WI an anti imperialist President at Versailes

WI (following successful reconstruction or earlier effective efforts to enforce the 15th Amendment) the President of the US was opposed to racism and imperialism, having perhaps needed African American votes.

Assuming other WW1 events happened as OTL what influence would such a President have?
 
I thought Wilson WAS anti-imperialist? If it hadn't been for him, I doubt there woujld have been LoN mandates, instead just annexations to colonial empires. I can't see that any of the ex-German colonies could have governed themselves, maybe Samoa could have gone back to its ways if everyone agreed to butt out, but one doubts that they would.

Best Regards
Grey Wolf
 

mowque

Banned
I can easily give you WJ Bryan (with butterflies) for the anti-imperialist guy, but I honestly can't think of any anti-racists.
 
For all his faults, Wilson is probably the closest person to that image you're going to get without a sufficient POD sometime in the past. Wilson was a racist and thus, not terribly inclined to supporting civil rights at home, but he was pretty anti-imperialist when it came to global politics (ignoring a few spots here or there).
 
I can easily give you WJ Bryan (with butterflies) for the anti-imperialist guy, but I honestly can't think of any anti-racists.

Bryan won't be at Versailles, though. He wouldn't have taken the United States into the war under any circumstances, barring a direct attack on the United States by Germany.
 

mowque

Banned
Bryan won't be at Versailles, though. He wouldn't have taken the United States into the war under any circumstances, barring a direct attack on the United States by Germany.

I'm not sure of that, actually. Although it depends exactly where the POD is, ;)
 
Based on my ongoing thread, I'd say a successful Reconstruction where African Americans largely maintained the rights they had gained (voting among them) would not necessarily have butterflies abroad strong enough to stop the war or America's involvement in it.

So that could be your PoD right there. ;)
 

Wolfpaw

Banned
Based on my ongoing thread, I'd say a successful Reconstruction where African Americans largely maintained the rights they had gained (voting among them) would not necessarily have butterflies abroad strong enough to stop the war or America's involvement in it.
I don't know about that. I mean, if blacks retain their rights after a successful Reconstruction, they're most likely going to be a massive Republican bloc. This will really skew Southern politics and we could certainly see "Solid Southern" states going Republican in some presidential elections, which will obviously effect national politics in a big way.

Not to mention that there is much less impetus for a Great Migration if blacks are getting along well enough in the South.
 
I thought Wilson WAS anti-imperialist? If it hadn't been for him, I doubt there woujld have been LoN mandates, instead just annexations to colonial empires. I can't see that any of the ex-German colonies could have governed themselves, maybe Samoa could have gone back to its ways if everyone agreed to butt out, but one doubts that they would.

Best Regards
Grey Wolf
What you just described is actually very, very imperialist.
Wilson was an American imperialist, but was generally against imperialism from anyone else.
 
I mean, if blacks retain their rights after a successful Reconstruction, they're most likely going to be a massive Republican bloc. This will really skew Southern politics and we could certainly see "Solid Southern" states going Republican in some presidential elections, which will obviously effect national politics in a big way.

Not to mention that there is much less impetus for a Great Migration if blacks are getting along well enough in the South.

I myself had thought at first that this would have an impact on FP -- that's why I did the other thread. It was there that Johnrankis made a good point there that aside from a different US position on the Berlin Conference (itself matters little in the short term) overall interests would push us in the same overall direction (War with Spain, etc).

WW1 would likely still happen in this estimation -- though I suppose it's possible that the US is less sympathetic to Britain, France, or Belgium at this point...
 
Upon further thought, I think a successful Reconstruction is a problematic PoD for the OP; I mentioned before...

WW1 would likely still happen in this estimation -- though I suppose it's possible that the US is less sympathetic to Britain, France, or Belgium at this point...

That would seem to suggest that, with their actions in Africa, the US may be more likely to back Germany than England in TTL, meaning you're not quite getting an anti-imperialist at Versailles -- or at least, not at the same Versailles as Wilson was at...
 
I think the trouble is that anti-imperialist didn't necessarily mean anti-racist. Many anti-imperialists objected to the acquisition of lands with non-white populations, precisely because such "inferior" races had no place in American society.

Offhand, the one who best combined the two attitudes would seem to be House Speaker Thomas B Reed of Maine. He had supported Lodge's Force Bill (the last "Reconstruction" measure) in 1890, and strongly opposed the acquisition of the Philippines. But he never reached the White House, and was anyway a little early for the purposes of this TL.
 
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