but this resulted in other units mutinying as well, in solidarity. One soldier told an officer sent to arrest his unit, “you can’t arrest the whole army!” Peixoto was forced to shelve his planned offensive while he plotted how to bring the conscripts back in line. Then, two things happened.

First, Pedro III’s son Afonso emerged in the city of Santa Maria in Rio Grande do Sul state. There, he called for the overthrow of Peixoto and the return of the Empire before a large crowd. Together with a group of royalist army officers and a large royalist mob, Afonso managed to secure control of the city on September 9th [4]. Second, as a result of Afonso’s royalist insurrection, the bulk of the Brazilian navy, a bastion of monarchism, mutinied and bombarded army barracks in Rio de Janeiro. With the most powerful ships in rebel hands and blockading Rio de Janeiro, the Argentines had full control of the seas and quickly moved to interdict Brazilian trade, further hurting the economy.

Afonso quickly established himself as the ruler of Santa Maria and issued a proclamation on September 14th seeking “accommodations” with Argentina and calling on the Brazilian people to resist the “Republican usurpers.” A second proclamation the next day promised that he would seek “a just and proper peace” with Argentina and urged the rank-and-file soldiers to “resist the unlawful regime.” Word quickly spread to the mutineers in the trenches, and many of them defected to the royalist cause. The promise of peace was in many cases more alluring than the promise of restoration. While the army quickly divided itself, militias in Rio Grande do Sul and Santa Catarina rose up and rallied to Afonso and his chief lieutenant, Gumercindo Saraiva, who had escaped from custody.

By the end of September, nearly a third of the Brazilian army had defected to the royalists and most of Rio Grande do Sul was under Prince Afonso’s control. The mutinies had left the Republican army so weak that General Espina’s September Offensive had left most of Uruguay under Colorado control. Constant was forced into a haphazard retreat through Rio Grande do Sul that saw his forces harassed by royalist guerillas. Pedro III had been liberated, though he, disillusioned with politics and wanting to give the monarchy a new face, declined to be restored to the throne. As a result, Prince Afonso was declared the emperor, and he had at his command most of the Brazilian navy, a large part of the army, and citizen militias. True to his word, Afonso entered into peace negotiations with Argentina. President Pellegrini was more than willing to make peace with the royalists and made only a few demands: Afonso had to acknowledge Uruguay as within the Argentine sphere of influence, cede the entirety of the Misiones Orientales region to Argentina, and he had to grant Argentine companies sweeping lumber and coal concessions in southern Brazil. In exchange, Pellegrini would send much-needed surplus supplies to help secure southern Brazil for the royalists.

There was much jubilation in Argentina when news was broken of the deal with Afonso. The streets of downtown Buenos Aires were clogged with revelers, who threw an impromptu parade. Pellegrini promised that the army would soon be demobilized. While Argentina celebrated the end of their involvement in the war, Emperor Afonso began the final phase of the Second Platine War…”

-From THE GREAT PLATINE WAR by Peter Vale, published 2002

[1] As far as I can tell, rationing like in WWI and WWII wasn’t really a thing at this point, so Argentina is pioneering this.
[2] This will be important later. Suffice to say, but Brazil will be in for a lot of upheaval.
[3] Inspired by the OTL mutinies after the failed Nivelle Offensive.
[4] Here we see TTL’s version of the Federalist Revolution.

 

[TheHedgehog]

60. New Century, New President

“Though the economy had not entered into a recession and the stock markets remained stable, there was a marked economic slowdown after the fall of 1898. Brought on in part by interruptions to trade as a result of the Cuban War, as well as natural market trends, the sluggish economy contributed to the Democrats gaining 33 seats and retaking the House. Despite the Whigs losing 5 seats in the Senate, they still held exactly half of the chamber and Vice President Bulkely could break ties. With the decisive American victory in Cuba and the acquisition of Porto Rico and Guam, it seemed likely that the Whigs would hold the presidency for another four years.

President Elkins privately urged Secretary of State Mark Hanna to seek the nomination, but Hanna declined, preferring to remain influential from the shadows. Hanna instead supported his long-time friend and ally, Ohio Senator William McKinley. Elkins followed Hanna’s lead and endorsed his foe at the 1892 convention, throwing the considerable weight of Whig machinery behind McKinley. The Quay Machine in Pennsylvania also lent its early support to McKinley, dissuading many would-be challengers from entering the race. The growing cadres of solidarist Whigs attempted to recruit William McGovern of Iowa to run, but he declined in favor of seeking a second term as governor.

The only opposition to McKinley came from Henry M. Teller, a congressman from Auraria who strongly supported reforming the National Bank. Teller had flirted with defecting to the Populists but decided to challenge McKinley in order to influence the platform in the direction of bank reform. He was aided by a tacit endorsement from Governor McGovern, who gave a series of speeches in the month before the convention advocating in favor of reforming the bank. Teller had assembled a cadre of populist Whigs, but his efforts to influence the platform were in vain. The committee voted to condemn “efforts to weaken the regulatory powers of the National Bank” by a wide margin, repudiating the Populist movement. Teller withdrew from the contest and led a walkout of populist delegates. He would endorse Niels Johnson, the Populist candidate, later in the week.

Without any strong opposition, William McKinley was unanimously nominated on the first ballot of the convention, with Mark Hanna delivering the seconding speech. For vice president, the convention selected Herbert W. Wolcott [1], a Massachusetts congressman and industrialist. Wolcott was an efficiency-minded conservative selected to balance out McKinley’s conservative-solidarist leanings, but his selection produced one major reaction: a resounding who?”

-From SOBER AND INDUSTRIOUS: A HISTORY OF THE WHIGS by Greg Carey, published 1986

“The Presidency seemed just within reach for the Democrats. While a number of leading Democrats like Arthur Gorman and David B. Hill declined to run, viewing the Whigs as undefeatable after winning the Cuban War, there was still a sizeable crop of candidates who felt that they could defeat McKinley. A coalition of reformists successfully recruited Nelson Miles, the commander of American forces in Cuba until his 1903 retirement, to join the Democratic party. Miles was previously apolitical and had an amicable relationship with President Elkins, but some Democrats hoped that Miles could be the “second coming of McClellan,” as the Sun-Herald declared. Miles promised to support standard Democratic positions: low tariffs and pro-business policies. He criticized union strikes as “needless agitation” and expressed the view that an income tax was “most likely unconstitutional.”

Miles’s challenger quickly emerged: Senator William Silas Weldon of Texas, and the former Governor of the state. Weldon was the undisputed king of the Texas Democratic Party, with total control over patronage and the vast, oppressive convict leasing system. He had engineered Hill’s victory at the 1896 convention, but it was an open secret that Weldon coveted the presidency himself. He was a strong orator and, rather uniquely for Democrats, a full-throated imperialist who emerged as one of the most prominent Democratic cheerleaders for the Cuban War. He was enormously popular in Texas, where he had never faced any primary opposition in his runs for Governor. He was also of the faction in the Democratic party that advocated for making common cause with the Populists, favoring regulating railroad rates. However, he had a deep conservative streak, opposing unions, the income tax, antimonopoly laws, and bank reform. He was also viewed by some of his colleagues as untrustworthy, with one saying, “at the time we never knew of any misdeeds, but he had an aura of corruption about him.”

Nevertheless, Weldon forged ahead with his bid, spending the months preceding the New Orleans convention ensuring he had a solid southern bloc behind him. He implied Miles was a “figurehead” for the reformists, pointing to the prominent role Stephen Cleveland and William Whitney had in the campaign. The months leading up to the convention were filled with invective as Weldon sought to subtly taint Miles’s image for the delegates while General Miles tried to maintain an above-the-fray “presidential” image. Miles and his advisors intended to rely on the general’s war hero status and let Weldon embarrass himself with what Miles’s spokesmen dismissed as “shameful rhetoric impugning the record of a great American hero.”

Weldon continued on his course and worse; his rhetoric had the intended effect on the convention. During the state conventions held to select convention delegates, pro-Weldon slates were selected in the key states of Illinois, Massachusetts, Indiana, and Ohio, and newspaper articles reveal that many delegates were persuaded by Weldon’s criticisms of Miles [2]. Sensing weakness in Miles, Arthur Gorman made a hasty last-minute entrance into the Democratic race. By the time the convention convened on July 4th, the playing field had been levelled considerably and bookkeepers reported that Miles’s odds of victory had declined. The convention was another defeat for Miles and the reformists: planks supporting antimonopoly laws and continued civil service reform were defeated by Weldon-aligned delegates strategically placed on the drafting committee.

What had been predicted to be a coronation of the next McClellan was instead set to be a hotly-contested race. On the first ballot, Miles held the lead, but Weldon’s frantic lobbying had paid off, and he had a strong second-place showing. Gorman’s campaign lacked the time needed to properly rally delegates and secure alliances, and he opened at a disappointing third.

In the interlude between ballots, Weldon dispatched his associates to sway the New York and Pennsylvania delegations, which remained allied to Miles’s more staid conservatism. While Weldon’s men harangued and persuaded delegates with promises of patronage and “economic restoration,” Miles’s campaign staff urged delegates to “stay the course” and freeze out a “dangerous demagogue” like Weldon. The response that Weldon’s campaign devised was to attack the notion of “staying the course” – one Weldon surrogate told the head of the New York delegation that “staying the course has brought us a weak economy and ruinous tariffs. To stay the course is to keep the country on the road to more unemployment and more turmoil.” The frenzied glad-handling by Weldon’s men and the ‘gentlemanly’ detachment of Miles’s subsided as the roll-call for the second ballot began…

Miles clung to a lead on the second ballot, but it was much reduced as midwestern and western delegates were sheared off by Weldon’s concerted efforts. Gorman, too, collapsed, his supporters dividing themselves between Weldon and Miles. On the third ballot, Weldon took the lead as more and more northeastern delegates switched to him from General Miles. Shortly before the fourth ballot, Miles met with his advisors and informed them that he did not wish to fight a drawn-out convention battle and wanted to release his delegates. Over the protests of Cleveland and Whitney, Miles bowed out of the race, leaving the mantle of reformist conservatism to the unpopular William Whitney. While most reformist delegates fell in behind a reluctant Whitney, many others scattered. Some stuck with Miles, but nearly a quarter defected to Weldon, enough to hand him the nomination on the fourth ballot by a slim margin.

For vice president, the convention selected Daniel Maynard Price, the former Mayor of Brooklyn. He was allied with the reformists, and David B. Hill endorsed him as a way to prevent him from interfering with machine politics in New York [3]. Weldon and Price disliked each other from their very first meeting, and while he couldn’t dump Price from the ticket, Weldon excluded him from the campaign at every turn…”

-From IN THE SHADOW OF JACKSON by Michelle Watts, published 2012

“McKinley initially attempted to let Weldon exhaust himself with his attacks while having an army of Whig surrogates refute them. In fact, McKinley left for a month-long visit to France and Italy shortly after the convention adjourned [4], confident in the ability of Hanna and the Whig apparatus to campaign on his behalf against Weldon, who McKinley dismissed as “a great deal of hot air.” In contrast, Weldon campaigned personally, criticizing McKinley for “abandoning his country for the very important business of vacationing.”

Weldon quickly found that his efforts to appeal to the Populists fell flat, his support for regulating railroad rates and bank reform overshadowed by his opposition to antimonopoly laws, bank reform, and his vocal imperialism. By August, he had pivoted from attempting to win the west to a new strategy, of wooing midwestern and northeastern business interests. He trumpeted his pro-business credentials, focusing on his pledge to “make doing business easy” by blocking further regulation of large corporations. He also began attacking the Populists, warning Midwesterners that “the regulations favored by the People’s Party would increase the cost of doing business in the United States and as a result, increase unemployment and transform our current economic malaise into a dark era of poverty and uncertainty.”

Internal estimations made by the Weldon campaign indicated that his efforts with the business community was more successful than outreach to the Populists, and so he began a concerted effort to appeal to the eastern electorate, especially the middle class. He proposed that reducing the tariff, which was by 1900 the highest in generations, would stimulate foreign trade and grow manufacturing jobs and the overall economy. While tariff reductions had been generally unpopular in past Democratic campaigns, by 1900 not only were tariffs extremely high, but American industry was well-established and doing a brisk international business, so by relaxing the protectionist system, it could credibly be argued that American industry would be strengthened rather than weakened.

McKinley was made aware of Weldon’s attacks on him and returned from Europe two weeks early, but his absence had left the Whigs to run a confused campaign, with scheduling mixups common and the party oblivious to the inroads Weldon was making with the business community. McKinley ran a quieter campaign, making a few speeches in New York but mostly campaigning from his home in Canton, Ohio. The Whigs would pay to have community leaders from all around the country travel to Canton, give a pre-approved speech to McKinley at his house, and hear McKinley’s pre-prepared response. This was criticized by the Democrats as “phony and staged,” with Weldon joking “it’s no wonder that the railroad men all support Mr. McKinley, his campaign has doubled their annual profits!”

The race was incredibly close as election day approached, and both McKinley and Weldon were confident in victory, while the Populists largely stuck to campaigning in the west and hoped to force a contingent election in which they could extract concessions from one of the other candidates.

​

	William Weldon	William McKinley	Niels Johnson
Electoral Vote	237	167	44
Popular Vote	6,015,713	6,183,325	1,774,720
Percentage	42.4	43.6	12.5

The election was too close to call for a week after election day, the electoral tally sitting at 186 for Weldon and 167 for McKinley, with Johnson holding the remaining 44. National attention quickly focused on Indiana and New York, both of which were incredibly close and without a certified winner. If McKinley won both of them, then no candidate would have an electoral majority and the House of Representatives would decide the next president. The Democrats held 20 out of 41 state delegations, meaning that Speaker Hepburn would have to secure at least one Populist delegation out of 5 to elect Weldon, while the Whigs would need all 5 Populist delegations to elect McKinley. As newspapers across the country breathlessly reported on each new development in the recounts and McKinley maintained a narrow edge in New York, the Populists eagerly prepared to become kingmakers.

On November 16th, Weldon was officially certified as the winner of Indiana by 1,037 votes. William McKinley continued to hold a lead in New York, and it seemed as if a contingent election was a certainty. Then, on November 20th, Weldon assumed a lead of 172 votes in New York, and this widened to 516 on the next day. Finally, on November 22nd, Senator Weldon was confirmed as the winner of New York and therefore the presidency, by the slim margin of 903 votes. Though Mark Hanna urged McKinley to demand additional recounts, McKinley graciously conceded and returned to Canton, still holding his Senate seat. The Democrats, meanwhile, had finally sternly rejected the reformists as a man so enmeshed in political machines he could convincingly be called a robot prepared to assume the presidency…”

-From WHITE MAN’S NATION: AMERICA 1881-1973 by Kenneth Thurman, published 2003

[1] A different “HW” New England political dynasty?
[2] McKinley’s campaign took his rivals by surprise in 1896 using this exact focus on pre-convention conventions.
[3] I promise he’s not Democrat Teddy Roosevelt.
[4] McKinley planned to go on vacation after the 1896 RNC OTL, but William Jennings Bryan’s aggressive campaign forced a change of tactics.

 

[TheHedgehog]

61. The Aftermath of the War

“Uruguay had been left shattered by the Platine War, and Carlos Pellegrini saw an opportunity to cement Argentinian dominance over the shaky Colorado government. Despite the expenses of war, the Argentine economy remained strong, so Pellegrini proposed an unusual solution to both increase Buenos Aires’ influence in Montevideo and rebuild Uruguay. In a speech given at a celebration of the peace treaties with both the Royalist and Republican regimes, Pellegrini asked the Chamber of Deputies to approve the charter of a state-run company to “manage and direct funds for the reconstruction of the Uruguayan nation. To protect them in war is not enough, we must ensure a speedy and harmonious recovery in peace as well.”

Pellegrini’s speech was received well by both the Progressive-Conservatives and the opposition Radical Union. The PCs saw the proposed Corporation for the Reconstruction of Uruguay (CRU) as a way to increase business profits, while the Radicals agreed with the stated goal of aiding their radical Colorado allies in repairing the scars of trench warfare. Hipolito Yrigoyen in particular was a strong supporter of the CRU, calling it “the strongest bulwark our government can provide to the people of Uruguay from corruption and anti-democratic forces.” After his embarrassing loss to Pellegrini in 1897, Yrigoyen had spent some time in the political wilderness, and did not plan on returning to presidential politics. He retained his Senate seat and worked to strengthen his political relationships with other members of the Radical Union, hoping to enjoy elder statesman status within the party.

By 1902, the Radical Union had recaptured majorities in both the Chamber and the Senate, and Yrigoyen was instrumental in securing the chartering of the CRU. He even made a rare public appearance at the ceremony of the CRU’s formation, though he refused to be included in the photographs. Though he himself was reluctant to run for president a second time, Yrigoyen had almost inadvertently established himself as a frontrunner. He had the quiet support of his uncle, the celebrated Leandro Alem [1], and immense popularity with the working class. Though Yrigoyen believed he was done with presidential campaigning, almost every member of the Radical Union agreed that there was just one candidate for 1903: Hipolito Yrigoyen. The 1903 Radical convention practically dragged Yrigoyen to the nomination kicking and screaming, and it was only very reluctantly after being persuaded by his circle of friends that Yrigoyen delivered an acceptance speech before the convention. Yrigoyen refused to release his copy of the speech, but one of the most famous passages as transcribed by a member of the audience was “the Radical Civic Union is not a mere party, but one of the architects of our nation… we must forge Argentina into a vanguard of the American peoples against the dictatorships.”

…Yrigoyen’s campaign against Lisandro de la Torre was aided by the post-war tumult that gripped the country. The industrial sectors were rocked by coal and steel strikes, there were massive protests by tenant farmers in favor of land reform, students demanded an overhaul of the university system, and veterans called for pensions and healthcare. President Pellegrini proved overwhelmed by the need for reforms he was reluctant to provide, and the post-war economic and social woes facing Argentina were a weight around de la Torre’s neck. Yrigoyen promised to mediate the labor disputes, strengthen labor protections, institute a “total reform” of the three main national universities, and implement a “permanent and mutually-satisfactory program of land reform.” His austere lifestyle, magnetic oratory, and solidarist and Mazzinist policies earned him the adulation of the working class, middle class, and farmers, despite Yrigoyen’s personal discomfort with his own popularity. He outlined his vision not just for Argentine economic and social development, but for Argentina’s place in the world after the Second Platine War.

Yrigoyen predictably won the election, with an outright majority of the popular vote (a somewhat rare occasion in the pre-runoff era) and 184 out of 300 electors. His election represented a return to the policies of his uncle, and presented an opportunity for Argentina to once more embark on a program of ambitious reform, this time to resolve the economic and social turmoil wrought by the Platine War…”

-From ARGENTINA: A MODERN HISTORY by Jessica Harvey, published 2011

“The Corporation for the Reconstruction of Uruguay was met with a mixed reception among the newly-supreme Colorado elite. President Cuestas was reluctant to allow the CRU to set up operations in Uruguay, especially given the fact that the CRU was led by the former Uruguayan dictator Lorenzo Latorre, who after resigning the presidency in 1880 took up residence in Buenos Aires. Cuestas and others feared that the CRU would usurp the government’s authority and begin running the country from the shadows. However, the terrible devastation of the war forced Uruguay to accept whatever help it was offered, and despite the suspicions of some, the government agreed to permit the CRU to operate in the country.

The corporation established its headquarters in Montevideo, and Latorre moved back to his native country soon after to personally direct operations. Heavy shelling of Montevideo had disrupted its burgeoning electrification process and damaged the water and sewer system. As a result, the first major undertaking of the CRU was to buy out the ailing Montevideo Power & Light’s assets and assume direct control of electrical generation. The CRU also undertook the reconstruction of Montevideo’s water system and began an ambitious program of not only repairing damaged roads but repaving them with tar-bound Macadam surfacing.

The CRU was funded by a combination of publicly-traded stock, with a 49% stake owned by the Argentine government and the rest owned by Argentine businessmen and foreign investors, and public “reconstruction bonds” purchased by ordinary Uruguayans. With a large influx of funds, the CRU also proposed to build a series of dams along the Rio Negro to improve the water supply and generate more electricity. This undertaking was approved by the Uruguayan government as the CRU promised to bear the brunt of the expense, though the contract forced Montevideo to sign away 50% of revenues generated by the hydroelectric stations. This contract, along with many others to come, would inspire the famous passage from the poet Guillermo Obrero: “it is fitting that the full name of our nation is the Oriental Republic of Uruguay, because our treatment under the CRU was essentially an unequal treaty like the ones forced on the Chinese.””

-From IMPERIALISM ON THE RIVER PLATE by Miguel Fuentes, published 2011

“Taking inspiration from the French revolutionary socialist Louis Auguste Blanqui and the Christian Communist group the League of the Just, the Society for Economic Justice was founded in a Sao Paulo on September 23rd, 1896. The Society was envisioned by its founders, Julio Almeida, Artur Prestes, and Eduardo Mendes, as the revolutionary vanguard that would instigate the socialist revolution and shepherd the state and Brazilian people through the transition to a socialist economy and society. Recognizing that just three men could not hope to stage a successful revolutionary uprising, the Society gradually expanded, all the while striving to maintain secrecy. A series of easily portable printing presses were purchased for the easy and covert production and spreading of propaganda leaflets and the Society’s secret newsletter, the Voice of the Worker.

Almeida and Prestes were both natives of Sao Paulo, being the sons of wealthy merchants in the city. They met on a transatlantic ocean liner after striking up a conversation during a cocktail party. During their European education and travels, the two became enamored with the revolutionary theories of Louis Blanqui and the anarcho-communist ideology outlined by Proudhon and Bakunin. Mendes was the son of landowners in Pernambuco but had become a lawyer and defender of the tenant farmers against exploitation from wealthy oligarchs. He had met Almeida and Prestes at a conference of Brazilians opposed to the tenant farming system and the outsize influence of landed coffee oligarchs in national politics.

The inner circle of Almeida, Prestes, and Mendes added an echelon of ‘regional directors’ who were stationed in the areas of Brazil identified by the Society as the most receptive to revolution. They disseminated propaganda leaflets urging tenant farmers and urban workers to revolt against their corrupt masters. The Society for Economic Justice was regarded as a mere nuisance by both local and national authorities for much of their early existence, and indeed the Society lacked a strong following outside of wealthy radicals and a few tenant farmers in Sao Paulo, Minas Gerais, and Pernambuco. However, after the Republican Coup and the coffee depression sparked the rapid unraveling of the Brazilian state, the Society began to experience more success. Striking farmworkers and railroad workers returned to Societist [2] pamphlets with newly curious eyes, and the Society became bolder in its agitation. As Peixoto was increasingly distracted by the Royal and Federal Army in the south, little attention was paid to Society agents preaching the downfall of the “coffee republic” on street corners and in the rural north.

Arms were quietly smuggled and stockpiled throughout 1901, while the triumvirate of Almeida, Prestes, and Mendes secured an alliance with the BCRW in July of 1902, as plans for the uprising of September were still taking shape. Meanwhile, recruitment in the northern plantations and latifundia increased markedly throughout 1902 on the back of widespread tenant discontent, and by August the Society had enough of a presence in the northeast of Brazil to move forward with its planned uprising. True to Blanquism, the Society planned to execute a swift, decapitating strike to secure control of as much of the country as possible to confer legitimacy and then the triumvirate would guide the country through the transition to a communist society. The goal of the triumvirate was more than a little farfetched – to transform the country into a coalition of urban and rural collectives, with a decentralized central government overseeing defense and coordinating foreign trade. Beyond small payments to the central treasury, each collective would have a broad prerogative to govern.

The date of the uprising was set for September 11th, 1902. On that day, tenant farmers and farmhands rose up across the country, attacking their landlords and storming the wealthy port cities of the northeast – Fortaleza, Natal, Recife, and Salvador. Other uprisings were staged, including the “flagship uprising,” so to speak, in Sao Paulo. While the more southern uprisings fought with the same ferocity as up north, the south was less approving of the Society’s vision for Brazil and the Sao Paulo rising in particular was suppressed within a month. The widespread nature of the September Revolutions meant that Peixoto’s government was distracted enough to allow for the northeastern rebels to consolidate their positions. Society forces even held a pocket in southern Minas Gerais, centered on the textile manufacturing hub of Juiz de Fora.

The triumvirate was forced to flee Sao Paulo as their revolutionary forces were defeated by a broad coalition in what was termed the “Bourgeoisie Revolution” by newspapers. Relocating first to northern Sao Paulo and then to Recife, the triumvirate continued to direct the course of the uprising. As Almeida declared in the June 1903 edition of the Voice of the Worker, “the era of the collective shall be preceded by a period of supervision and adjustment as the revolution crushes the oligarchic opposition. This is the current period of the revolution, and the Society will use such force as is necessary to ensure the future security of the Socialist Society in Brazil.” In effect, the triumvirate established its own dictatorship to “oversee” the war effort. In Societist-held cities and towns, dissent was often harshly punished, and supplies were frequently requisitioned from civilians without compensation. This was justified as necessary for the “inevitable” collectives and the decentralized socialist utopia.

The Societists’ startling early successes garnered a great deal of international attention, and the triumvirs never tired of giving interviews full of lengthy preaching about the coming Socialist Society. Many Brazilians in conflict areas joked that the Societists really had two armies: the People’s Army, and an army of foreign journalists and filmmakers documenting the campaign. Most foreign governments regarded the Society for Economic Justice as an amusing curiosity, unthreatening and unworthy of real attention. The only foreign “intervention” against the Societists came in the form of the Argentine, American, French, and German governments providing cheap loans and selling weapons to the Republicans. In 1903, with successful advances into Ceara and Bahia, things were very much looking up for the Societists…”

-From A HISTORY OF SOCIALIST REVOLUTIONS by Raul Cellar, published 1996

“Sao Paulo and the other coffee-producing regions of Brazil were particularly rife with unrest in the aftermath of the coffee recession of 1901. As plantations and railroads, deprived of workers by conscription and revenue by the plummeting price of coffee, made layoffs and wage cuts, worker unrest grew. With the outbreak of civil war in the south and Peixoto’s ensuing peace treaty with Argentina, the country danced on the precipice. Many farm workers and industrial workers hoped that peace with Argentina would bring internal peace, an end to conscription, and economic recovery. This did not materialize, as Peixoto instead announced the continuation of conscription “until such time as the southern bandits are brought to heel.” This provoked new waves of outrage and conscription protests gave way to rioting and street battles.

By April 1902, worker dissatisfaction with wage cuts and hour extensions, combined with only the bare minimum of safety regulations and health benefits, was at an all-time high. When the floundering Brazilian Central Railroad announced a third consecutive round of wage reductions, railroad workers reacted by forming their own union and going on strike. Other fed-up railroad workers declared themselves members of the new union (the Brazilian Confederation of Railroad Workers – BCRW) and went on strike. Within weeks, much of Brazil’s railroad workforce was on strike, and efforts by Peixoto to suppress the strikes with military force were met with violence.

Sao Paulo was a hotbed of unrest, and on September 11th, 1902, the obscure but determined Society for Economic Justice instigated a massive uprising in the industrial sectors of the city. Local police were overwhelmed by a coalition of striking railway workers and anti-conscription rioters, all of whom had been recruited by the Society for securing Sao Paulo. Similar uprisings sprang up in other parts of Sao Paulo state, as well as Minas Gerais, Pernambuco and Recife, Bahia and Salvador, Rio Grande do Norte and Natal, and Ceara and Fortaleza. The Sao Paulo uprising was the least successful, as progressive middle-class groups, while angry at the Peixoto regime, were unwilling to trust the Society and instead preferred a solidarist or Mazzinist government. The leaders of Sao Paulo also promised sweeping labor reforms and protections for trade unions, which won over many urban workers.

The September Guarantees promising, among other things, a ban on child labor, 8-hour workdays, a minimum wage, and the right to organize, brought much of Sao Paulo’s Italian community to the side of the municipal government. Ferocious street battles gradually drove the revolutionaries out of the city, though Society forces held out in the rural parts of the state. Amid the chaos, the existing state government had fled, and so an unusual coalition of the growing middle class of Sao Paulo and urban Italian immigrants set out to reform the city and state. Under the leadership of Fernando Prestes de Albuquerque, a wealthy farmer and attorney with reformist sympathies, a provisional government of Sao Paulo was formed that began drafting a new state constitution. It enshrined the secret ballot, freedom of speech and assembly, and the right to a fair trial and public education. Approved on March 5th, 1903, the Paulista constitution was a revolutionary document. It assuaged many concerns of Sao Paulo’s urban working class and weakened the Society’s support in the state. President Peixoto was furious at the independent course charted by Sao Paulo, but his position was too weak to fight the Paulistas as well, and he was forced to begrudgingly accept the “bourgeoisie revolution” in the state.

… With the Society in control of much of the northeast, including the large port cities of the region, and Sao Paulo still in turmoil, Brazil spiraled into civil war. President Peixoto vowed to fight on, but the stress of managing a country in turmoil proved too much for the 64-year-old general and he died of a heart attack on May 2nd, 1903, while at his desk in the Presidential Palace. With his death, Minas Gerais and Rio de Janeiro rejected the military’s authoritarianism and pursued reformist agendas, but the presidency was in doubt, which threatened to destroy the country in the midst of a war. Benjamin Constant would have been his most likely successor, but Constant had died while leading troops in Rio Grande do Sul the previous year. Instead, it was one of Peixoto’s biggest rivals, Governor Nilo Peçanha of Rio de Janeiro, who filled the power vacuum. Peçanha, widely rumored to be mixed-race, was both an ardent abolitionist and a republican. He had welcomed the Republican Coup and supported Peixoto’s fight against the royalists. However, Peçanha fell out with Peixoto when he urged Peixoto to reduce conscription and promise democratic reforms, arguing it was contributing to the unrest [3]. Peixoto threatened to remove Peçanha from the governorship of Rio de Janeiro, and Peçanha was forced to back down, but he remained a thorn in the President’s side.

Now, Peçanha formed a provisional government with other reformist Republicans, most prominently Fernando Prestes de Albuquerque, the newly-elected Governor of Sao Paulo, and Afonso Pena, the reformist Governor of Minas Gerais. This triumvirate immediately suspended conscription and promised pay raises and generous pensions for the soldiers of the Republican Army. The Paulista Constitution was adopted in a modified form as the provisional constitution of Brazil, with Peçanha promising a formal convention once the war was over. The overhaul of the Brazilian Republic stemmed the loss of supporters towards the Royalists and Societists, but the war was far from over. Significant Societist forces remained in Minas Gerais, while a Societist army commanded by Almeida himself occupied large swaths of Bahia and was advancing south. The porous frontlines in the northeast against the Society and in the south against the Royalist and Federalist Army were ever shifting. Troops were in short supply, and the existing ranks of the Grand Army of the Republic were filled with tired, ill-equipped soldiers with questionable loyalty. The change of leadership in the Republic was simply the opening of a new phase in the conflict…”

-From THE BRAZILIAN CIVIL WARS by Seward Jennings, published 2013

[1] With Alem both victorious and still alive, there isn't as big of a personality cult that develops around Yrigoyen. This means that the Antipersonalist movement doesn’t develop nearly to the extent it did OTL. Plus, with a more stable Argentina, there isn't as much drift towards personalist leadership.
[2] I hadn’t intended to do yet another repurpose Societism from LTTW here, but I guess I stumbled into it. I based the name off OTL’s League of the Just, a precursor to Marxist communism.
[3] OTL, Peçanha ran for President in 1922 on a platform of opposing the power of oligarchs and had reformist sympathies.

 

[TheHedgehog]

62. Realignment

“William McGovern’s tenure as Governor of Iowa had set the state at the fore of the growing progressive movement. In his opening address to the state legislature, he laid out his ambitious agenda: the formation of a state grain mill company, regulation of railroad rates, a state workers’ compensation program, direct primaries for state officials, and a progressive tax system. In these efforts, he was often opposed by the more conservative Whigs in the state legislature. In fact, McGovern’s first major initiative, a railroad regulation bill, was defeated after a majority of the Whigs voted against it.

McGovern backed off of major initiatives, though he successfully passed laws increasing funding for Iowa’s state universities. Efforts in late 1897 to pass a workers’ compensation law failed when the legislature’s conservative majority refused to hold a vote. McGovern changed course, pouring his energy into influencing the state convention in 1898. Though he was unable to secure a solidarist majority in the party, he was able to force the nomination of a slew of solidarist Whigs in key races. As a result, McGovern’s solidarist Whig-Populist alliance was able to secure a tenuous majority after the 1898 state elections.

With this majority behind him, McGovern moved quickly. In April 1899, he signed the Workers’ Compensation Act into law, requiring employers to compensate their employees for workplace injuries and establishing a compensation insurance system that employers could purchase. The next month, another victory was won with the passage of a law chartering the Iowa Milling and Elevator Company (IMEC), which managed a series of mills and grain elevators in Des Moines, Dubuque, Rockingham, and Sioux City. This was protested by the business community, and a group of them sued alleging it was unconstitutional for the state government to compete with private enterprise. The case Brentwood v. Iowa slowly worked its way through the court system, with local Iowa courts and the state Supreme Court upholding the IMEC, while the Federal Appeals Court sided with the business owners.

The case reached the Supreme Court in 1902, where the business owners argued that the state using taxpayer money to open a business was a violation of their fifth amendment right to due process. Chief Justice Garfield, in his last major case before retiring that year, seemed almost incredulous in the transcript of oral arguments. “And why should the state be prevented from going into business?” Garfield asked at once point. The businessmen’s lawyer responded “why, that is taking money from the taxpayer without due process,” to which Garfield replied, “that is merely words, we are interested in reasons [1].” The Supreme Court ruled 7-2 in favor of Iowa.

McGovern celebrated by advocating the chartering of a state bank, the Bank of Iowa. The solidarist majorities had been enlarged by the 1900 and 1902 elections, and the Bank of Iowa was officially founded in June 1903, after months of careful negotiations. Following up on this victory, McGovern signed laws taxing railroads based on land rather than profits and instituting progressive inheritance and property taxes that placed the greatest tax burden on the wealthiest residents of the state. The former law in particular was incredibly controversial and earned court challenges from conservative groups alleging that it violated the commerce clause. Here, the Supreme Court ruled against Iowa in a 6-3 decision, deciding that only Congress could institute such a railroad tax. It was a disappointment to McGovern to be sure and he was decided to back away from a controversial income tax proposal, but his myriad other accomplishments more than offset the setback.

With his eye already on the 1904 presidential election, the Supreme Court’s ruling in Saint Louis & Chicago v. Iowa only strengthened his conviction that a true solidarist was needed in the White House, to implement on the federal level all the reforms that couldn’t be done state by state. As he wrote to his son Charles, “I am not content with just these reforms in just one state, and I am not content with making the Iowa Whigs my own fiefdom. There is so much more I want to do; I have to do.” Having cemented his dominance over the Iowan Whigs, the Governor began approaching allies about a potential run for President…”

-From PARADIGM SHIFT: THE AMERICAN PROGRESSIVE ERA by Olivia DiMarco, published 2015

“Northward migration of blacks swelled the populations of not only upper southern cities such as Saint Louis and Richmond, but also midwestern and eastern cities like Chicago, Philadelphia, New York, and Boston. The arrival of freedmen and their families often provoked a racist backlash among white homeowners. In Boston, Mayor Joseph Lomasney oversaw a massive redevelopment of the city from 1898-1903 that constructed railroad tracks through black-majority neighborhoods and saw new public utilities built that curiously seemed to be concentrated in white-majority areas. He also enthusiastically endorsed the practice of real estate developers to force homebuyers to sign so-called “covenants” that forbade them from reselling the house to blacks, Jews, and other non-white groups. His successor, Herbert W. Wolcott, tried to oppose these covenants, and found himself defeated for a second term in 1905 due to the efforts of the developers against him.

Boston’s zoning practices bore greater similarity to upper southern cities like Richmond than to New York or Chicago, but the Catholic Democratic machine in Boston was not the only machine that used racial resentment of blacks to cement its hold on white voters. New York City banned multi-family housing in affluent white areas while zoning most black neighborhoods almost exclusively as multi-family, after urban planners noticed that black people tended to be poorer and therefore vastly more likely to live in multi-family housing. And for blacks who could afford single-family homes, the city offered tax subsidies to developers who included racial covenants in their contracts with buyers.

Richmond and Saint Louis were two of the worst examples of housing discrimination and racially-motivated zoning. Both cities adopted a similar policy to New York’s, zoning black neighborhoods for crowded multi-family developments and white areas for covenant-segregated single-family houses. Richmond passed an ordinance in 1902 forbidding any black individuals from owning, living in, or working in white-majority areas and vice-versa, though it was conveniently only enforced in the former circumstance. Saint Louis adopted a similar ordinance, effectively consigning its black residents to the poorest and most dilapidated parts of the city. In both cities, the black ghettos were established downwind of the industrial zone. In Richmond, the Tredegar Steelworks separated the downtown and white neighborhoods from the smog-draped black ghetto, a situation its mayor at the time, Alexander Pashich, called “for the betterment of both races.”

It’s worth mentioning that not all cities in the United States in this era were pursuing such racist policies. Independence, Missouri, was by 1896 firmly Mormon-majority, and Joseph Smith III, the aged president of the church, was a firm opponent of slavery and discrimination. He frequently quoted his father’s teaching that “Our common country presents to all men the same advantages, the facilities, the same prospects, the same honors, and the same rewards; and without hypocrisy, the Constitution, when it says, 'We, the people of the United States, ... do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America,' meant just what it said without reference to color or condition, ad infinitum.” Borrowing another quote from his father, Smith declared in a 1903 speech “go to any city and find an educated negro, who wears the latest fashions and owns the latest contrivances, and you will see a man who has risen by the powers of his own mind to his exalted state of respectability [2].” Smith also summed up his position more concisely, saying “if the negro is worthy enough to attain the priesthood, he is more than worthy enough to live and work with white men.”

In 1901, when Mayor James Pendergast proposed an ordinance that would, similarly to Richmond, ban blacks from living in white areas, Joseph Smith III led the Mormon church in opposition, issuing a declaration that “any good member of the church” would oppose “such a heinous measure.” Smith’s public crusade sparked considerable outrage from non-Mormon whites and opposition from within the church, but his leadership caused such an outcry that Pendergast’s ordinance was defeated by just two votes in the city council. the next year, the Mormon church engineered Pendergast’s defeat at the hands of Hyrum Stark, an Apostle of the church and owner of a major fruit tree company, Stark Nurseries. Stark encouraged integrated zoning and successfully passed a city ordinance banning racial covenants. Under his leadership, prosperity increased, with dozens of new black-owned and integrated businesses opening. His assassination in 1905 was considered a great tragedy by the people of Independence, and only served to strengthen the integrationist movement. Despite this, income inequality and the poor quality of the poorer neighborhoods remained serious problems, but Independence lived up to its name in charting a more tolerant path.

Philadelphia similarly embraced integration, but for colder, more cynical reasons. The city was dominated by the Whigs’ Quay machine, which had gone to great lengths to cultivate blacks as a loyal Whig voting bloc. To this end, the city administration rejected zoning policies that would disrupt black neighborhoods and banned discriminatory covenants, but this latter provision was rarely enforced and was merely a symbolic gesture by political leadership that only pretended to care about racism in housing…”

-From DARKNESS ON THE EDGE OF TOWN: THE BUILDING OF AMERICA'S BLACK SLUMS by Evan Summers, published 2013

“The 1902 elections saw a great deal of turnover in Whig ranks. Though the party failed to gain a majority in the House of Representatives, nine seats were gained (had the Populists not picked up a significant number of Whig-held western districts, the Whigs would have done much better), and many senior Whigs retired, including long-time conservative congressmen Joseph Foraker and Russell Alger, and the business-friendly John D. Long. They were all replaced by young, solidarist Whigs, some moderate and some radical, but all solidarists, nonetheless. Among the freshman class of ’02 were several people of future prominence: Cecil Harding of Nebraska, Israel Neff of Missouri, John Fountain of Auraria, Robert Kerr of New York, and Henry Blair of Indiana [3]. These men were just five of the more than 70 solidarist Whigs elected that year.

Immediately, the solidarists made their power known. Joseph G. Cannon had served as Speaker of the House throughout much of the Elkins administration. The Indianan [4] quickly developed a reputation for his ruthless and authoritarian leadership, exercising tight control over debate and committee assignments, and he used his spot on the Rules Committee to bend procedure to his advantage and silence the growing solidarist wing of the party. on March 18th, 1903, Cecil Harding and his fellow solidarist freshman Robert Kerr led a coalition of 63 solidarist Whigs in challenging Cannon’s leadership of the caucus.

Harding introduced a resolution barring both the Speaker and the Minority Leader from serving on the Rules Committee. As Speaker James Hepburn was not a member of the committee and also despised Cannon, he lent the support of all 197 Democrats to Harding’s resolution. As the minority leader, Cannon did his best to delay debate, including raising pointless points of order. But after several hours of obstruction, Harding asked for a vote on whether to proceed to debate “without delay,” and Hepburn agreed, “seeming almost relieved,” as Kerr would later recall. By a vote of 288-105, Cannon was stripped of his committee post.

In an attempt to save face, Cannon requested a vote of the Whig caucus to remove him as Minority Leader. He expected to survive based on the support of the 105 Whigs who had voted to sustain his position on the Rules Committee. However, the solidarists united behind Kerr as their candidate, and despite Cannon’s best efforts, he was narrowly defeated by a vote of 87-81. Robert Kerr narrowly lost the subsequent ballot for the leader of the Whig caucus to the more conservative David B. Henderson of Illinois, but despite this defeat the solidarists had performed admirably. In their first showing, the solidarists had proven their power within the Whig party, and foretold of a shift in direction for the party in the coming years…”

-From SOBER AND INDUSTRIOUS: A HISTORY OF THE WHIGS by Greg Carey, published 1986

[1] OTL from a Supreme Court case in 1920 concerning the constitutionality of North Dakota’s state bank.
[2] Both of these quotes are from the elder Smith OTL, who had a less egalitarian view of race at certain points in his life, but there’s enough for his son to cherry-pick in support of his own convictions.
[3] A Speaker of the House, a President, a failed nominee for President, a future Senator, and a two-time presidential contender and influential Secretary of State, not necessarily in that order.
[4] OTL, Cannon only moved to Illinois when he couldn’t get a lawyer job in Terre Haute. TTL, he gets the job and stays.

 

[TheHedgehog]

63. A Grassroots Movement

“Weldon’s veto of the Monopoly Control Act of 1902 was controversial at the time, but public anger had largely subsided amid a strong economy. The Tariff of 1902 was also a popular piece of legislation with businessmen and the growing middle class, as it was the first reduction of the tariff in decades. Initial concerns that reducing the tariff would hurt manufacturing jobs proved unfounded, as the already-well established American industrial sector actually grew from increased trade. Weldon also began negotiations with Prime Minister Austen Chamberlain over a reciprocal trade agreement between the United States and the British Empire, though this would be incomplete by the time of the election.

Speaker James Hepburn was nearly as staunch a conservative as President Weldon but came from a very different background. While Weldon had grown up in rural Texas and had managed to muscle his way into Texan high society, Hepburn was born into Tennessee’s landed aristocracy. The son of a plantation owner and Confederate veteran, Hepburn was immersed from an early age in wealthy southern society. While Weldon’s speeches were energetic and blunt, Hepburn spoke slowly and deliberately. Weldon was often mocked by the southern elite and northern humorists as an uneducated hick for his accent, Hepburn spoke in the refined accent befitting a southern gentleman.

President Weldon had risen to command the Texas Democratic Party through ruthlessness and corruption, while Hepburn was emblematic of the ‘country club conservative’ label so often applied to modern Democratic politicians. Hepburn had equally a solid hold on Tennessee’s Democratic Party as Weldon had on Texas’s, but the Speaker attained his position through carefully-built relationships with other wealthy and powerful Tennesseans and maintained through voter suppression laws and deals made in backrooms choked with cigar smoke rather than bribery [1]. The two had a cordial relationship, but neither man ever liked the other. Weldon considered Hepburn to be arrogant, condescending, and self-righteous, while Hepburn thought Weldon was unrefined, rude, and brusque.

Their personal animosity was the cause of a rumor that Hepburn would seek to challenge Weldon for the nomination, but the Speaker dutifully endorsed Weldon, and no other challengers emerged at the convention. Though Hepburn tried to keep Vice President Price on the ticket, Weldon arranged for him to be dumped in favor of Duane Wilson, a conservative Indiana congressman, newspaper owner, and Democratic boss of Indianapolis. Wilson had been the key driver behind Weldon’s main achievement, the 1902 tariff reduction.

-From IN THE SHADOW OF JACKSON by Michelle Watts, published 2012

“By 1904, everyone in Iowa with an ear for politics knew that William McGovern harbored presidential ambitions. He had made several visits to old friends and potential allies, in what was obviously an effort to win over a suspicious Whig leadership. His announcement on March 9th, 1904, that he was running for President was met with excitement by his supporters and dread by his opponents, but hardly surprise from either. From the beginning, his campaign called for federal protections for trade unions, further regulation of railroads, strict antimonopoly laws, federal funding of rural improvements, and the reform of the National Bank to increase rural economic activity. The Whig establishment viewed these proposals as inconsequential at best and dangerous at worst, but McGovern’s campaign was aided by the expanding ranks of solidarist Whigs.

McGovern’s entry preceded a slew of conservative Whigs, including 1900 nominee William McKinley of Ohio, powerful Massachusetts Senator Thomas L. Cabot, and Kentucky Governor Sylvester B. Taylor. McKinley had originally intended to return to his Senate seat after his defeat in 1900. However, his longtime advisor, campaign manager, and financial backer Mark Hanna envisioned a comeback for McKinley as the anti-McGovern candidate, the torch-bearer for the Whig political establishment. McKinley was reluctant, and finally agreed to run on the condition that it look like a draft effort. He wanted to avoid the embarrassment of mounting an all-out comeback only to fail like John Sherman had in 1892. Hanna plotted an elaborate campaign for McKinley, mobilizing old allies to quietly build support in the field.

In the state conventions, the rest of the Whig field was quickly reduced to jockeying for the “anti-McGovern” candidate. Initially, the Draft McKinley movement was a small movement, with a handful of pledged delegates here and there. March saw the movement only secure Michigan’s delegate slate, along with a few delegates from Kentucky and Indiana. The March conventions saw the McGovern campaign gain critical momentum, not only winning his native Iowa, but sweeping the Minnesota, Wisconsin, Shasta, and, in a surprise victory, Indiana conventions. These victories led the Whig establishment to put pressure on the conservative candidates to unite behind a single candidate. April opened with conventions in Nebraska, Pennsylvania, Missouri, Kansas, most of the plains states, and Washita. Predictably, McGovern delegate slates dominated in Nebraska, Kansas, Lakota, and Hidatsa. His allies also managed to secure a mostly favorable delegate slate in Washita, overcoming a strong effort by Sylvester Taylor’s campaign.

Missouri’s convention was interesting. The Mormon community in the west of the state was divided, and ultimately the convention elected an unpledged delegate slate, with only a few holdout delegates pledged to candidates. Pennsylvania was widely expected to go to a conservative candidate, and both Cabot and Taylor campaigned extensively. Ultimately, out of the state’s 68 delegates, the convention awarded 27 to William McGovern, 16, to William McKinley, 14 to Thomas Cabot, and 11 to Sylvester Taylor. It was a disappointment for Cabot and Taylor, an upset victory for McGovern (thanks in part to the decision of the conservative but anti-Quay Machine reformist Whigs endorsing him), and a much-needed shot in the arm for the Draft McKinley campaign.

The rest of April saw much of the south, Massachusetts, Auraria, New York, and Illinois hold their conventions. The southern conventions were a confused mess, with the Draft McKinley campaign doing well in Georgia, North Carolina, and Virginia, Thomas Cabot winning friendly slates in Alabama, South Carolina, and Louisiana, and Sylvester Turner’s campaign securing majorities in the Florida, Tennessee, Louisiana, Texas, Mississippi, and Arkansas conventions. McGovern won only a dozen delegates from southern states, mostly from North Carolina and Texas. Senator Cabot won a majority of New York’s delegate slate, but the Draft McKinley campaign had a close second at the Albany convention. Cabot predicably won his home state of Massachusetts, and the populist-leaning Auraria convention awarded its delegation to McGovern.

The pre-convention jockeying for momentum thus came down to Illinois [2]. All of the frontrunners’ campaigns descended upon the state before the convention, meeting with delegates and local political leaders in an effort to sway the results. McGovern personally visited the state, and his campaign was aided by the support of Riley Tanner, the moderate solidarist Governor of Illinois. Tanner wielded considerable influence within the state party and worked to rally support for McGovern at the convention. With the conservative opposition largely divided between three candidates, McGovern was able to capture a majority of Illinois’ 54 delegates, but Draft McKinley and Sylvester Taylor secured 11 and 8 delegates, respectively. Entering into the convention, no candidate held a majority. McGovern led with 259, McKinley had 216, Cabot had 181, and Sylvester Turner had 118. 180 delegates were either unpledged or pledged to minor favorite-son candidates.

Shortly before the convention, on June 7th, McKinley formally announced he was a candidate for the nomination, noting the “spontaneous and substantial” swell of support for him in the state conventions. Mark Hanna spent the beginning of June lobbying heavily for Cabot and Taylor to drop out and unite behind McKinley, noting that alone, no candidate had the required 478 delegates to win the nomination, but that McKinley was the closest, with 216. Cabot, a man who despite being widely respected by his colleagues detested McKinley and was well known as possessing a “frightful temper,” rejected any efforts at creating a unity conservative ticket. He reportedly shouted at Hanna that “no one with half a brain will support a has-been who lost an election any smart man could have won.” Taylor also declined to form a unity ticket but promised that he would endorse McKinley if he still led the other conservatives after the second ballot.

The first fight was over the platform. McGovern had enough support to warrant his allies being well-represented on the committee, and they resolved to fight tooth-and-nail for the inclusion of solidarist positions. While planks calling for the reform of the National Bank were defeated, McGovern won a key victory with the adoption of resolutions endorsing antimonopoly laws, investments in rural internal improvements, and protections for workers including the legalization of collective bargaining and a federal ban on child labor. It was clear that the solidarists had worked their way into the party, and it was too late to sideline them altogether.

Predictably, no candidate achieved a majority on the first ballot. No candidate dropped out on the second ballot, and all candidates save for Taylor gained support as the unpledged delegates began to align with one campaign or another. Before the third ballot, Taylor dropped out and endorsed McKinley, while Cabot threw Hanna’s representatives out of his hotel room, furiously telling one that he should “tell [his] boss that McKinley’s time is over and that he should end his campaign. Tell Hanna it’s little more than a salve for his wounded ego.” When Mayor Hyrum Stark, a key figure in the Missouri delegation, announced his state’s decision to support McGovern, Cabot spitefully followed suit. As he told a reporter in the lobby of his hotel, “they all wanted a Stop McGovern candidate. I don’t care. I wanted a Stop McKinley candidate, and I got one.”

This propelled McGovern to 459 delegates, just 19 away from the nomination. Party managers desperately tried to rally support behind McKinley, but he trailed McGovern by over a hundred delegates. As the roll call for the fourth ballot began, Whig leaders were still lobbying unpledged delegates to switch to McKinley, while McGovern’s campaign also worked the floor to secure the nomination. While McKinley gained over 60 delegates on the fourth ballot, McGovern gained 33, more than enough for the nomination. Amid apprehensive silence from the conservatives and jubilant, raucous cheers from the McGovernites, McGovern himself arrived at the convention. After a few minutes of waving to the delegates from the convention floor, he asked the convention chair if he could speak. For the first time, a presidential candidate would give an acceptance speech before the convention. His speech opened:

“A government is intended to serve the people that live under it. Now, there are a great many ways in which to serve the people that live under it, and our government has neglected some of those ways. We are only just now beginning to learn how to take care of our people, to prevent accidents, where accidents are obviously apt to occur in a great many employments, to prevent unreasonable hours of labor, to prevent women from being overworked, to prevent young children from being worked at all. There are a score of things which nowadays we regard as the function of the government, but government has been neglectful of these things because it has been taking care of the particular groups of people and not thinking of the life of the people as a whole. And now the American people, high and wide, are looking directly at the government, are putting away all notions about it [3].”

McGovern outlined the goals of his administration: to reduce poverty, improve the lot of the laborer, bring prosperity to farmers, and overhaul the National Bank. He closed by tying his movement to the achievements of other Whig heroes, citing Henry Clay’s American System as the model for his program of reforms. His speech left the nervous party managers terrified, while the large contingent of solidarists in the convention hall cheered, applauded, and stamped their feet in approval. After McGovern endorsed Thomas Cabot for vice president in gratitude for Cabot’s role in the nomination, the convention adjourned as the party completed its shift towards the solidarists…”

-From PARADIGM SHIFT: THE AMERICAN PROGRESSIVE ERA by Olivia DiMarco, published 2015

[1] Y’know, refined racism.
[2] OTL, a victory at the Illinois convention propelled McKinley to the nomination.
[3] Taken from a speech Woodrow Wilson gave. He was a terrible, racist, arrogant guy, yes, but he had his moments.

 

[TheHedgehog]

64. Vote for Someone, to Vote for Someone

“Congressman Niels Johnson was widely viewed as the prohibitive frontrunner for the Populist nomination, but after the Whigs nominated William McGovern, Johnson withdrew and urged the party to endorse the Whig ticket. The prospect of nominating McGovern had some support within the party, but a faction, led by Nebraska Governor Asa Twichell, argued that such a decision would “mean, inevitably, that the People’s Party is subsumed into the Whigs, the epitome of eastern finance and industry.” Led by Twichell, the 1904 convention narrowly rejected McGovern’s proposal for a unity ticket and nominated Twichell himself for President. The Populists had preserved their independence for the foreseeable future, but forces remained that inexorably drew them closer to the Whigs…”

-From THE PEOPLE’S CONSTANT: POPULISM THROUGHOUT HISTORY by Francis Smith, published 1987

“President Weldon, like many Democrats, regarded William McGovern as a radical who would be easy to defeat. Thus, while McGovern crisscrossed the country by train, speaking to large crowds, Weldon made a few trips to the Midwest to campaign, mostly remaining in the White House and appearing presidential. While it may seem, at first glance, that Weldon was repeating McKinley’s mistake in 1900, he was actually trying to emulate Coleman B. Elkins’ winning 1896 strategy of using the gravitas of the Presidential Mansion [1]. The speeches he did make were in key swing states like Indiana, New York, and Ohio, but Weldon hoped that McGovern would turn away voters all on his own because of his radical leanings. McGovern knew this and kept his rhetoric moderate, speaking only obliquely of “minor adjustments” to the National Bank’s charter, while focusing on workmen’s protection laws and antimonopoly legislation. He attacked Weldon as a creature of powerful corporate interests and promised “incorruptible reform.”

Weldon campaigned more actively in September and October as his staff warned of a tight race, but Weldon, despite being a good orator, lacked the same charisma as McGovern. Worse, while McGovern mobilized the old Wide Awakes, now a bastion of Whig solidarism [2], in greater numbers than ever before, few young men volunteered for Weldon’s campaign. The race remained close nonetheless, as many voters were concerned over McGovern’s policies and thought that Weldon, for all his flaws, would be a more stable leader than the solidarist Iowan.

The Populist platform was nearly identical to what McGovern campaigned on, and many in the small party worried that they would lose voters to the Whigs. Thus, Twichell campaigned heavily in the west, promising he would push to loosen the gold standard and inflate the currency in order to relieve the debt that burdened many farmers. Many westerners didn’t trust the Whigs and thought that McGovern was only pandering, which hindered Whig efforts to make inroads into Populist strongholds. Given that much of the Populists’ political infrastructure came from the Whigs, they were far better organized than their rivals, and in early September, McGovern reluctantly decided to abandon his wooing of Populists in order to focus on appealing to midwestern and northeastern voters, which were less suspicious of his policies.

As the election results trickled in, it was clear that 1904 would produce a result just as confused, or even more, than 1900. On Wednesday morning, major Democratic newspapers like the Sun-Herald in New York and the Times-Picayune in Louisiana declared Weldon the winner based off of incomplete vote tallies in Indiana and Ohio but were forced to retract their calls as the states remained in doubt [3]. While Weldon’s victory in New York was confirmed in time for the afternoon papers on Thursday and he was confirmed the winner of the key state of Virginia the next day, it would be Ohio and Indiana that would determine the outcome of the election. Weldon led in Indiana, while McGovern held a slim lead in the more traditionally Whig Ohio. Through it all, Weldon was reportedly convinced he had been reelected, and that the remaining vote-counting was just a formality.

The Populists won Kansas, Hidatsa, Wyoming, and Tacoma, reduced from their 1900 performance but still a respectable outcome. Their victories, which totaled 26 electoral votes, meant that Weldon had to win either Ohio or Indiana in order to win, while if McGovern won both, the election would be thrown to the House. As the nation awaited the results of the presidential election, the Democrats were confirmed to have lost 14 seats and with that, their majority, though the party held a narrow plurality of seats. The Populists held the balance of power between the two major parties and seemed inclined to form an alliance with the Whigs, who despite gaining 21 seats still had two less than the Democrats. While forces in Washington prepared for a contingent election, Indiana and Ohio were swarmed with observers from the Democrats and Whigs. On November 15th, McGovern was declared the winner in Ohio by just 10,000 votes, and media attention focused on Indiana. On the 16th, McGovern assumed a narrow lead there, which widened over the next two days to 3,450 votes.

Weldon immediately protested the result in Indiana, and a lengthy recount process ensued. Upon the completion of the process on November 29th, McGovern’s lead had widened to 4,023 votes, and he was certified as the state’s winner. The afternoon papers sold particularly well that day, with The Advocate bearing the headline “Fate of Election in House’s Hands” and the Sun-Herald declaring “ELECTORAL CHAOS GRIPS NATION: Presidential Decision Goes to the House!” The President conceded Indiana and set to work trying to assemble a majority of state delegations, and McGovern did the same. The math was different for the two sides: Weldon had 20 Democratic-controlled delegations, while McGovern had just 15. The Populists held two delegations, and five were deadlocked. In order to secure the necessary 22 delegations, Weldon needed only to persuade two delegations to vote for him, and he believed he could win over conservative Whigs in Virginia and either Massachusetts or Vermont. McGovern needed not only both Populist delegations, but all five deadlocked ones as well. This was an easier task than it appears, for all five deadlocked delegations would become Whig-majority if an alliance was made with the Populists.

The Senate held its vote on February 7th, the day before the House vote. The Whigs held 41 seats and the Democrats 37, with the Populists’ six seats making up the rest. In an effort to secure the Massachusetts delegation, Weldon offered to sway the Democratic Senate caucus for Thomas Cabot if Cabot abandoned McGovern and delivered Massachusetts for the President in the House. Cabot was a traditional New England conservative and disagreed with McGovern on many issues – he had only joined the ticket out of his distaste for William McKinley. Weldon even proposed that Cabot could select the Secretary of State and Secretary of the Treasury. However, Cabot was also, despite his friendships with Senate Democrats, a Whig loyalist. In his memoirs, he wrote that he was “aghast at the proposition.” Though it would guarantee his election to the vice president, Cabot recounted that he told Weldon he was “not so dissatisfied with the Senate as to abandon it for a sinecure.”

However, Cabot’s conservatism and partisanship also meant that it was difficult to secure Populist support. McGovern had been able to secure Populist backing in the House, but the vice president was a different story. McGovern ultimately promised to appoint Niels Johnson to the Interior Department and Asa Twichell to Agriculture, which proved enough to secure Populist backing for Cabot. By a vote of 48-34-2, with two Populists abstaining, Senator Thomas Cabot was elected as the next Vice President. 3 Democrats voted for Cabot, while 34 voted against. It was an early defeat for Weldon, and a sign that the House battle would be more difficult than he had anticipated. However, he had promising news from the Virginia delegation, as one Whig congressman indicated he disliked McGovern and was “unsure” about who to vote for but leaning towards Weldon. Weldon also set his sights on Vermont, as its delegation was very conservative and pro-business, having opposed the ICA and Garfield Anti-Trust Act. Franklin Edmunds, the leader of the Vermont delegation, told Speaker Hepburn his delegation was “most likely going to” support Weldon.

House Minority Leader David Henderson, who had been a leading opponent of McGovern at the Illinois convention, was accused of dragging his feet by many solidarist Whigs. Led by Robert Kerr and Cecil Harding, the solidarists leaned heavily on conservative Whigs, as the solidarists were well-poised to unseat Henderson in the balloting for speaker. Promising “retribution” for disloyalty, the hard-charging Kerr managed to secure Vermont’s loyalty, while Harding’s promises of high-ranking committee positions won over the wavering Virginia congressman. McGovern had already struck a deal with the Populists, and the last hurdle was the contingent election itself. Both Weldon and McGovern were very confident as Speaker Hepburn began the balloting. The two states that Weldon hoped would deliver him a second term, Vermont and Virginia, were at the end of the roll call, and the tension in the House chamber built as the predictable states voted: Alabama for Weldon, Iowa for McGovern, New York for Weldon, Pennsylvania for McGovern. The Populists, true to their word, fell in behind the Whigs and all of their congressmen voted for McGovern. After the Texas delegation voted for Weldon, the full House waited breathlessly as Speaker Hepburn read out the results of Vermont’s delegation: two votes for William McGovern.

McGovern now had 21 delegations, exactly half. If Weldon won Virginia, the vote would be tied, and a second ballot would be necessary. Virginia’s ballot was read out immediately after Vermont and voted 9-8 for McGovern. Weldon’s efforts to sway the lone congressman had failed, and with the votes of Washita, Wisconsin, and Wyoming, William McGovern was elected the 21st President of the United States. Weldon, despite his disappointment at coming so close yet coming up just two delegations short (if just five extremely close congressional races in 1902 had been shifted to the Democrats, Weldon would have won a second term), telegrammed the president-elect to congratulate him: “The people have spoken through their duly elected representatives, and their will is law.”

​

	William McGovern	William Weldon	Asa Twichell
Electoral Vote	222	229	26
Delegates	22	20	0
Popular Vote	6,524,953	6,496,318	1,935,685
Percentage	43.3	43.1	12.9

With the inauguration of McGovern on March 4th and the election of Robert Kerr as Speaker, the solidarists were finally dominant within the Whig Party. As President McGovern declared in his inaugural address, “and so let us follow in the long shadow of Henry Clay, William Seward, and James Blaine: of leaving the Union more modern, more united, more prosperous than when we inherited the mantle of leadership. It is time for a New American System [4], one focused just as much on a system of equal opportunity and widespread prosperity as on financial stability and internal improvements.” And the new solidarist-Populist majority in Congress was well-poised to bring about thse New American System…”

-From WHITE MAN’S NATION: AMERICA 1881-1973 by Kenneth Thurman, published 2003

[1] Ignoring that this strategy failed for Adlai Stevenson in ’92.
[2] The Wide Awakes continue their evolution from pseudo-militia and voter outreach group into a key pressure group within the party, the epicenter of Whiggish student/young person activism, and a source of new policies and ideas itself, rather than an arm of the party establishment.
[3] A similar thing happened in 1916 OTL, where a couple of papers prematurely called the election for Hughes. Also, this is the first time since chapters 1 and 2 that I’ve split an election into two parts, as the initial draft was 3.7k words, and I try to avoid posting very long chapters.
[4] Henry Clay still has a big influence on the Whigs, even 50 years after his death. One big theme of sorts in The American System is how different the US political landscape would be if it was influenced more by Whiggism than Jacksonianism, and that altered paradigm is starting to emerge.

 

[TheHedgehog]

65. Rising Tensions

“The Ottoman victory against Russia in the War of 1870 had purchased the country much-needed breathing space. With Russia humiliated and its ambitions thwarted, the other Great Powers backed off from pursuing their own imperialist ambitions in the Ottoman client states. Though the post-war massacres and violent reprisals had earned condemnation from around the world, the resultant exodus of Christian Slavs from the Ottoman Balkans ultimately weakened the support base of revolutionary nationalist groups [1]. The post-war completion of several railroads in the Balkans, connecting key cities in Bulgaria and Bosnia to Constantinople, further united the Empire, as well as fostering more industrialization. By 1910, the Empire boasted a robust rail infrastructure, tying both the Balkans and Arabia closer to the central government.

Perhaps the biggest effect of the war was that it gave not just the country breathing space, it gave the government breathing space. The constitution that had been reluctantly promulgated by Sultan Abdul Hamid survived, and Grand Vizier Midhat Pasha clung to his post. The Tanzimat optimism that the Grand Vizier represented was seemingly confirmed by the Ottoman victory, and a combination of emigration and the extension of significant rights to non-Muslims helped calm tensions in the Christian regions of the sprawling empire. This is not to say that the Empire was a perfect democracy – the Sultan retained a great deal of control over governmental affairs, and he was still a deeply reluctant constitutionalist. Midhat Pasha was compelled to resign in 1882, and Abdul Hamid replaced him with Mehmed Said Pasha, a more conservative figure. The Sultan shuffled through a rotation of reformist and conservative Grand Viziers, while the Parliament, despite continuing to hold regular elections, often found itself powerless against the Sultan’s whims.

Most Ottomans regarded the parliament in Constantinople with disinterest. Many peasants trusted the Sultan and viewed him as the rightful ruler of the empire. By and large, the constitutionalist movement was one of the educated urban elites and the radical faction of the Rumelian army. Still, even the denatured democracy of the First Constitutional Era was hugely influential in establishing democratic precedents that would serve the Empire well during the Great War and the ensuing Second Constitutional era. As early as 1904, despite the Sultan’s power, the first political groups were forming: the centralists and nationalists gravitated towards the National Constitutionalists formed by the Rumelian officers, while the liberal nationalists, federalists and decentralists founded what would become the Party of Regions in 1906…”

-From A POCKET HISTORY OF THE OTTOMAN EMPIRE by Yvette Leventhal, published 2015

“After a humiliating defeat at the hands of the Ottomans, Russia was left to turn inwards. Czar Nicholas I died soon after signing the Treaty of Vienna in 1871, and his successor Alexander II introduced minor reforms, including abolishing serfdom and relaxing press censorship. His military reforms were more far-reaching, expanding conscription to all levels of Russian society improving the training and education for the officer corps, and building railways to improve mobilization speed and logistics. His son Nicholas II expanded the army reforms, while rolling back the liberalization of the press. However, he was constrained by poor national finances and a lack of national industry to support a modern army or navy.

The rest of Europe regarded Russia as weak and in decline, and Nicholas II struggled to attract investment into developing Russia’s industrial sector. He imposed tariffs on imported goods and was able to secure loans from French investors to improve the economy and begin construction on the ambitious Trans-Siberian Railway. The navy was also expanded, although construction was slow due to the lack of modernized domestic shipyards and the Czar’s demand that all new ships be built in Russia. While the Czar backed away from pan-Slavism, he engaged in far-eastern adventures, including the 1901 invasion of Manchuria [2]. Seizing on banditry along the Manchurian railways that resulted in the deaths of two Russian businessmen, he ordered the occupation of the railways, instigating a major diplomatic crisis. Britain and the German Confederation both had interests in containing Russian ambitions, while France tried to broker a compromise to avoid antagonizing its ally or its continental rivals.

The Russian advance was ultimately halted [3] by the arrival of a large British fleet near the Yellow Sea, and representatives from Russia, Germany, Britain, and France met in Copenhagen to resolve the issue. While Britain wanted Russia to withdraw from Manchuria altogether, Russia demanded the Liaodong peninsula and the right to “protect” Manchuria. The French compromise prevailed: Russia would get a 99-year lease on Liaodong and a “corridor of control” from Vladivostok to the peninsula, but China would retain control over the rest of Manchuria. The Manchurian Crisis restored some of Russia’s international prestige, and left the French more confident in their choice of allies, but it also dramatically raised tensions among the Great Powers…”

-From THE GRAND CONSENSUS: EUROPE 1815-1898 by Rebecca Gardner, published 2001

“Alexandre Bourgeois was President during a time of ardent nationalism in France, and he had overseen not only numerous progressive advances such as expanding the National Pension Program, and a series of social insurance schemes like compulsory nation-wide old-age pension and workers’ sickness and accident insurance. These reforms were part of Bourgeois’ ambitious overhaul of the French social safety net, dramatically expanding the systems enacted under Gambetta. He also accomplished the full secularization of the public school system, something other presidents had chipped away at but had never been able to remove entirely due to opposition from rural religious conservatives. This was hugely controversial, but the growing progressive trend in France reduced the effects from the predictable and dramatic religious backlash.

President Bourgeois, a member of the Radical Party, detested socialism and other left-wing revolutionary ideologies that were coming in vogue in northern Brazil, among other places. He instead sought to forge a new ideology, a middle ground between socialism and liberalism, that he termed “solidarism.” Bourgeois believed that the rich had a duty to society to fund programs to help the sick and poor, and that this social duty could be fulfilled through payment of an income tax that would fund public education and welfare. Bourgeois’ proposal had met a great deal of resistance in the assembly, as they did not believe an income tax was necessary.

Bourgeois changed course. France was, as mentioned previously, enamored with nationalism and imperialism, and Bourgeois was himself supportive of nationalism and imperialism. To the chagrin of some of his allies on the income tax issue, Bourgeois changed tactics and began claiming that an income tax would allow France to finance a newer, more modern army and navy that could “provide a firm deterrent to our continental rivals,” as Bourgeois himself declared in a speech in 1902. He proposed the construction of six new battleships in an innovative all big-gun design, and argued that without an income tax, France could not afford “measures such as this that is so vital to national defense,” in Bourgeois’ words. This campaign narrowly convinced the assembly to approve the income tax. However, many nationalists demanded Bourgeois do something with the increased funds to prove that an income tax would grow the French colonial empire….”

-From THE REPUBLIC: A HISTORY OF MODERN FRANCE by Eric Young, published 2003

“French domination over Morocco had grown significantly over the decades and by 1903, President Alexandre Bourgeois was attempting to extend a protectorate over the independent sultanate. This was in part due to domestic pressure to make use of increased state revenue and in part because Bourgeois was himself an imperialist who saw Morocco as part of the rightful French sphere of influence. On March 30th, 1903, Maurice Delcassé, the French foreign minister, transmitted a series of reform proposals to Sultan Hassan II. Among these reforms, France demanded that Morocco allow French officers into the police force to “help” with internal security and permit French military forces to enter “lawless areas” of eastern Morocco to pacify bandits.

Before the Sultan could accept or reject the demands made of him, other countries involved themselves. The prospect of a French protectorate over Morocco angered the Spanish junta, as Prime Minister Jose Lopez Dominguez was also trying to build influence with the Sultan and had designs on northern Morocco. As French troops moved into the east of the country, Dominguez occupied El-Ksar el Kebir and Larache and protested on the international stage about a French “conquest” of Morocco. President Bourgeois was content to ignore the Spanish protests, but the diplomatic row soon expanded when Dominguez called for an international conference to settle the Moroccan issue. Arthur Balfour, the Prime Minister of the United Kingdom, joined with the Spanish in calling for such a conference. Balfour had been frustrated by growing French ambition in northern Egypt, which was jointly controlled by the British and French. The British government was worried the French were, by building a series of French-owned railroads along the Nile, trying to turn Egypt into a protectorate and exclude British business and influence.

Both Bourgeois and his predecessor had been reluctant to renegotiate the terms of Anglo-French Egypt, and Balfour saw the conference as a way to give the whole of Morocco to France in exchange for Bourgeois agreeing to reduce French involvement in Egypt to only the Suez Canal. Though Balfour communicated this offer to the French well before the conference, the proposal did not have its intended effect: Bourgeois was annoyed at what he viewed as British duplicity. The British were somewhat taken aback by the reaction, but Balfour was confident that Paris would calm down by the conference. Bourgeois did cool off about the British, but the German Confederation’s announcement of support for the conference sparked a new wave of outrage. The sense that Prussia and France were colonial rivals had deepened since the Bangi Conference and the interest that a number of German industrial concerns had to the extensive mineral resources in Morocco resulted in Bourgeois entering the conference, which opened in Brussels on June 2nd, convinced the alternative to French control of Morocco was a German and Spanish protectorate.

King Frederick III and Minister-President von Bethmann-Hollweg had no truly colonial ambitions in Morocco, but they did want to secure phosphate mining concessions for German companies. Combined with British proposals to establish a more international Morocco, the German delegation was confident that they could obtain such lucrative concessions. The Spanish, too, hoped that Morocco would be partitioned so Spain would control the northern Moroccan coast. France, of course, desired the whole of Morocco. Only the French delegation knew of Balfour’s offer to exchange French influence in Egypt for a Moroccan protectorate – the other parties believed that the British were wholly sincere in their international scheme.

Faced with the possibility that France’s continental rivals would gain significant pieces of Morocco, the French delegation decided to accept the British offer after the opening round of negotiations. It was greatly surprising, then, for the Germans and Spanish when the British delegation announced that they would accept a French protectorate over the whole of Morocco save for an international free city in Tangiers, to be run jointly by the French, British, Spanish, and Germans. The French delegation then agreed to withdraw from northern Egypt, though France would still participate in protecting the Suez Canal. To appease the disgruntled Germans, France reluctantly agreed to jointly administrate the phosphate-rich Khourigba region with the German Confederation. Spain was left with nothing to show for the conference they instigated, and Dominguez would be overthrown early the next year by Arsenio Linares, an open authoritarian who dropped all pretense of constitutional rule.

For France and President Bourgeois, the Brussels Conference was mostly a success. Although concessions had to be made to Britain and the Germans, almost all of Morocco was under the French protectorate, while Paris retained its most valuable involvement in Egypt – its shares in the Suez Canal company. Bourgeois left office the following year broadly popular, and his solidarist ideology would become highly influential around the world in the years to come.

Prussia and the German Confederation as a whole was disappointed by the outcome, but not enough for outrage. While the dream of a partitioned Morocco was not achieved thanks to Britain’s seemingly sudden reversal of course, German companies were still given access to the valuable phosphate reserves of Khourigba. Theodore von Bethmann-Hollweg used the partial victory as an argument for lowering tensions with France, but between France’s jealous guarding of its colonial empire and increasing German nationalism, the Prussian and German appetites for détente were shrinking. Instead, public sentiment led to greater of German unity, as a combination of rampant nationalism and economic interconnection slowly eroded the regional allegiances within the Confederation.

For the United Kingdom, the conference was a failure, and a major blunder for the otherwise-astute Balfour. His handling of the Moroccan Crisis had alienated both France and the German Confederation. France was angered by the surprising British opposition to their ambitions in Morocco, while the German Confederation felt betrayed by what Bethmann-Hollweg saw as a backroom deal between Britain and France. Britain was increasingly isolated in Europe, though the events of the next decade would make many glad that London hadn’t entangled the country in any foreign alliances. For his part, Balfour, like Bourgeois, would be out of office come 1904, the victim of a revolt among the backbenches…”

-From THE END OF THE CONSENSUS: EUROPE 1898-1910 by Rebecca Gardner, published 2009

“The issue of free trade dominated debate in Westminster, even as the headlines were dominated by major foreign events. The Conservatives were deeply divided by the issue, even more so than Chamberlain’s Liberals. While Austen Chamberlain had managed to sideline the loudest free trade voices within the Liberals, Balfour struggled to quiet the divisions within his own party. The embarrassment of the Moroccan Crisis only inflamed the intra-party bickering plaguing the Tories and emboldened the protectionists to make demands of Balfour. In March 0f 1904, Canadian Prime Minister John S. Thompson publicly came out in favor of Imperial Preference, forcing the issue in Westminster. Several members of his cabinet, including William Baldwin (the protectionist President of the Board of Trade), demanded that Balfour move towards Imperial Preference. Balfour, aware of his tenuous majority of just 11 seats, took a poll of the backbenches to gauge how to proceed. The majority of Tory MPs opposed Imperial Preference [4], and Balfour decided to follow suit in the hopes that a decisive response would prevent the nearly 80 protectionist MPs from revolting.

On May 25th, 1904, Balfour delivered a speech before the Commons, criticized Imperial Preference, saying “I submit this point: from the national point of view, there is no case for a ‘fiscal revolution’: not in the trade returns, nor income tax receipts, nor in colonial demand, nor in a popular movement.” Shortly after, he demanded Baldwin’s resignation. Baldwin duly resigned his position, but bitterly denounced Balfour’s embrace of free trade in a speech the following day. Balfour’s ministry only continued to destabilize, however, as Vicary Gibbs, the Chancellor of the Exchequer, submitted his resignation on the 29th. Gibbs, a protectionist, viewed Balfour’s dismissal of Baldwin as needlessly divisive [5]. He was the most prominent member of the ministry to resign, although War Secretary Joseph Lawrence also resigned in protest. On Friday June 3rd, Baldwin invited both Long and Lawrence to his estate, where he informed them that he had the support of 28 protectionist backbenchers to defect from the Conservatives. Both Gibbs and Lawrence agreed to join the defection. When Parliament reconvened on the 6th, Austen Chamberlain submitted a motion of no confidence.

In the ensuing debate, Chamberlain focused his speech on the benefits Imperial Preference, and roundly condemned Balfour for doing nothing while Britain’s industrial economy declined “under the onslaught of foreign-made, cheap and poor-quality goods, an onslaught only possible under the program of free trade.” Balfour pointed to the failure of the Corn Laws and claimed that he was “primarily concerned with the price of food,” not the balance of trade. Balfour suspected that Baldwin would defect and employed Colonial Secretary Walter Long to keep the protectionist backbenchers loyal. Chamberlain, meanwhile, had the support of the Irish Parliamentary Party and Baldwin’s National Conservatives. The government lost the motion by a vote of 351-313, and Balfour submitted his resignation to King Edward VII, hoping that the unpopularity of Imperial Preference would bring down Chamberlain and allow the Conservatives to return to government. Balfour was unsurprised that Baldwin had led the defection of the protectionists, though he had underestimated the number of MPs willing to bolt from the party over the issue.

The King invited Chamberlain to form a minority government, propped up with the support of the National Conservatives and tacit confidence-and-supply from the Irish Parliamentarians. Chamberlain’s coalition totaled just 272 seats, and he couldn’t rely on the IPP to deliver enough votes for his big-ticket tariff reform and social welfare proposals. Thus, just a week after forming a government, Austen Chamberlain sought and received a royal dissolution of parliament. This took effect on June 20th, and the election was scheduled for mid-July, with some constituencies voting on different days. Chamberlain campaigned tirelessly, promoting a “Scientific Tariff” that would make other tax increases unnecessary and facilitate the expansion of the social safety net without increasing the price of food. Balfour claimed that Imperial Preference would lead to a repeat of the high food prices brought on by the Corn Laws, an argument that found some purchase, but a blitz of Liberal campaign propaganda claimed that, while the Scientific Tariff would have no impact on food prices, Conservative free trade would impoverish the country to such a degree that food would be unaffordable.

As predicted, the Conservatives lost their majority, losing 124 seats. However, the Liberals failed to gain a majority, winning 315 seats. Combined with the 41 seats won by the National Conservatives, Chamberlain had a working majority of 19 seats, and with the IPP added in, this rose to a 93-seat majority. The Liberal government, under both Chamberlain and his successor Samuel Leon, would be responsible for some of the greatest changes in British history, from Imperial Preference to the People’s Budget of 1909, to Irish Home Rule…”

-From SOMETHING ABOUT ENGLAND by Seward Jennings, published 2002

“…and as Big Ben strikes ten, we have our crucial exit poll figures… here they are: Our exit poll is suggesting that there will be a Liberal majority in this election, once all the results are in. The Liberals on 331 seats, and the Alliance up at 237. On those figures, we’re looking at a Liberal majority of 32. Should these figures hold, it will mark the continuation of the Liberals government, but with the party's narrowest majority in decades…”

-From UK GENERAL ELECTION 2022 – FULL COVERAGE, BBC, 13th September, 2022

[1] Not only did the massacres reduce the support base of nationalist groups through deaths and emigration, but the failure of a pan-Slavist crusade left the nationalists themselves somewhat demoralized.
[2] The Japanese Shogunate remained studiously neutral.
[3] The Russian army is still not great, so they also incur heavier-than-expected casualties against the Qing army (which also has its problems).
[4] Without the Liberal Unionists, the balance is shifted in the free-traders’ favor.
[5] Baldwin had planned to resign in protest anyway, but Long didn’t know that.

 

[TheHedgehog]

66. The New American System

“President McGovern knew he had a limited amount of political capital with which to implement his agenda. His party held just 181 seats in congress and relied on the Populists’ 27 to form a narrow majority. While the Populists generally aligned with McGovern and the solidarist Whigs on issues such as bank reform and antimonopoly legislation, but the Whigs were opposed to Populist ideas such as loosening the national reliance on the gold standard, and the proposal of a federal income tax threatened to divide the Whig caucus. The Populists also held a lingering distrust of the Whigs’ solidarist turn, which kept the two parties from a closer cooperation. Charles Stone of Champoeg, the leader of the Populist caucus in the House, called the Whigs “allies of convenience” and reasoned that “once we secure our agenda, we will supplant them.” He, and many of his partymen, believed that their coalition partners were, despite the election of Robert Kerr as Speaker of the House, “in the thrall of the east-coast conservatives.” The fact that Thomas Cabot, the staunchly conservative Senator from Massachusetts, was Vice President was just one example for Stone that the Whigs had never truly shed their conservative, pro-business policies. They also opposed levying a direct income tax, as McGovern’s experience as Governor of Iowa had left him convinced that an income tax would be too controversial for his first term.

The Whigs also faced their own internal divisions. Kerr had been elected as Speaker only with Populist support, while the Whig caucus was led by the moderate-conservative Francis Kemp of Michigan, who had succeeded the conservative David Henderson in 1905. The Majority Whip was Cecil Harding, a solidarist, who had won his post by just seven votes. The division within Whig leadership required careful compromise and delicate navigation of the various factions in order to pass legislation: McGovern could only afford to lose 12 votes in the House. And while the solidarists held a slight edge in the House, conservative Whigs formed the majority of the Senate caucus. There, the Whigs held 41 seats, with the support of all six Populists. There, McGovern could only afford to lose 5 votes [1]. Fortunately, Vice President Cabot agreed to lobby his old Senate friends in support of the administration, despite his personal conservativism. Matthew Quay also proved amenable to certain measures in exchange for patronage powers, which McGovern reluctantly agreed to. However, a number of New English Senators proved to be headaches, especially William Sprague V of Rhode Island. They were flexible on antimonopoly laws and labor reform, but resolutely against the income tax or bank reform. Passing solidarist legislation would require a precarious tightrope walk.

Though many Populists demanded that McGovern start with bank reform, he and the solidarists opted to proceed with two more broadly popular bills passed by a special session of Congress: The Commerce Oversight Act, which regulated businesses and created the Commerce Oversight Bureau to enforce said regulations, and the National Development Act, which included funds for a host of infrastructure projects, mostly railroads in the west and turnpikes in the east and Midwest. The COA established types of business practices that were monopolistic or unfair, such as price discrimination that lessens competition, exclusivity contracts that prevented customers from dealing with a seller’s competitors and empowered the COB to cancel mergers and acquisitions that decreased competition [2]. The COA was supported by almost all Whigs and every Populist, and its provisions had broad appeal to the general public. The NDA, meanwhile, was not only a way to make good on McGovern’s promises to the Populists during the contingent election, but bribe other lawmakers with public works projects in their home states and districts. Both bills were passed easily by the House and narrowly by the Senate, the former earning 3 Whig defections and the latter 1 Whig defection, but support from 3 Democrats. These two pieces of legislation were signed by President McGovern on March 13th and 16th, respectively. With the political capital secured by these two bills, he hoped to forge ahead with the rest of his agenda in the regular session of Congress.

McGovern and Speaker Kerr planned to begin with a comprehensive labor regulation law establishing a Conciliation Board [3] to settle labor disputes in a legally-binding manner, banning employers from conditioning employment on abstention from union activities, and prohibiting child labor. The Labor Reform Act was generally popular with solidarists and the Populists, but the initial effort to pass the LRA was defeated in committee by Populist defectors. Stone and the Populists demanded that McGovern push for bank reform first, threatening to block the rest of the President’s agenda in retaliation. McGovern agreed, and began the process of assembling a reform bill radical enough to appease the Populists, but moderate enough to ensure enough conservative buy-in. The first draft of the Bank Reform Act was introduced by Charles Stone on March 13th, 1906. This bill removed the requirement that the National Bank had to settle accounts in specie and loosened the limits on paper money printed by the branch banks, effectively removing the US economy from the international gold standard. It also expanded the autonomy of the Branch Banks. This was strenuously opposed by conservative Whigs, with even Speaker Kerr informing Stone that he couldn’t support the bill as it was. With Majority Leader Kemp actively lobbying against it and Sprague and his allies in the Senate vowing to block it, the Stone Bill died in committee and the Whigs and Populists went back to negotiating.

A group of moderate Whigs led by Kemp proposed their own version, which had the support of both solidarists like Harding and conservatives like Sprague. The Kemp Bill kept the Washington, D.C. branch as the central authority of the bank and kept the specie requirements in place. In order to expand rural investment opportunities, specially-designated rural banks, both branches of the National Bank and private banks, would be able to tap into a special government account and loan out money to farmers, up to 30% of their land’s value. This proved more popular among the Whigs and Populists, but the final Kemp-Stone bill, though it made it to a floor vote, was narrowly defeated in the House, 200-191. Along with the predictable conservative defectors, 6 Populists also voted against it, because they opposed the inclusion of private institutions in the farm loan program. It was back to the drawing board, as May gave way to June, with the 30th the end of the legislative session. McGovern pushed heavily for Cecil Harding’s compromise, which established 10 branch banks, with the Washington D.C. branch the first among equals, rather than 10 equal branches as the Populists had first proposed. The conservatives refused to remove private banks from the rural lending program, so McGovern was able to secure Populist support for allowing private banks to participate, but with extremely strict regulations that removed all but a few private banks from consideration. This proposal, negotiated between Whigs Francis Kemp and Cecil Harding and Populist Stewart Roth of Nebraska, created the Kemp-Roth Bank Reform Act. It passed the House by a vote of 204-187 on June 13th, sending it to be considered by the Senate.

Here, there was more of a challenge. While most conservatives and moderates, including McGovern’s convention opponent William McKinley, supported Kemp-Roth, William Sprague V, Frederick Swayne III, and three other conservative Whigs continued to oppose any form of bank reform. This had been foreseen, and McGovern relied on Cabot to persuade Swayne, his close friend, while the Whigs lobbied Democratic Senators Tom Daley of Washita and Nathan Ives of Arkansas, whose states would benefit greatly from Kemp-Roth. McGovern promised to guarantee that Washita and other rural southern states would get “ample access” to the farm loan program. Cabot was also able to secure Swayne’s support in exchange for appointing his brother Josiah to the Appeals Court. This gave the Whigs 44 votes in the Senate, just enough to send the Kemp-Roth Act to President McGovern’s desk on June 21st. He signed it the next day. The Kemp-Roth Bank Reform Act was the largest change to the American finance system since 1841 and overhauled the bank’s charter. It was in some ways the crowning achievement of the progressive era, and cemented William McGovern as one of the most impactful Presidents in American history. Following in Clay’s footsteps, he had left his own imprint on the United States…”

-From PARADIGM SHIFT: THE AMERICAN PROGRESSIVE ERA by Olivia DiMarco, published 2015

“As the Liberal-Democratic joint convention struggles to select a nominee, one contender has earned the opposition of the most illogically conservative of the lot. Charlie Breathitt, the former President of the National Bank, has been gaining support over the last eight ballots as a compromise candidate between Alabama Senator Howell Yarborough and Shasta Governor Patricia Linz. The two candidates had deadlocked, the hardline conservative Yarborough and the moderate, technocratic Linz each short of a majority. The paternalist [4] candidate, former New York Governor Robert Sullivan, has refused to endorse either candidate, declaring that Yarborough represents “a dangerous trend within our party: a trend of reaction and exclusion,” and Linz represents “what the voters detest about some strains of our party: elitism and supporting profit and economic growth over all other considerations.” After twelve inconclusive ballots, Sullivan withdrew and endorsed Charlie Breathitt, the former President of the Bank of the United States, in his stead.

Breathitt has proven popular with both the moderate, liberal [5] faction and the socially-conservative paternalists, but the most conservative delegates have remained steadfastly opposed. Senator Yarborough denounced him in a speech as “the man in the Ivory Tower, the epitome of privilege and power.” Others in the hard-right of the party have gone even further. Enter Congressman Lyle Carter of rural southern Virginia, who former President Claire Huntington famously referred to as “Congress’s resident nutjob,” spoke last night, and it was a hell of a speech. Carter began by tearing into Governor Linz, before turning to the surging Breathitt. He claimed that Breathitt is a Freemason (which is false – Breathitt was extended an invitation to initiate, but he declined), saying “and now let’s discuss the Mason, the former head of the National Bank. The former head of the Bank that has been a rotten institution, rife with corruption and fond of shady practices since the time of Clay.”

Amid loud boos from the delegates, Carter charged ahead undaunted. “Why should we nominate as our standard-bearer a man who headed this corrupt institution, so shrouded in secrecy? Did you know that Congress has never held an audit of the Bank of the United States? This is an organization with no accountability. Zero. We need, we deserve, a President who is familiar with accountability to Congress and to the American people. This is the party of Jackson, not the party of corrupt financiers and out-of-touch elitist billionaires.” This conveniently ignores that the Liberal Party enjoys the support of many wealthy Americans, routinely winning a majority of the top earners and upper-middle-class voters. House Speaker Alex Sessions spoke after Carter, joking at the start of his speech that “I won’t do any of that conspiracy junk.”

After the rambling, confused speech, the convention seemed to move on without a pause, as TV commentators on both sides of the aisle gleefully mocked Carter’s conspiratorial remarks. This morning, the convention resumed balloting, and Charlie Breathitt secured the nomination on the 22nd ballot, at 11:17am, after Governor Linz withdrew. The Vice-Presidential nomination will likely go to Texas Congressman Henry Ulrich, a key surrogate for the Yarborough campaign.

Breathitt will go on to face incumbent President Neil Ahrendt, a Whig, in November.”

-From CARTER SPEECH IS BIZARRE CLOSER FOR TUMULTUOUS DNC by John Pembroke, published in The National Report, July 21st, 2016

[1] TTL, the filibuster doesn’t develop – a key event that led to its development occurred in 1841 when Clay failed to end debate on his bank bill. TTL, Clay is president and has the full support of the Whigs, so the effort to prolong Senate debate fails.
[2] Essentially a mashup of the OTL Clayton Anti-Trust and FTC Act.
[3] This was a major accomplishment during Woodrow Wilson’s presidency OTL.
[4] Like Red Tories or Disraeli’s conservatism.
[5] Liberal in the classical sense, that is.

 

[TheHedgehog]

10 Largest U.S. Cities as of the 1900 Census:
1. New York City, NY - 3,517,327
2. Chicago, IL - 1,689,607
3. Philadelphia, PA - 1,256,718
4. Saint Louis, MO - 583,451
5. Boston, MA - 547,794
6. Richmond, VA - 533,112
7. Baltimore, MD - 508,968
8. Cleveland, OH - 401,033
9. Buffalo, NY - 353,392
10. Lynchburg, VA - 339,876
​

 

[TheHedgehog]

67. An Equal and Opposite Reaction

“After the triumph of the Kemp-Roth Act, the Whigs once again moved forward with the Labor Reform Act that had been shelved by the Populists as leverage on bank reform, calling a special session of Congress in September. The text of the legislation was the same as the original draft, establishing the Conciliation Board to resolve labor disputes, ban employers from making employment contingent on non-unionization, and banning child labor, which was still legal in 17 states. There was a bid by congressman Ezra Stark Sr. of Independence, Missouri, to add an amendment banning convict leasing. This garnered considerable support from the solidarists, but strenuous Democratic opposition and the refusal of conservative Whigs to antagonize southern interests led President McGovern to quietly pressure Stark to withdraw the amendment. This debate avoided, the Labor Reform Act sailed through committee and was narrowly approved by the House on September 13th, and the Senate voted 45-39 to pass it on the 19th. President McGovern signed it into law on the 20th, capping off a hectic legislative session that saw the enactment of some of the boldest reforms since the Blaine administration.”

-From ALL AMERICAN MADE by Thurgood Nickle, published 2001

“The alteration of the bank’s charter was enormously controversial, and the divisions within the governing Whig-Populist coalition had been endlessly reported on by the press, leaving an impression in the eyes of many voters that the coalition lacked cohesiveness and unity, while the Democrats went to great lengths to present a united front. James Hepburn, who had remained the leader of the Democratic caucus, went on a speaking tour of the upper south and eastern seaboard. He sought to paint the McGovern administration, and by extension the Whig-Populist coalition, as dangerous radicals, and a Democratic majority as a necessary check on the “radical impulses of the President.” Hepburn was popular in finance-driven cities like New York and Philadelphia, and his vocal criticism of the “Whiggish arrogance” became a frequent Democratic slogan. The line adopted by the Democrats in 1906 and in several subsequent elections was that the Whigs wanted to empower the federal government to make decisions for the people while the Democrats, in the faded Jacksonian tradition [1], believed that the people were more than capable of deciding things for themselves.

The Populists took the biggest punishment as western voters returned to the Whigs in droves. Populist hopes of using McGovern’s sympathies for their agenda to supersede the Whigs were dashed, as instead most Populist voters took Whig support for Kemp-Roth, the COA, and the NDA as a sign that the Whigs were firmly dominated by McGovern and the solidarists. President McGovern’s support for Populist policies signaled to voters that the Populist Party had outlived its usefulness. As a result, out of 27 Populist-held seats, just seven remained in Populist hands after the election, as these voters returned to the Whig fold. This cushioned Whig losses, meaning the party shed just 11 seats, even as the Democrats gained 31. However, this was still enough for the Democrats to regain a majority in the House and returned control of the speaker’s gavel to the aristocratic James Hepburn. Meanwhile, the Whigs gained six seats in the Senate, mostly from Populist defections. The new Whig House caucus, though reduced, was even more firmly in the grip of the solidarists, and Kerr was able to purge Francis Kemp from his role as caucus leader, consolidating solidarist control of the House leadership. In the Senate, a wave of retirements and intra-party battles led to the ousting of conservative Whigs in Maine and New Hampshire in favor of the moderate Arthur Landon in Maine and solidarist Josiah Bachelder [2] in New Hampshire.

The 1906 House elections produced a strong backlash to McGovern’s policies from east-coast voters, as Hepburn’s call for a check on “runaway reformism” resonated with conservative and moderate voters. Whig support in Massachusetts, Connecticut, and Pennsylvania slumped, as conservative Whigs were unable to escape being associated with the solidarists. Meanwhile, some conservatives were defeated in primaries by solidarists, further driving businessmen and financiers towards the Democrats. Industrialists, who had enjoyed a long history of bankrolling Whig campaigns, significantly reduced their donations but still supported the Whigs solely because of their trade policies. Thus, the 1902-1906 period is a true realignment of American politics. Ohio, for example, had long been a reliably Whiggish state, only voting Democratic once between 1856 and 1904 (in 1888), and Whigs had long dominated the state’s congressional delegation. However, in 1906, Ohio sent a delegation of 11 Whigs and 11 Democrats, the first time since 1886 that the Whigs had failed to win a majority. Massachusetts was another staunch Whig stronghold, but the Democrats were able to win 6 out of 14 congressional races there on the back of conservative backlash and the growing strength of the catholic vote…”

-From WHITE MAN’S NATION: AMERICA 1881-1973 by Kenneth Thurman, published 2003

“In the closing days of the 59th congress, Speaker Kerr undertook a final push to grant statehood to the Territory of Bighorn. Bighorn had been carved out of the Nebraska Territory during the Cox administration by the Indian Administration Act as part of an agreement to prevent white settlement south of the Bridger Trail in the proposed Wyoming Territory. Bighorn was established as a haven of sorts for the plains Indians, with full citizenship granted to all its residents (Indian citizenship had yet to be extended to those outside of Bighorn, however). Further, the federal government banned white homesteads within the new territory, effectively excluding all white settlement. Though the Bridger Trail ultimately cut through Bighorn, white settlement within the territory was still prohibited, and a number of enterprising Indians established formal general stores along the way.

Bighorn was a quiet, pastoral, and sparsely-settled territory for much of its existence, though the cities of Platte Bridge [3] and Douglas prospered due to the railroads and telegraph lines that ran through them. In 1895, after decades of oil seeps in the Salt Creek region of Crow County, the tribal authorities agreed to begin drilling for oil in order to capitalize on the growing popularity of automobiles. A number of modernizing, forward-thinking Indian businessmen formed the Bighorn Petroleum Corporation and took charge of prospecting for oil near Platte Bridge and Douglas. By 1901, a refinery had been constructed in Douglas, and the railroad connection there brought oil and gasoline to a number of buyers in both the east and the Pacific coast. The Bighorn Oil Boom greatly enriched the Crow, Sioux, and Cheyenne tribes whose communal lands lay in the Salt Creek area. The Populists, then the dominant party in the territorial legislature, also acted to prevent white companies from exploiting the natural wealth. Governor Thomas F. Fitzpatrick [4] arranged for the purchase in 1903 of a 51% controlling stake in the BPC by the territorial government.

The BPC was charged a steeply discounted tax, while tribes refused to allow white entrepreneurs the land permits necessary to drill for oil in Bighorn. This practice brought the territory into a series of legal battles, with white businessmen, led by the ruthless Ezra Archbold, alleging discrimination against whites in favor of Indians. The Supreme Court ruled in 1906 that Bighorn Territory could not restrict white businessmen from investing in the Salt Creek oil boom via tax discrimination, but due to the territory’s “unusual history” of barring land grants to white settlers, Chief Justice Bryant ruled that white oil companies could not “make a forcible entry” into the Bighorn oil business, as all territory in the state was communally owned by the “constituent tribes,” each tribe had the right to “favor local industry” over national corporations. This 5-4 ruling in Territory of Bighorn v. Archbold was a landmark decision, and a major victory for American Indians.

And so, the outgoing Whig-Populist congressional majority sought to bolster their chances of retaking the House in 1908 by making Bighorn, dominated by solidarist Whigs and the declining Populists, the 43rd state. The Enabling Act of 1907, which was signed into law by McGovern on February 11th, meant that finally all 43 contiguous U.S. territories had achieved statehood, and the first (and only) Indian-majority state [5]. Though the Democrats protested that it was a blatant effort by the Whigs to pad their electoral margins, the new state represented not just an important win for the Whigs, but for the American Indians as well. First they had achieved self-sufficient modern prosperity, and then they were rewarded with full statehood...”

-From WESTERN SPACES by Burton Quayle, published 1999

“On February 12th, 1907, after attending a ceremony with several Indian leaders celebrating Bighorn’s statehood, President McGovern retired to his office at 10:15 pm. Approximately half an hour later, his secretary heard a thud and the shattering of glass inside and rushed to check on him. McGovern was found slumped over his desk, having suffered a heart attack. A doctor was rushed to attend to him, and he recovered within a week, but was advised by both the doctor and his own family to stop working long hours and spend more time relaxing. McGovern, always a hard worker and aal man deeply concerned with social welfare, disregarded these warnings, and kept with his strenuous schedule…”

-From PARADIGM SHIFT: THE AMERICAN PROGRESSIVE ERA by Olivia DiMarco, published 2015

[1] It helps that Jackson was followed by another strong personality in Henry Clay, rather than the revolving door of dead and/or ineffectual Whigs and competent, very lucky Democrats we got IOTL.
[2] Incredibly enough, based off of a real guy. Nahum Josiah Bachelder was a New Hampshire farmer and leader in The Grange.
[3] OTL Caspar, WY.
[4] Fictional son of Chief Friday Fitzpatrick of the Arapahoe, who was semi-adopted as a boy by Thomas Fitzpatrick, a fur trader.
[5] Hawaii and Alaska, as OTL, still have significant native populations, but Bighorn is majority native (and by a large margin, too.)

 

[TheHedgehog]

 

[TheHedgehog]

68. Powderkegs

“After the Sicilian uprisings in 1879 [1], the Kingdom of the Two Sicilies was left destabilized. Regarded as the ‘sick man of Europe’, Naples had lost control of Sicily to an international council, and King Francis II and his son Francis II were increasingly reliant on the British and Austrians to maintain power. The countryside was, for over a decade, completely in the hands of bandits and loose groups of Mazzinist revolutionaries who evaded the efforts of the government to restore order. Throughout 1895-1900, Francis III undertook a concerted effort to pacify the countryside, but the harsh punishments meted out to bandits and revolutionaries, while effective in the short term, only served to build resentment. Francis’s reliance on royalist brigands to enforce his rule in the country also angered the peasantry, as these brigands looted valuables and frequently committed violent acts on rural subjects.

In 1907, Giuseppe Montalto, a socialist and Mazzinist revolutionary, arrived in Pescara. Montalto had been active in land reform efforts in Sicily, successfully securing the council’s approval for a comprehensive program. He turned his attention north, hoping to depose the Bourbon monarchy and unite the Italian peninsula. In Pescara, he declared the Neapolitan Republic and called for armed supporters, promising “total land reform” and an end to Royal Brigandage. He was joined by thousands of peasants and urban socialists, as well as hundreds of well-armed volunteers from Italy. The revolutionaries swiftly secured control of Abruzzo, and revolutionary bandits and guerilla fighters formed pockets across the rest of the country. Felice Cavallotti, the Italian Consul and committed Mazzinist, gave Montalto’s regime recognition, sparking a diplomatic crisis. While Italy hadn’t intervened militarily, Cavallotti’s loud support for Montalto predictably angered the Two Sicilies, but it also inflamed tensions with Austria-Hungary, which were already high after the 1906 week-long nationalist riots in Milan.

By the end of 1907, Francis III’s position had eroded significantly, as the revolutionaries fought the Royal Brigands and cemented their control of the countryside. The revolutionaries also began seizing land from nobles and dividing it among the peasants. The spring of 1908 saw Montalto’s forces capture the port city of Bari and the agricultural city of Foggia, while closing in on Naples with victories in Benevento. Due to these successes, Cavallotti was able to convince French President Jules Meline to recognize the Neapolitan Republic in July 1908. Austria loudly protested this and threatened to send an expeditionary force to help King Francis suppress Montalto’s revolution. Cavallotti warned that if Austria intervened, Italy would unilaterally annex Sicily. The prospect of an unfriendly power controlling the Strait of Sicily got Britain’s attention, and Austen Chamberlain dispatched a fleet into the area while calling for an international conference, which was supported by King William II of Prussia.

The conference, convened in Frankfurt, was dominated by France, Italy, and Austria-Hungary. The Austrians were outraged over Cavallotti’s overt support for the revolutionaries and demanded that Italy abandon Montalto to an Austrian expedition. Italy refused, and France supported them. Chamberlain was solely concerned with keeping the straits open and offered to accept the victory of Montalto if Italy allowed a British naval base at Pozzallo and demilitarized the ports of Syracuse and Palermo. Austria was outraged and Prussia offered a lukewarm protest, but with Montalto at the gates of Naples and without British support, they could do little. Though the fighting was still ongoing, the Frankfurt Conference had already decided the outcome. Naples fell on August 23rd, 1908, and Francis III fled to Austria. Shortly after, Montalto petitioned the Italian government for annexation, and this was granted on September 14th. Italy, after formally annexing Sicily, duly ceded Pozzallo to the Royal Navy. The next few years would see the Italians carry out comprehensive land reform, extend labor protections, and begin major public works projects to bring economic growth to the impoverished south.

-From THE END OF THE CONSENSUS: EUROPE 1898-1910 by Rebecca Gardner, published 2009

“Upon the death of Frederick III in 1907, he was succeeded by his son William [2]. The new King was more conservative than his father, and quickly came into conflict with a legislature accustomed to a large role in governmental affairs. The years between his coronation and the outbreak of the Great War were dominated by the struggle between King and Landtag, with a string of short-lived, ineffectual Minister-Presidents falling victim to the power struggles. Frequently, the Minister-President would serve until some budgetary dispute resulted in him resigning and William II either backing down or standing firm. Starting in 1909, the Landtag simply renewed the past year’s budget, as they were unable to agree on a new budget with the King. It was also the King who drove the escalating tensions with France, even as opposition to his authoritarian rule slowly built at home. It would take a bloody war, however, to finally sweep away the last vestiges of Prussian absolutism…”

-From THE PRUSSIAN MODEL by John Harper, published 1998

“After the oil strikes of 1896, resentment against the Liberal regime grew substantially. Though the Liberals clung to power with their old methods of voter fraud and intimidation, the rise of the populist Popular Reform Party of Victoriano Madero threatened the regime. In 1900, after several PRP workers were arrested and found mysteriously dead a week later, Madero, at the urging of his more radical associates, plotted a revolution against President Limantour. Madero had the support of several brigades of the Mexico City garrison, as well as the governors of California, Coahuila, and San Luis Potosi. However, Madero’s poor military leadership meant that the Revolution of 1900 was swiftly crushed, and Madero himself was arrested. He was released after a year, but his subsequent reluctance to instigate a revolution and belief that a moderate path would bring about the downfall of the Liberals alienated him from the growing radical element of the PRP.

In 1903, Madero was replaced as party leader by Antonio Carbajal, who was little more than a mouthpiece for Joaquin Orozco, a military officer and radical sympathizer, and just 34 years old at the time. Orozco supported the radical program and plotted to compel the Liberal regime to institute the secret ballot in order to come to power through democratic means. One revolution attempt was squashed before it could even be launched, while the second one, in 1905, was far more successful. Orozco and the revolutionaries managed to seize control of California, Chihuaha, and New Mexico, while failing to secure the capital or arrest the government. The near-success of the 1905 Revolution, which put the country on the verge of civil war, forced the reform-minded President Terrazas to push for the secret ballot, and congress narrowly approved the measure. The 1907 elections were the first held under the new law, and Orozco ran as the PRP’s candidate against Salvador Rabasa of the Liberals and Victoriano Madero, who ran as the centrist Constitutionalist Party candidate. Orozco won decisively, with 46.6% of the vote against Rabasa’s 32.8% and Madero’s 18.9%. However, the PRP failed to secure a majority of the congress, as Madero’s Constitutionalists held the balance of power.

Orozco established himself as a heavy-handed leader, fond of removing state governors who went against his policies. He fought often with congress, but was able to massively expand labor protections, including legalizing trade unions and implementing a national minimum wage. He also pushed through a land reform program, though it was watered down due to the Constitutionalists. He was enormously popular with the poor, especially oil workers and farmworkers, but their devotion to him personally divided the PRP [3]. The triumphs of 1905 and 1907 soon gave way to pessimism and squabbling within the PRP between the pro-Orozco and anti-Orozco factions, while the economy remained stagnant despite the reforms.”

-From A CONCISE HISTORY OF MEXICO by Herman Wheeler, published 2002

“As the war entered its sixth year, the various factions were increasingly exhausted. The Federal and Royal Army in the south was stymied by the reluctance of President Yrigoyen to provide more than just material aid. The Republicans were beset by financial struggles and a restive conscript army that was only kept loyal by the promise of generous but still-unfunded pensions, and the Societists faced growing equipment shortages from international embargoes. The emergence of a breakaway military government in the Amazon separated from the rest of the Republican forces by sheer distance also hindered the Societists’ southern advance, as Candido Rondon’s forces advanced into Maranhao at the same time that Julio Almeida’s People’s Army became bogged down in southern Bahia.

By April of 1908, all sides were exhausted. The promises of peace made by Emperor Afonso seemed increasingly hollow to his followers, the Republican Army’s soldiers calls for backpay grew louder with each day, and the Societist armies were increasingly manned by peasant conscripts rather than dedicated soldiers of the revolution. After the failure of the People’s Army to take the city of Victoria and the surrender of the last pockets of Societist resistance in Minas Gerais, the Society for Economic Justice approached Nilo Peçanha’s government via backchannels in the United States of Colombia [4] with a proposal for an armistice. Peçanha, facing the growing threat of more mutinies and hoping to concentrate his forces against the Royalists in the south, readily accepted. Even his strongest rival, Pinheiro Machado, supported the peace negotiations, because the shaky new government couldn’t withstand more fighting and the debt and social strife that would entail. The negotiations were held in Bogota and mediated by President Rafael Uribe. Uribe was a committed liberal and social reformer and was viewed as a neutral mediator due to his sympathies with both the Republicans and Societists.

The Republicans were forced to concede Bahia to the Societists, though they retained the whole of Espírito Santo, forcing the Societists to withdraw from the north of the state. The state of Goiás was partitioned, its north-eastern third ceded to the Societists and the rest confirmed under Republican control. President Peçanha was also forced to recognize the independence of the Republic of Grão-Para, though this wasn’t a real loss, as the Paraense had helped the Republicans fend off the Societists, and Candido Rondon’s government was friendly with Rio de Janeiro. Following the signing of the treaty on August 3rd, Peçanha ordered a massive offensive against the Royalists. This began in September and was initially successful, driving the royalists out of São Paulo and Paraná. However, the offensive ground to a halt due to stiff resistance and falling Republican morale as demands for backpay turned into threats of mutiny. The Argentines finally offered to mediate a ceasefire on October 12th, and the exhausted republicans and royalists agreed to come to the table.

It was quickly agreed to draw the border along the existing frontlines, and the main point of contention became the name of the royalist state. The republicans strongly objected to the royalists continuing as the Brazilian Empire. After several inconclusive rounds of negotiation and pressure from Argentina, the royalists agreed to drop their claims to the entirety of Brazil and renamed themselves the Riograndense Federation. The Federation retained the decentralized constitution promised by Afonso, but Afonso would be styled as Emperor of the Federation, not Emperor of Brazil. With this matter settled, the Treaty of Buenos Aires ended the final conflict of the Brazilian Civil Wars. Peace had finally returned to the continent over 16 years after the beginning of the Platine War…”

-From THE BRAZILIAN CIVIL WARS by Seward Jennings, published 2013

“The Colorados were already suspicious of the CRU when it was chartered in 1901, and this suspicion only grew. Even as the CRU employed Uruguayans in its electrification and public works projects, CRU corporate leadership often clashed with Montevideo. First, President Cuestas objected to the CRU’s employment of large numbers of Argentinians on its projects, which was ignored. Then, Cuestas was forced into giving the CRU half of the revenues generated by the power plants and dams it built. In that instance, President Yrigoyen threatened to order the CRU to cease operations, ending the reconstruction aid. The Colorados soon split over the issue, with Cuestas and Pablo Viera leading the autonomist faction and Antonio Williman, a businessman and teacher, leading the pro-Buenos Aires faction. In March 1907, Uruguay held presidential elections, which were won by Viera.

Argentina was distracted from 1907-1909 by Yrigoyen’s reforms, including the settlement of a series of strikes, an initial reform of the university system in response to student protests, and partially successful efforts in land reform. Yrigoyen’s presidency focused heavily on domestic issues, which was protested by the Progressive Conservatives. By 1909, the domestic situation had calmed considerably, and Argentina once more turned its attention beyond its borders with the election of Francisco Barroetaveña, an attorney and education reformer. He promised a more conservative domestic agenda and a more aggressive posture abroad. He was especially concerned with President Viera, who had imposed strict regulations on the CRU, including quotas on foreign workers and canceling the tax exemptions it enjoyed. The final straw for Barroetaveña was Viera’s decision to forcibly renegotiate the electricity revenue divisions, passing a law declaring that Uruguay would receive 75%, and the CRU 25%. Barroetaveña protested, arguing that this ran counter to the 25-year contract Uruguay had made with the CRU, and demanded that Viera back down.

When Viera refused, Barroetaveña began preparations to depose him. Among the Argentine workers brought into the country for work, some were military agents who contacted Williman and sympathetic army officers. Barroetaveña also circulated rumors that Viera harbored Blanco sympathies. The coup was launched on May 24th, 1910. Troops loyal to General Jose Campisteguy seized the legislative building and arrested President Viera on charges of treason and corruption. A rump legislature composed solely of pro-Buenos Aires politicians then elected Williman as “interim president,” with Campisteguy appointed as the Minister of War. The coup was met with protests in Montevideo, but the new regime was backed up with Argentinian guns, and resistance quickly subsided. Argentina had toppled Brazil to become the continental hegemon, and now it was flexing its newfound muscles…”

-From IMPERIALISM ON THE RIVER PLATE by Miguel Fuentes, published 2011

[1] Way back in chapter 40.
[2] Not quite the Wilhelm II of OTL, but definitely an old-fashioned conservative monarch.
[3] Mexico TTL has strong parallels with OTL Argentina.
[4] The USC survives TTL for reasons.

 

[TheHedgehog]

69. A Second Mandate

“The towering successes of his first term, even as they sparked furious opposition from conservative Whigs, also served to unite the rest of the party behind McGovern. Rumors of a supposed health crisis were never confirmed, although the conservatives still tried to paint McGovern as weak and frail in the pre-convention influence battles. Former speaker Cannon and his allies were unable to convince the moderate Francis Kemp to mount a challenge. Indeed, after losing his position as Majority Leader, Kemp decided to run for the Michigan Senate seat left vacant by the death of Frederick Chandler. With all obstacles cleared, President McGovern was unanimously renominated for president, with Cabot once again as his running mate. The only real surprise of the Whig convention was the news that the Populists had decided to endorse the McGovern-Cabot ticket [1].”

-From PARADIGM SHIFT: THE AMERICAN PROGRESSIVE ERA by Olivia DiMarco, published 2015

“…Cameron was in 1908 just the youthful, fiery Prosecuting Attorney of his native Wayne County. He had been a surrogate for McGovern in 1904, even introducing him at a Wide-Awake torch rally [2] in Dearborn ahead of the state Whig convention. He had earned a reputation as a vigorous opponent of corruption and graft, with his investigation of James Schmidt, the Whig mayor of Detroit, forcing Schmidt to resign. Cameron was also intensely ambitious, and it was no secret to his wife Hallie or his younger brother Don Cameron or his de facto campaign manager David Cannon that he wanted to hold more prestigious offices. He had planned to run for congress in 1908, but state solidarists persuaded the young prosecutor to instead challenge Francis Kemp in the Senate election. It was an uphill battle, but Cameron, eager to make a name for himself, agreed to run.

At the time, most states (except several plains states) elected Senators via the state legislature, and the Michigan legislature was divided between conservative and solidarist Whigs. Cameron’s young campaign manager proposed assembling a semi-formal “Senatorial alliance” of solidarist Whigs and Democrats in opposition to Kemp, who had the support of the conservative-dominated state party. Cameron was a tireless campaigner, crisscrossing the whole state to stump for friendly candidates. He frequently railed against the “old guard establishment” that “conspired against the workers, the farmers, and all hardworking people” in Michigan. He drew large crowds, while the Whigs pandered to conservative Democrats who disliked Cameron. The conservative coalition emphasized “responsible reform” and called Cameron a “radical,” a “Societist of the Brazilian school,” and “an instigator of class conflict and fomenter of social unrest.”

These attacks found purchase, but Cameron and his inchoate Inner Circle of his most trusted confidants (his brother, David Cannon, and future enemies like Jonathan Stark) believed that their well-attended events were the better gauge of public opinion. On election day, the Senatorial alliance performed well, unseating over a dozen conservative Whigs, but, to the dismay of Cameron and his dedicated supporters, it wasn’t enough. The conservative coalition held onto a bare majority, with conservative Whigs and the 15 Democrats uniting behind Francis Kemp as the “sensible alternative.” Howard Cameron would not be going to Washington. It was a bitter disappointment for the young prosecutor, but he vowed to stay in politics in his at times belligerent concession speech. “I am not a quitter,” he said, and as his Inner Circle knew even then, Howard Cameron meant what he said.”

-From THE DETROIT LION by John Philip Yates, published 2012

“In 1908, I was fresh out of law school and in dire need of a job. I couldn’t find any law practices in Detroit to hire me, and I was fully prepared to move west or south to pursue my legal career. It was a twist of fate that the last law office I visited in search of work was Don Cameron. He couldn’t afford to hire anyone, he told me, but his brother was about to run for Senate and needed a campaign manager and assistant. Howard would pay me well, he said, and gave me his address. Even though I had no experience with running a campaign, my only political experience of any sort being a two-month stint in the Wide-Awakes, I accepted the challenge.

In those early days, the Inner Circle was full of optimism. Cameron was confident in victory, as were the rest of us, and his ego was of the standard size for the standard politician. But in his calls for “new ideas” and “a government that works for the people” lay the seeds of the older, more cynical Cameron. The obsession with “the establishment” only intensified after his disappointing defeat that, in hindsight, we all should have seen coming. But to Howard, it was a sign of how, in his words, “those corrupt cronies will do anything, spread lies, manipulate public opinion, just to keep their little rackets going.”

At the time, I was inclined to agree, but as the future would prove, you were either with Howard Cameron, or you were against him, and therefore “the cronyist establishment.” And his concession speech, delivered to a crowd of loyalists at his Dearborn home, was very strongly worded, with a long section that he wrote himself castigating the opposition for their “baseless libels” of his character and reputation. He infamously asked, “How is fighting corruption the hallmark of a rabble-rouser, unless embracing corruption is the hallmark of the Old Guard establishment.” Even as the conservative press denounced him as a sore loser and a menace to democracy, Howard had already determined his path forward: he would run for Mayor of Detroit, with an eye for the governor’s mansion and perhaps even the presidency [3] …”

-From THE TITAN OF HIS ERA: A PORTRAIT OF HOWARD CAMERON by David Cannon, published 1961

“The strong conservative backlash to McGovern’s policies in 1906 left many Democrats confident of victory in 1908 [4]. James Hepburn had used his public role in the midterm campaign to strengthen his influence within the party in preparation for the 1908 convention. While he had no intention of running himself, he hoped to engineer the selection of an acolyte and then, upon McGovern’s defeat, use his participation in the campaign to sideline Weldonite politicians. Two anti-Weldon Democrats vied for Hepburn’s critical endorsement. The first was former Vice-President Daniel M. Price of New York, who had been dropped from Weldon’s 1904 ticket over political differences and a tense relationship. Hepburn had aided Price’s congressional career, but Price had grown very conservative, which Hepburn viewed as inconsistent with the national mood – progress shouldn’t be rolled back, but it shouldn’t be expanded either. The second option was Congressman Herbert Hayward of Indiana. Hayward was of an emerging school of Democrats who advocated letting most existing reforms stay on the books while blocking further solidarist laws.

The other heavyweight in the party was former president William Weldon, who had spent his time preparing for a rematch with McGovern. His candidacy was an open secret in political circles, and McGovern put a great deal of time and effort into preparing for running against him. However, just weeks before Weldon was planning to announce his entry, an exposé was published by the Chicago Tribune detailing Weldon’s long-standing ties to the oil industry. According to the Tribune, Weldon had accepted a large donation from Acme Oil during his first run for Governor, and then one in office granted a series of very favorable deals to Acme in the sale of public land. The Tribune claimed that his close personal and financial ties with oil executives and companies was the reason why Weldon supported admitting Washita as a single state – so that there would be a white majority that would allow companies like Acme to drill for oil. While this was initially dismissed by Weldon’s supporters as a smear campaign by the Whiggish Tribune, a separate investigation by the pro-Democratic New York Sun-Herald confirmed much of the allegations. Amid a cloud of scandal, the former President was forced to abandon his campaign before it even began.

Instead, Weldon opted to endorse Daniel Price. This came as a shock to many Democrats as the two famously had a hostile relationship. However, Weldon detested Hepburn’s efforts to influence the party and, referring to Hayward as “essentially a Whig,” supported Price as the true conservative. After thirty ballots that lasted well into the night, Price finally triumphed after securing a deal with Tammany Hall, who had backed Hayward mostly out of spite. Hayward, meanwhile, was nominated over his objections (he never formally rejected the nomination) for vice president, sending a team of rivals into the general election…”

-From IN THE SHADOW OF JACKSON by Michelle Watts, published 2012

“Amid the relatively tame general election campaign, a more contentious battle was waged within the growing labor unions. The Federation of Trade Unions had collapsed in 1893, and its space in the union world was filled by the National Congress of Labor Organizations. The NCLO, like its spiritual predecessor, staked out a moderate path, urging reconciliation with the existing political system in order to secure labor reform. The McGovern administration had proved this strategy successful, but the NCLO’s leadership remained divided over whether to endorse the Whigs or follow the radical Brotherhood of International Workers in supporting the American Societist Party.

A meeting of NCLO leadership was held in August, amid a very tight race between McGovern and Price. The president, Paul Czolgosz, led the faction in favor of cooperation, while Lew Watkins argued for the union to directly engage in politics. Ultimately, the board voted 12-7 to endorse McGovern a second time, prompting Watkins to form a splinter Society of Trade Unions and affiliate with the Societists. The vast majority of the NCLO stayed loyal. The split highlighted the evolving trends in national politics. The Societist candidate, Daniel Bettrich, called for civil rights legislation and in some lower southern states, he ran ahead of the Whigs. In contrast, McGovern generally ignored the civil rights issue, giving lukewarm support to an anti-lynching law. He only did this after three black men in Arkansas were lynched for trying to escape a chain gang led a reporter to directly ask him his stance on the issue. The STU also mandated its constituent unions be racially integrated, while the NCLO allowed segregated unions (efforts to create all-black unions were unsuccessful, both due to repression in the south and opposition from white workers in the north) [5]. And through it all, McGovern and Price were locked in a dead heat…

…McGovern was narrowly reelected, winning 49% of the vote to Price’s 45%. He swept the west and won the critical states of Illinois, Ohio, Pennsylvania, and Virginia, even as the Democrats once again carried New York. The Populist vote went entirely to McGovern, making the west his strongest region. The Societist ticket outperformed expectations, taking 4% of the vote nationally and coming in second in Mississippi, Arkansas, and Texas, against the Democrats and Wyoming and Hidatsa against the Whigs.

​

	William McGovern	Daniel Price	Daniel Bettrich
Electoral Vote	259	221	0
Popular Vote	7,353,992	6,770,325	614,726
Percentage	49.1	45.2	4.1

The Whigs retook the House, gaining 27 seats due to McGovern’s emphasis on labor issues for his second term. Among the Whig gains were all but three of the remaining seven Populists, and those three would all be gone by 1910. In the Senate, several conservative Whigs either retired or lost renomination (Francis Kemp being one of the few exceptions), further solidifying the solidarists as the party’s future. The Whigs rejoiced, as the wins in the House meant that the rest of the solidarist agenda could be enacted over the next two years. And for the Democrats, the 1908 elections meant that James Hepburn was in the perfect position to grow his influence and potentially determine the nominee in 1912…”

-From WHITE MAN’S NATION: AMERICA 1881-1973 by Kenneth Thurman, published 2003

[1] Not a ton to say about the Whigs, really. It was just a rather boring coronation of the incumbent.
[2] It’s not fascist or anything, the Republicans did this kind of stuff a lot in 1896 for McKinley. Torchlight gatherings will be a whole lot more benign TTL.
[3] I figure now’s as good a time as ever to introduce one of the more influential characters in this.
[4] Let me be clear, uhhh, there are no parallels here. None at all.
[5] Someone was musing a while back about racial issues and labor unions, and here are the beginnings of that…

 

[TheHedgehog]

70. A Continent on the Brink

“As European tensions continued to escalate, the various nations most affected by the prospect of war began actively preparing for the possibility. Prussia and Austria developed a pan-German plan starting in 1909, following the 1908 establishment of a unified German Army Command. The formation of a centralized military command was taken as a provocation by Germany’s neighbors, even without the creation of a single army. The central command was dominated by the Prussians, Austrians, and Bavarians, and directed the operations of all forces within the Confederation. The Plan of 1910 focused on knocking Russia out of the war quickly while holding against France and Italy. Heightened nationalist agitation in Lombardy and Venezia led Austrian commanders to insist that the emphasis be placed on holding the Po River, and a network of modern fortifications were built there. However, Prussia refused to subsidize the Radetzky Line, as William II was focused on defending the French border and the industrial cities of the Rhine. This unfocused approach meant that, when the war began, neither the western nor southern front was properly fortified.

The Prussian army was also in conflict, as its officer corps were highly suspicious of the Landtag and quietly supported William II’s efforts to consolidate power. These power struggles resulted in the renewal of the 1908 budget in both 1909 and 1910, and Prussian military spending began to fall behind both its ally Austria and its rivals France and Russia. Prussian lawmakers, especially the Liberals, openly opposed the King’s saber-rattling and moved to reduce military spending in a bid to ease tensions with France [1]. Austria-Hungary, meanwhile, had a strong, well-organized army, but the Hungarian Diet was a consistent nuisance for Vienna, opposing the focus on defending the Po without any investment in Transleithania.

In contrast to the defense-focused plans and governmental instability of the Germans, the French government was broadly popular, and the military pursued a more aggressive plan. Led by General Francois Bernier, the general staff proposed three main army groups. One would make a cautious, largely diversionary attack into the Saar basin, while the other two would cut through Belgium to bypass Prussian fortifications and attack the Rhineland [2]. A fourth, smaller group would be sent to aid the Italians against Austria. The Bernier Plan was first drafted in 1908 and was only slightly modified on the outbreak of hostilities in 1914. Italian planning was, naturally, driven by the Electoral Union’s [3] nationalist leanings, and focused on taking Lombardy, Venezia, and possibly even Trentino and Trieste. Italy faced more natural obstacles than its ally, and much of General Luigi Maffei’s plan centered around securing bridgeheads at Codogno, Pavia, and Magenta through surprise attacks. For this, he stockpiled hundreds of thousands of artillery shells and procured thousands of modern artillery pieces from both domestic and foreign manufacturers. In fact, Tredegar’s first major foreign contract was 100 artillery pieces for the Italian army.

Russia, the final key nation, had to defend a long frontline and a vast flat area. The military command was divided between those who wanted to take the fight to the Prussians and advance onto Konigsberg, and those who wanted to abandon Poland for a more defensible position. Ultimately, Czar Nicholas II came down on the side of the aggressive plan, fearing that a retreat, even a strategic one, would make Russia look weak and vulnerable. He insisted that the Russian army stay and fight, warning “I will not willingly abandon a single inch of land.” He was confident that the French and Italians would distract the Germans sufficiently for the planned offensives to succeed. Meanwhile, the French assumed that the Czar would follow their “suggestion” that the Russian army simply tie down enough German troops for western offensives to proceed. In the middle, the Germans planned to defend their borders in the west and advance east.

The battleplans were set, the alliances were drawn. As 1911 closed, Europe hurtled closer towards conflict between the German Confederation and the Paris Accord…”

-From TO ARMS: EUROPE 1911-1918 by Rebecca Gardner, published 2011

“Britain stood aloof from the ratcheting continental tensions, with Parliament consumed by debate, first over Imperial Preference and then over Irish home rule. Against strong opposition from the Tories and Labour, Chamberlain was able to secure passage of the Trade Act of 1906, which standardized tariff rates with the Commonwealth realms of Canada, the Cape, Natalia, Australia, and Westralia, all of whom had already implemented similar tariff policies. Contrary to the warnings of free trade advocates, prices did not explode. Instead, the unity of the Commonwealth was strengthened through the increased intra-Empire trade, and the Empire-wide tariffs on industrial goods strengthened the domestic manufacturing sector without much impact on food prices. Chamberlain was also able to secure the formal merger of the Liberals and Nationals into a single party, greatly strengthening the unity of his coalition.

After the success of Imperial Preference, Chamberlain and his cabinet proposed the People’s Budget in 1908, which increased the inheritance tax and income tax for the wealthy and funded sweeping welfare reforms. Most controversially, the budget imposed a 10% tax on land. Chamberlain was privately opposed to this provision, but it was necessary to secure support from Labour and a potentially key group of Liberal backbenchers. The budget successfully cleared the Commons but was blocked by the conservative-dominated House of Lords. Chamberlain loudly denounced the veto, but quietly struck the land tax from the budget and resubmitted it. While Labour and a handful of radical Liberals wanted Chamberlain to be more aggressive, the compromise once again passed and this time, was approved by the Lords [4].

Chamberlain was privately glad to make the Lords the enemy, as he could side-step demands for Home Rule by arguing that such a law would end up vetoed. Pressure continued to build for some sort of home rule act after the 1909 election. Voters returned a second Liberal minority, but Chamberlain was unable to govern alone, he was forced to make concessions to the Irish. The chief demand of the IPP was a Home Rule act, and Chamberlain accepted in the hopes that a Lords’ veto would end debate permanently. Thus, the legislation was submitted among much debate. As Chamberlain fully expected (and hoped) that the bill would fail, little thought was put into its crafting and the fate of the Ulster counties was left vague, which served to anger both unionists and nationalists. This was opposed behind the scenes by Herbert Gladstone, the Home Secretary. However, Chamberlain was insistent, and had the confidence of most of the cabinet. The Home Rule Act passed the Commons on June 19th, 1911, after furious debate, and was vetoed by the Lords the next week. While Westminster deliberated, Ulster unionists formed militias and vowed to oppose rule from Dublin, while nationalists prepared to defend themselves.

Immediately after the veto, John Redmond of the IPP demanded that Chamberlain challenge the power of the Lords and, if need be, pass legislation to weaken their authority. Chamberlain refused, arguing that the constitutional precedents “must be preserved if stability is our goal.” In response, the IPP threatened to motion for a vote of no confidence and topple the government. In the cabinet, Gladstone’s support for home rule became more popular, and by mid-July, the pressure was sufficient to force Chamberlain’s resignation. He was succeeded by Herbert Gladstone, one of the few Liberals who was sufficiently supportive of home rule to appease the Irish. The new Prime Minister vowed to pass a “fair, comprehensive, and long-lasting” home rule act in his first speech to the Commons. Negotiations included a handful of moderate Ulster unionists [5], as well as the Irish nationalists. Carson demanded the exclusion of the Ulster counties from home rule Ireland, while the nationalists wanted the entirety of the island to be governed from Dublin.

After heated debate and barely avoiding the collapse of negotiations, Gladstone was able to paper over the Ulster question by excluding them “temporarily,” with referenda to be held after an indeterminate time [6]. Faced with no other viable options, both the IPP and unionists acquiesced, the unionists far more reluctantly. The new Home Rule Act passed the Commons by a wider margin than the previous one and was predictably defeated in the Lords. This time, Gladstone vowed to resubmit the bill, and privately met with King Albert to explore the possibility of simply expanding the Lords to create a new Liberal majority [8]. The King was deeply concerned about violence in Ireland but was reluctant to pack the Lords unless Gladstone had a popular mandate. Thus, just two and a half years after the last election, Gladstone secured the dissolution of Parliament for an election focused entirely on the issue of home rule. The campaign was nasty, with frequent violence in Ireland. The Tories, led by Lord Edgar Cecil, charged that Gladstone would destroy the British Empire, while the Liberals argued that home rule was the only way to preserve British power. In Ireland, Ulster unionists issued the Ulster Covenant, vowing opposition to home rule. Ulster Volunteers held marches through nationalist areas of Ulster, and often engaged in street battles with nationalist groups.

Election day was September 28th, and polling places in Ireland were protected by British soldiers, as Gladstone feared that violence would harm the legitimacy of the vote. Despite the chaos, the IPP maintained its grip on the Irish constituencies, losing only four seats. The Liberals held onto much of the National vote, losing just seven seats for a total of 318. The Conservatives, damaged by stories of Ulster Volunteer violence, gained just four seats. With a strengthened mandate, Gladstone resubmitted the Home Rule Act, and it once again passed. To preempt the Lords’ veto, King Albert, after a meeting with the Prime Minister, quietly informed the leaders of the Lords that he would be forced to add Liberal peers unless they assented to the Home Rule Act. Cowed by the royal intervention, the Lords meekly approved the law on January 4th, 1912 [8]. The political battle had been won, but Ireland was no calmer than it was before. Indeed, while the nationalists celebrated, they also prepared for what the unionists might do…”

-From SOMETHING ABOUT ENGLAND by Seward Jennings, published 2002

[1] As mentioned in chapter 68, William II’s general personality means that the Landtag is practically paralyzed by gridlock, which isn’t exactly conducive to preparing for war.
[2] I know, reverse Schlieffen Plan, how original.
[3] The Italian Catholic Electoral Union. Essentially, Zentrum for Italy.
[4] A very different outcome without Asquith and Lloyd George at the helm.
[5] All five of them.
[6] The OTL compromise devised by HH Asquith.
[7] The Liberals threatened to do this OTL to force passage of the Parliament Act of 1911.
[8] I realize I’ve glossed over a lot of stuff but suffice to say that the home rule crisis is far from over. I just don’t want to go into much more detail about British politics, because I don’t know that much about it, and I want to focus on America.

 

[TheHedgehog]

71. Bad Neighbors

“American foreign policy continued its evolution under McGovern. James Blaine had led the first major exercise of Washington’s diplomatic influence in his resolution of the Atacama War, and indeed American mineral companies retained significant holdings in Peru and Bolivia (to Argentina’s chagrin). Coleman Elkins had overseen the first foreign war since 1812 against Spain, and American involvement in hemispheric affairs only increased with William Weldon’s 1901 occupation of Cuba to protect American corporate interests. Early his first term, McGovern had largely ignored foreign developments in favor of his domestic agenda, but after losing control of congress and with the emergence of new crises, he turned his attention outward.

President Elkins had secured a concession in Nicaragua for the construction of a trans-oceanic canal in 1895 [1], and construction had proceeded slowly but steadily since ground was broken in 1901. In 1906, the liberal Nicaraguan president, Jose Zelaya, attempted to renegotiate the terms of the 1895 treaty. Zelaya claimed that the original treaty was dictated by the United States as the price for supporting Nicaragua’s takeover of the British-held Mosquito Coast and was therefore illegitimate. He demanded a greater share of canal tolls, which McGovern and his Secretary of State Roger Stalham, rejected. Tensions escalated when Zelaya declared his intention to tax the canal company, which went against the terms of the 1895 treaty. McGovern was inclined to intervene, and meetings with both business interests and imperialist diplomats convinced him. Stalham announced that a violation of the treaty would result in American troops occupying the canal route, while the State Department began searching for a suitable puppet leader through backchannels.

Aurelio Diaz, a former engineer for an American mining company and a wealthy businessman, was approached by American agents to fund a rebellion against Zelaya. In exchange, the United States would elevate him to the presidency. Under the pretext of opposition to Zelaya’s repressive rule, US-backed conservatives instigated a rebellion in Bluefields and advanced into the country from Costa Rica. When Zelaya sent troops into Costa Rica to combat the insurgents, McGovern persuaded Costa Rica’s dictator, Alberto Morales, to invade Nicaragua [2]. While Costa Rican forces advanced north, McGovern landed marines in Bluefields and Brito. The canal route was secured within a month, and a joint land-naval force advanced on Managua, the last major government holdout. Managua fell in September 1908, and Diaz was installed as president by a rump, pro-American legislature. Zelaya was captured and exiled to Argentina, but his supporters continued the insurgency, harassing canal workers and government forces for a decade afterward.

Diaz was forced to sign an amended canal treaty in 1909, giving the United States exclusive policing power and civil control over the canal zone, including the exclusive right to patrol Lake Nicaragua. In effect, Nicaragua was reduced to an American protectorate, with the Diaz government propped up by American and Costa Rican troops, the economy dominated by American and Costa Rican businesses. The Nicaraguan intervention followed the interventionist trend in American foreign policy begun under Blaine. The Cuban and Nicaraguan interventions established Washington’s new outlook: that the United States would directly intervene in the other nations of the hemisphere if it believed there was a threat to American commercial interests. Building on both the Monroe Doctrine and the Big Brother policy spearheaded by James Blaine, President McGovern outlined this new, bolder doctrine in his second inaugural address:

“The ancient Greeks spoke of an amphictyony, an alliance of friends and neighbors for mutual protection. Today, this Republic is a nation of commerce. We undertake commerce with our neighbors, and such commerce must be protected from interference and instability both economic and political. Recent years have seen violations of the international trust that underpins neighborly behavior, and resultant police actions. Just as the ancient Greeks formed a league of neighbors to protect sacred temples, today the United States must form a league of neighbors to defend international trade and ensure regional stability. The United States considers any country whose people conduct themselves well to be a friend and good neighbor. If a nation is orderly and stable, it may count on our hearty friendship. But if a nation is guilty of repeated wrongdoing or incompetence in managing its affairs, the United States will, reluctantly, be forced to restore tranquility. Only the most grievous attacks on commerce and civilization will precipitate an international police action [3].”

The McGovern Doctrine heralded the establishment of the Hemispheric Amphictyony, America’s informal empire of protectorates and friendly dictators in Central and South America. Costa Rica and Nicaragua were the first members of the Amphictyony, and following an intervention in 1910, Cuba was inducted. US troops had left in 1902, but an Afro-Cuban rebellion and the continued insurgency of Jose Marti left the pro-US government very weak. In 1910, the president was assassinated by an Afro-Cuban rebel, and the government fell into chaos. Jose Marti appeared in Santiago and proclaimed himself President, while the Havana congress collapsed into infighting. Amid the power vacuum, President McGovern ordered US troops to occupy key cities, declaring that “peace in the neighborhood” had to be upheld. With the arrival of American forces, the insurgency and Marti’s revolutionary government both quickly collapsed. The pro-American general Gabriel Menocal, who had propped himself up as the caudillo of Matanzas province during the chaos, was confirmed as the leader of a civic-military junta, dominated by conservative landowners, American business interests, and the Cuban army.

McGovern hailed these interventions as the defense of “diplomatic and civilizational norms,” though some anti-imperialists decried them as “economic colonialism” and mocked the Good Neighbor policy. His use of the Marine Corps to defeat insurgencies against the Bonilla regime in Honduras and the Menocal junta in Cuba drew criticism that McGovern’s foreign policy was directed by business interests, as fruit companies and wealthy speculators had considerable wealth built on exploitative businesses in Central America. McGovern’s interventionism also had the effect of polarizing regional geopolitics, as the Barrios government in Guatemala accepted Argentinian and Mexican investment and attempted to balance the Meiggs Fruit Company, the Americans, and the Mexicans to maintain Guatemalan independence. Colombia also pursued closer relations with Argentina and France for protection against American policing [4]. Ultimately, the Good Neighbor policy and the Hemispheric Amphictyony quickly became mainstays of American foreign policy and would guide how Washington interacted with its Central American neighbors for decades, until the disastrous Jungle Wars in Honduras and Cuba led to the Gentle Giant doctrine of Warren Burke.

To the south, Argentina took notice of America’s newfound interventionism, and President Barroetaveña, riding the success of the Uruguayan coup, turned his attention towards undermining the pro-Washington consensus that had long dominated Peruvian and Bolivian politics and weakening the stranglehold that American mining companies had on their extraction-based economies…”

-From BANANA WARS: THE IMPERIAL AMBITIONS OF AMERICA AND ARGENTINA by Eddie Willis, published 2005

“During the first half of the 20th century, most white Americans ignored racial issues, and many quietly accepted the racist status quo. The system of white supremacy in the United States, especially the south, was maintained by violence, violence perpetrated by white men more invested than most in perpetuating the ‘Mississippi model.’

The best, yet most obscure, example of this post-abolitionist violence (as most Americans know about the pre-abolition Red Delta massacres) was the Atlanta General lynchings [5]. In the Stephens Circle neighborhood of Atlanta, a group of black entrepreneurs founded the Atlanta General Store. Stephens Circle was primarily low-quality housing for black railroad workers, and there was an unofficial monopoly granted to Timothy Watson, a white man, to operate a grocery store. Watson’s Circle Grocery was notorious for charging high prices and Watson himself was widely despised for frequently, baselessly accusing black shoppers of theft. In response, the Atlanta General Store was founded by 15 prominent blacks, including nationally prominent figures like Roger S. Bates.

The Atlanta General quickly established itself as strong competition for Watson, and tensions began to escalate as the Circle Grocery began losing customers and money. Facing the potential of bankruptcy, in 1908, Watson appealed to the real estate companies that dominated Stephens Circle to destroy the Atlanta General. Theodore Brown, the landlord of the Atlanta General (along with nearly half of the tenements in the neighborhood) agreed to try and squeeze the Atlanta General out of business. On March 1st, 1909, Brown informed the owners of the Atlanta General that he would be doubling the rent and that he would no longer allow the sale of alcohol on the premises. This both cut into the profits of the store and removed an important source of revenue – the Atlanta General’s alcohol was far cheaper than the prices Watson charged, and so was a popular product.

Then, Brown, claiming that the Atlanta General’s owners were “encouraging itinerant youths to gather on the premises” and increase petty crime, had armed, white police officers stationed outside. This further hurt business, and the blatant efforts of Brown and Watson to destroy the black-run business increased racial tensions. On Thursday, June 10th, James Barrett, a police officer on duty outside the Atlanta General, apprehended a young black man he accused of theft, vagrancy, and “loitering with an intent to steal.” When the young man, Richard Harris, resisted, Barrett began savagely beating him with his truncheon. Onlookers rushed to intervene and save Harris, and several employees of the Atlanta General sprinted into the street, guns drawn. Another police officer, previously busy trying to keep the crowd back, fired a warning shot. The shot struck Barrett in the shoulder and the other three officers, thinking one of the employees had fired the shot, began firing indiscriminately at the crowd.

After the would-be rescuers fled the hail of bullets, the officers dragged a bleeding Harris to prison, along with the three employees. On the night of June 12th, about 50 men in black masks entered the county prison and seized the four men. They were taken to the railroad yard near Stephens Circle, where they were beaten, tortured with knives, and then lynched from the spout of the water tower. The next day, a furious white mob descended on Stephens Circle and laid waste to the Atlanta General, burning it down and arresting over a dozen people they had “identified” as Barrett’s assailants, killing three [6]. The Circle Lynchings sparked northern outrage, as the Tribune and Advocate made the story the front-page headline. President McGovern even supported an anti-lynching bill that died in committee, and the outrage faded after a few months, the public distracted by news from Cuba and the 1910 elections.

The real effects of the Circle Lynchings were more long-term. Over 500,000 blacks left the south and moved north, the second wave of the Great Migrations. And Roger S. Bates and his fellow black intellectuals and activists concluded that change could only happen through unified, organized activism and lobbying. And thus, the first steps towards the Coalition for the Advancement of Negro Rights were taken…”

-From SLAVER'S LEGACY: AMERICA'S RACIAL FAILINGS by Rachel Philips, published 2018

[1] Amid all the other stuff going on I completely forgot about the canal stuff, but better late than never, I guess.
[2] OTL, Costa Rica’s government saw the US as the bigger threat and declined to get involved. TTL, Costa Rica has a pro-US dictator and is more than willing to follow Washington’s order to invade.
[3] The Big Stick meets Dollar Diplomacy.
[4] I mentioned this briefly before, but Colombia stays under its 1863 constitution and is a lot more stable TTL.
[5] Based off the sadly OTL People’s Grocery lynchings in Memphis.
[6] This is somehow deadlier than the People’s Grocery lynchings.

 

[TheHedgehog]

72. In McGovern’s Shadow

“His doctors were surprised that, despite ignoring their advice to relax, President McGovern had avoided more heart attacks. However, the stress was slowly taking a toll, and the President’s family and close advisors noticed that he was more easily fatigued. When Agriculture Secretary Oscar Mason noticed the President’s condition at the August 19th cabinet meeting, he urged him to reduce his workload. According to other attendees, McGovern shrugged off the advice, saying he was “feeling fine, in the best health of [his] life,” and insisting that the meeting proceed.

At 5:45 pm, the cabinet meeting adjourned, and President McGovern returned to his private office to keep working. The cabinet members made their ways to their respective department buildings. An hour later, McGovern, complaining of fatigue and nausea, took his dinner at his desk and, citing a heavy workload, told his wife he would be busy until at least midnight. She and the rest of the presidential family went to bed between 10:00 and 11:30, while McGovern remained at his desk. According to the coroner’s report, he likely suffered his fatal heart attack at around 11:54 pm but was only discovered the next morning when a secretary discovered his body while bringing him a naval spending proposal from the House naval committee.

Vice President Cabot was notified immediately, and he was acclaimed by the cabinet as Acting-President. In his first speech as Acting-President, he informed the cabinet and Presidential staff that he intended to “serve as a caretaker” and that he would not seek a full term in 1912. He announced the President’s death in a speech in front of the Executive Mansion, describing McGovern as “the hardest-working president this country’s ever seen, and a tremendous force for civic good.” There was an enormous outpouring of grief at McGovern’s sudden death, and hundreds of thousands of well-wishers crowded the streets of Washington for the state funeral, and a million more lined the sides of the train tracks as his coffin was transported to his native Rockingham, Iowa.

Cabot did little during his year and a half as Acting-President, adhering to his goal of preserving McGovern’s legacy rather than cementing one of his own. The face of the Whigs increasingly became Robert Kerr, a close ally of McGovern’s and the former Speaker of the House.”

-From PARADIGM SHIFT: THE AMERICAN PROGRESSIVE ERA by Olivia DiMarco, published 2015

“Despite much public mourning after the death of the President, the Whigs still lost control of the House and saw their Senate majority narrow. Robert Kerr, now the House Minority Leader, remained optimistic about the party’s chances in 1912. He believed that, after the radical legislation of McGovern’s first term, the Whigs should moderate and promise to defend the new status quo they had created. Few other Whigs wished to challenge Kerr, and Cabot’s endorsement secured the ex-Speaker a near-unanimous nomination.

The platform was essentially a conservative one, focusing on a pledge to “uphold the current system,” and accused the Democrats of wanting to enact “radical, detrimental change.” The delegates were more or less agreed on the resolutions, and reporters described the convention as “bored with governance” and “the sign of a tired party, out of ideas.” Kerr’s acceptance speech was well-received but unremarkable, and his running mate, Albert Robertson, was somewhat of a non-entity. While Kerr was popular with the solidarist party establishment, he struggled to connect with voters, and his awkward speaking style did little to help his campaign.”

-From SOBER AND INDUSTRIOUS: A HISTORY OF THE WHIGS by Greg Carey, published 1986

“After the Weldonite wing of the party was severely weakened in 1908 and James Hepburn was returned to the Speakership in 1910, he was considered the prohibitive favorite for the nomination. William Weldon tried to mobilize his remaining supporters and his candidacy received significant support, but Hepburn’s dominance of the south and north-east secured him the nomination on the second ballot. Even before the balloting, Hepburn had ensured that the platform reflected his vision, using his control over party machinery to force through resolutions supporting a constitutional amendment supporting birthright citizenship and condemning the Irish Unionists.

The Whigs attacked Hepburn’s platform as radical, pointing to the citizenship amendment in particular. But Hepburn’s image of the quintessential staid, conservative wealthy southerner paid dividends in convincing voters that his policies were conservative. He also ably countered the Whigs’ effort to assume the mantle of status-quo defenders, saying in a speech in Cincinnati that “it is not conservatism to defend radical policies. Conservatism does not mean stopping further change, it means opposing measures that hurt economic freedoms or erode society’s traditions.” This speech assuaged conservatives put off by Hepburn’s reluctance to attack Kemp-Roth or the late President McGovern.

The Democratic campaign was also aided by the presence of the Societists, who appealed to radical Whigs dissatisfied with the boring Kerr and Robertson. Hepburn was careful not to go overboard in attacking the Societists, as they were a useful spoiler against the Whigs. He limited party rhetoric to criticizing their “radical unionist policies,” which drew businessmen into the Democratic column while weakening union support for the Whig ticket. The broad conservative coalition Hepburn forged was rather weak, but Kerr’s lackluster campaign and the insurgent Societists kept it united. However, the cracks in Hepburn’s coalition would only grow with time…”

-From IN THE SHADOW OF JACKSON by Michelle Watts, published 2012

“Disappointed by the moderate Kerr and conservative Hepburn, the Societist Party saw an opportunity to muscle its way onto the political stage. In 1910, the party had won five House seats in urban working-class districts, and even won a Senate seat in Tacoma under the terms of the new 15th Amendment, establishing the direct election of Senators. The party kept its platform of nationalizing the railroad industry and strengthening the power of labor unions, and nominated its popular 1908 nominee, Daniel Bettrich. Bettrich ran an aggressive campaign, accusing Kerr of ignoring workers and claimed that the Whigs’ labor reforms were “insultingly insufficient.” He attacked Hepburn as a racist who supported “oppression of workers and negroes alike.”

Societist organizers where often harassed in the south, but like in 1908, in 1912 they were far better organized than the Whigs and were able to build up some regional strength. Bettrich focused on the north and west, campaigning for House and Senate candidates in Minnesota, Wisconsin, and the Plains states. Worried that he could lose the west, Kerr was drawn away from swing states such as Ohio and Indiana to try and keep Minnesota, Hidatsa, and Michigan in the Whig column. The Democrats mocked this as Whig desperation, with one campaigner telling a rally in Ohio that “Kerr is off chasing the Societist vote rather than paying attention to the great people of Ohio. Is it really fair for him to ignore you in favor of a gang of radicals?” Bettrich shrugged off accusations that he was spoiling the race for Kerr, explaining that the Societists were opposed to both “capitalistic” parties and that he was a serious candidate.”

-From THE PEOPLE’S CONSTANT: POPULISM THROUGHOUT HISTORY by Francis Smith, published 1987

“In the last week of the campaign, Kerr barnstormed Minnesota and Michigan, and in the latter state he was joined by the new Detroit Mayor, Howard Cameron. Cameron mobilized his significant statewide network to secure Michigan for Kerr and Cameron appeared by his side as often as possible in order to raise his political profile. Hepburn, meanwhile, practically moved to Ohio, touring the state extensively, making only a brief detour to Virginia in the final day before the election to shore up support with landowners and the middle class. Bettrich chose to campaign for Congressional candidates across the Midwest, focusing on Illinois, Michigan, Ohio, and Pennsylvania.

The election results revealed a close race and Kerr held to a slim lead in the popular vote, but in key swing states like Ohio, Bettrich drew away just enough of the vote to enable Hepburn to win with a plurality. Not only did Hepburn win Ohio, but his strong performance with Irish and Italian voters in Massachusetts, combined with Bettrich winning 4% of the vote, allowed him to be the first Democrat to ever win the Whig bastion. Similar wins in Wisconsin and Connecticut increased Hepburn’s electoral lead, and he was declared the winner at noon the day after election day, when his victory in Massachusetts was confirmed. Kerr graciously conceded, despite having narrowly won the popular vote, and Acting-President Cabot congratulated Hepburn on his victory.

​

	James Hepburn	Robert Kerr	Daniel Bettrich
Electoral Vote	277	233	18
Popular Vote	6,587,714	6,653,265	2,761,776
Percentage	40.8	41.2	17.1

The Societists won 10 seats in the House and doubled their number of Senators to two, while Bettrich narrowly won both Minnesota and Hidatsa. The Democrats also had a good night in the House and Senate elections, growing their House majority by 20 seats and retaking the Senate with a narrow majority of 44 seats. It was the first Democratic trifecta in eight years, and Hepburn was determined to make good use of it. However, even as he prepared to assume the Presidency, trouble was brewing across the Atlantic [1]…”

-From WHITE MAN’S NATION: AMERICA 1881-1973 by Kenneth Thurman, published 2003

[1] I know this maybe isn’t my strongest chapter, but there’s some big stuff coming up and I wanted to get this out of the way.

 

[TheHedgehog]

73. The Nadir

“Fortunately, President Hepburn’s signature campaign promise, the birthright citizenship amendment, enjoyed broad support in Congress. The large numbers of immigrants voyaging to the United States throughout the 19th century had created a large population of first-generation Americans. Most states considered the American-born children of immigrants to be citizens, based off of the 1865 Norris v. Lee decision [1]. However, racist Democrats in the south and conservative Whigs in Massachusetts both passed legislation in violation of the ruling throughout 1890-1912. In Tennessee and North Carolina, the Democratic legislatures approved laws declaring that a person could only be considered a citizen “if his father is also a citizen of the State and Republic.”

The laws also declared that blacks could not be citizens, so no black men were entitled to the vote. While these laws were intended to ban blacks from voting, they also effectively disenfranchised the sons of immigrants through the “fatherhood clause” and the implementation of overly complicated citizenship tests and “citizenship application fees” [2] that most immigrants and first-generation Americans could not afford, let alone pass. Massachusetts, meanwhile, attempted to pass a nearly identical law in 1906 exclusively targeting first-generation Americans, only to have the bill vetoed by the governor.

In 1908, Theodore Schroeder, a Wilmington insurance broker born to two German-born immigrants, was barred from voting. Schroeder sued, claiming that since he was born in the United States, he was a citizen under Norris v. Lee and was entitled to vote. The Supreme Court ruled in his favor in 1911, but the Governor, Robert Thomas, vowed to ignore the ruling. The case and its aftermath captured national attention, and significant outrage was directed at the North Carolina government for its conduct. As a result, support for a birthright citizenship amendment grew exponentially, and national Democrats embraced the idea in order to secure support from northern immigrant voters.

Shortly after President Hepburn’s inauguration, he called a special session of Congress to draft and approve an amendment guaranteeing that all people born on American soil were citizens. Southern Democrats were split, with the older legislators who were alive during the Civil War and its aftermath opposed and the newer, more cosmopolitan (but still racist) generation in favor. Similarly, only the rump conservative New England Whigs stood in opposition to the proposed 16th amendment. Despite the furious speeches from the old guard south warning of “the nation drowned in foreign blood,” the amendment was approved by a wide margin, sending it to the states for ratification. Predictably, only a few states rejected it: the conservative-dominated Rhode Island, the anti-Chinese immigration Jefferson and Shasta legislatures, and Georgia, North Carolina, Mississippi, and South Carolina in the south.

The new fifteenth amendment was widely lauded for finally establishing the United States as a nation of immigrants and their descendants, but this codification of Norris would in time pay dividends for the growing civil rights movement…”

-From WHITE MAN’S NATION: AMERICA 1881-1973 by Kenneth Thurman, published 2003

“In the three decades since the formal abolition of slavery, nearly 1.6 million blacks migrated north to find work in the burgeoning industrial cities [3]. Most of these migrants headed for some of the largest cities in the country: New York, Chicago, Philadelphia, Detroit, Richmond, Pittsburgh, Cleveland, Saint Louis, and Independence. All of these cities, Philadelphia and Independence in particular, had sizeable populations of upper-class free blacks, the descendants of pre-Civil War free black families. As over a million poor, illiterate freedmen came north, they swarmed into tenements and even the most racially progressive cities (really only Independence) were unable to safely accommodate the multitudes.

The pre-existing northern black communities did not take kindly to the newcomers. Lewis Ritchie, a prominent black Philadelphia merchant and businessman, wrote that “we are besieged by illiterate, unwashed negroes crowding our city. They wander the streets in slack-jawed awe at the high-rises and automobiles. Surely one can feel pity for their previous servitude and want to aid them without also wanting to welcome them into our midst and pay for their schooling and housing.” This attitude was widespread among free blacks, and many white politicians used rhetoric like that of Ritchie as cover for their racist rhetoric. As a result of this cross-racial coalition of businessmen and the educated, few public services were extended to the migrants beyond free public schooling for children, with the young teaching the old to read and write.

The migrants worked for low wages in factories, often being used as strikebreaking labor until such practices were restricted under the McGovern administration. White workers, especially unionized ones, disliked the new competition for jobs. Northern labor unions often barred blacks from joining, and the NCLO refused to integrate its constituent unions. Consequently, many migrants found work either in new industries like Kansas City’s growing radio and electronics business or in service jobs such as janitors, railroad porters, taxicab drivers, and doormen. Race riots rocked many northern cities, as whites took out their resentment and anger on the impoverished black migrants, destroying their homes and businesses during the Bloody Summer of 1914.

While the Independence municipal government took swift action to punish rioters, in other cities, from Richmond to Philadelphia, there was little in the way of condemnation from the government. Roger S. Bates [4], a leader of the nascent civil rights movement, published an open letter in the Advocate, criticizing both supposedly “anti-racist” whites and wealthy northern blacks for their “deafening, insulting silence.” Bates reserved his harshest criticism for the northern blacks, writing that they “had forgotten that their forefathers too were held in bondage in the south” and had “turned their backs on not only their fellow Americans, but their fellow negro-Americans.” Bates’s letter, titled “On Northern Inaction,” was the first time that the idea of racial solidarity among black Americans was openly proposed and endorsed, and it caused a stir. Many wealthy blacks rejected the idea that they owed something to the migrants, and racist whites called it “the doctrine of negro separatism” and a “call to arms for race war.” Bates’s support for racial solidarity would form the core idea behind the civil rights movement, not only for the peaceful CANR, but the militant Black Liberation Movement and Army of Righteous Justice groups.”

-From SLAVER'S LEGACY: AMERICA'S RACIAL FAILINGS by Rachel Philips, published 2018

“And while migrant blacks lived in poverty and faced discrimination in the north, in the south the black American’s plight was infinitely worse. This book has already covered the appalling squalor of Elyton’s black slums, but as the 20th century progressed, similar slums sprang up in other southern cities.

Atlanta’s Circle Lynchings took place in such a slum, while the docks of Memphis, Charleston, and New Orleans were ringed by dingy shacks and huts. Racial violence in the north was a serious problem, but while in the north this was driven by economic competition and working-class racial resentment, in the south it was driven by the white elite’s belief that intimidation through violence was the only way to keep the black population “in line.” Hundreds of thousands of black men were charged with bogus crimes and sentenced to be rented out in convict labor gangs, working in mines and building roads. In August 1913, black workers at the Sloss foundry in Elyton went on strike for better housing and higher wages, only to be fired, arrested for “felony vagrancy” and sent into the convict leasing program. Almost a year later, in July of 1914, black freightyard workers in Atlanta and longshoremen in Baltimore, Charleston, and New Orleans went on strike for similar reasons. These strikes turned violent and led to tenant farmers stopping work in sympathy during the cotton harvest season. Faced with what was essentially an unplanned general strike, southern white authorities turned violent.

Inspired in part by the vicious Red Delta massacres of 1879, state and county governments alike endorsed white supremacist gangs. The Mayors of Charleston and Atlanta sent out calls for white men to gather at central locations with “whatever weapons are in your possession.” Armed with firearms, clubs, and a variety of sharp objects, these mobs were termed Citizens’ Defense Councils and employed to supplement the municipal police in “crowd control.” In practice, the CDC mobs were turned loose on striking dockworkers and freight handlers while the police manned barricades and watched the beatings. In rural areas, sheriffs formed armed posses. These rural posses were frequently used in place of the police and disguised themselves with masks and wore red shirts with a delta sewn on the chest. The redshirts and CDCs violently attacked strikers, with the urban CDCs arresting nearly 1,500 and killing 45, and the rural redshirts arresting about 750 and killing nearly 200 in lynchings, stabbings, and fatal beatings.

In October that same year, spurred on by the Circle Lynchings and the Bloody Summer, Roger S. Bates and 14 other civil rights activists (10 blacks, four whites) formally founded the Coalition for the Advancement of Negro Rights at a conference at New York Central College [5]. The CANR initially campaigned primarily for a federal anti-lynching law, but it soon broadened its scope to mounting legal challenges against discriminatory laws and practices, not least of which were the zoning codes and employment laws that herded blacks into such squalid conditions.”

-From DARKNESS ON THE EDGE OF TOWN: THE BUILDING OF AMERICA'S BLACK SLUMS by Evan Summers, published 2013

[1] Throwback to chapter 29, way back during the McClellan presidency.
[2] White supremacists and using taxes as a political cudgel: name a more iconic duo.
[3] Of course, many others flocked to southern cities like Memphis, Nashville, Chattanooga, Atlanta, and Elyton.
[4] Roger Sherman Bates, because every prominent civil rights leader’s first and middle names should be the name of some prominent historical figure.
[5] See chapter 38.