WI: McKinley survives

what is the effect of McKinley surviving his assassination? Does Theodore Roosevelt run in 1908 if he hadn’t ascended to the presidency? How is America affected if McKinley survived?
 
Kevin Phillips's biography of McKinley depicts him as a surprisingly progressive president who was likely to propose important new initiatives with respect to the tariff and trusts. McKinley's last speech to the Pan-American Exposition in September 1901 heralded a campaign for tariff reciprocity. Actions against trusts would likely follow in 1902 when the United States Industrial Commission appointed by McKinley in 1898 reported back. This report, as Phillips notes "wound up laying out much of what would be the Progressive corporate and antitrust agenda through 1914." (Phillips, William McKinley, p. 136)

Also, at least according to Mark Hanna, McKinley himself might have undertaken a prosecution against Northern Securities as TR famously did in OTL: "I warned Hill that McKinley might have to act against his damn company last year. Mr. Roosevelt's done it. I'm sorry for Hill, but just what do you gentlemen think I can do?" https://books.google.com/books?id=B0Jr8Ypal1UC&pg=PA392

Furthermore, Phillips notes McKinley's pro-labor record, which included naming Terence V. Powderly, onetime leader of the Knights of Labor, as commissioner general of immigration, and of Samuel Gompers of the AFL to the Industrial Commission. McKinley frequently consulted with Gompers.

IMO the second McKinley term would differ from TR's first OTL term more in style than substance, so far as domestic policy is concerned--one must remember that TR was not really that much of a reformer until his second term, and not really a radical reformer until briefly in 1910-12. On foreign policy, McKinley might have been more patient with Colombia than TR was, and while this might have meant a slight delay in building the canal, it would also mean less anti-US sentiment in Latin America.

Apart from policy differences, of course, there is the fact that TR brought a new glamor to the White House that really made the office of the presidency the center of public attention it had not been for decades. It is hard for me to see any successor of McKinley, other than TR himself, doing that--certainly not Fairbanks or Root. (Could TR have gotten the nomination in 1904? The bosses would certainly find him hard to swallow, but they were also reluctant to accept McKinley in 1896. As with McKinley, they might accept him if there was enough grass roots support for him and if they thought nobody else could win.)
 

Driftless

Donor
A snapshot to be sure, but McKinley's own words regarding the Philippines:

William McKinley on American Expansionism (1903)
After the surrender of the Spanish in the Spanish-American War, the United States assumed control of the Philippines but struggled to contain an anti-American insurgency.

… I would like to say just a word about the Philippine business. I have been criticized a good deal about the Philippines, but don’t deserve it. The truth is I didn’t want the Philippines, and when they came to us, as a gift from the gods, I did not know what to do with them. When the Spanish War broke out Dewey was at Hongkong, and I ordered him to go to Manila and to capture or destroy the Spanish fleet, and he had to; because, if defeated, he had no place to refit on that side of the globe, and if the Dons were victorious they would likely cross the Pacific and ravage our Oregon and California coasts. And so he had to destroy the Spanish fleet, and did it! But that was as far as I thought then.

When I next realized that the Philippines had dropped into our laps I confess I did not know what to do with them. I sought counsel from all sides—Democrats as well as Republicans—but got little help. I thought first we would take only Manila; then Luzon; then other islands perhaps also. I walked the floor of the White House night after night until midnight; and I am not ashamed to tell you, gentlemen, that I went down on my knees and prayed Almighty God for light and guidance more than one night. And one night late it came to me this way—I don’t know how it was, but it came: (1) That we could not give them back to Spain—that would be cowardly and dishonorable; (2) that we could not turn them over to France and Germany—our commercial rivals in the Orient—that would be bad business and discreditable; (3) that we could not leave them to themselves—they were unfit for self-government—and they would soon have anarchy and misrule over there worse than Spain’s was; and (4) that there was nothing left for us to do but to take them all, and to educate the Filipinos, and uplift and civilize and Christianize them, and by God’s grace do the very best we could by them, as our fellow-men for whom Christ also died. And then I went to bed, and went to sleep, and slept soundly, and the next morning I sent for the chief engineer of the War Department (our map-maker), and I told him to put the Philippines on the map of the United States (pointing to a large map on the wall of his office), and there they are, and there they will stay while I am President!



Source: General James Rusling, “Interview with President William McKinley,” The Christian Advocate 22 January 1903,

I take two main points from this: one, McKinley would have been a reluctant imperialist, and two, his knowledge of world affairs appears limited and naive.
 
TR will never be president in this timeline. It was nera when sitting VPs were seldom nominated for the presidency, an that's all TR is here if McKinley lives.
 
A snapshot to be sure, but McKinley's own words regarding the Philippines:



I take two main points from this: one, McKinley would have been a reluctant imperialist, and two, his knowledge of world affairs appears limited and naive.

That would be pretty much interesting. After the Spanish-American War the USA becomes less gun ho, and imperialist, fine with what it got from Spain for the time being.

TR will never be president in this timeline. It was nera when sitting VPs were seldom nominated for the presidency, an that's all TR is here if McKinley lives.

No Big Stick Diplomacy, no Panama Canal, or one across Nicaragua, someone else to break peace between Russia and Japan, we be missing a ton of national parks.
 
No Big Stick Diplomacy, no Panama Canal, or one across Nicaragua, someone else to break peace between Russia and Japan, we be missing a ton of national parks.

Not necessarily. An Isthmian canal was a goal of American foreign policy from roughly the Garfield administration.
 

Driftless

Donor
My sense is that TR would still gain the White House, just on a different schedule and perhaps different lead up conditions.
 
Between the passage of the 12th Amendment, which removed the independent election of the Vice President, and the 22nd Amendment, imposing term limits on the President, only four sitting Vice Presidents were nominated for the presidency. One was Van Buren. The other three had become President due to the death of the President. Teddy Roosevelt was in fact the first sitting Vice President to be nominated for President in 68 years. This was not an accident. The 12th Amendment destroyed the prestige of the Vice Presidency and it did not begin to recover until the 22nd Amendment.

So Teddy Roosevelt simply doesn't become President without McKinley dying in office, as had been widely recognized at the time. His administration really was accidental. Though the progressive movement could exist without TR, not the presidency as we know it. This also has a good chance of butterflying away the Franklin Roosevelt administration.
 

Driftless

Donor
Your points on the slowly changing political relevance of the Vice-Presidency are valid; but also consider the larger scale societal and international changes going on at the same time. McKinley was the last President to have served or been an adult during the American Civil War, so there's a changing in outlook there. The US had come off what was commonly considered the Closing of the Frontier in the late 1800's - another change in mindset. The US was becoming a significant worldwide financial and manufacturing power by the end of the 1800's - perhaps only partially mentally ready for the world stage. Acquiring Cuba, Puerto Rico, the Philippines, and other islands put the US in the colonial soup - whether or not McKinley had those aspirations. As noted above, there had been a desire for a canal across Central America - somewhere... and the odyssey of the USS Oregon going from San Francisco to Florida dramatically pointed out the need. A surviving McKinley may have become viewed as a guy behind the curve - in motion, but not fast enough. I can't help but think the 1904 or 1908 elections would find a higher energy, outward looking 20th century mind for a candidate
 
Your points on the slowly changing political relevance of the Vice-Presidency are valid; but also consider the larger scale societal and international changes going on at the same time. McKinley was the last President to have served or been an adult during the American Civil War, so there's a changing in outlook there. The US had come off what was commonly considered the Closing of the Frontier in the late 1800's - another change in mindset. The US was becoming a significant worldwide financial and manufacturing power by the end of the 1800's - perhaps only partially mentally ready for the world stage. Acquiring Cuba, Puerto Rico, the Philippines, and other islands put the US in the colonial soup - whether or not McKinley had those aspirations. As noted above, there had been a desire for a canal across Central America - somewhere... and the odyssey of the USS Oregon going from San Francisco to Florida dramatically pointed out the need. A surviving McKinley may have become viewed as a guy behind the curve - in motion, but not fast enough. I can't help but think the 1904 or 1908 elections would find a higher energy, outward looking 20th century mind for a candidate
True, but that candidate is by no mean only or even chiefly Theodore Roosevelt.
 
Between the passage of the 12th Amendment, which removed the independent election of the Vice President, and the 22nd Amendment, imposing term limits on the President, only four sitting Vice Presidents were nominated for the presidency. One was Van Buren. The other three had become President due to the death of the President. Teddy Roosevelt was in fact the first sitting Vice President to be nominated for President in 68 years. This was not an accident. The 12th Amendment destroyed the prestige of the Vice Presidency and it did not begin to recover until the 22nd Amendment.

So Teddy Roosevelt simply doesn't become President without McKinley dying in office, as had been widely recognized at the time. His administration really was accidental. Though the progressive movement could exist without TR, not the presidency as we know it. This also has a good chance of butterflying away the Franklin Roosevelt administration.

I disagree respectfully. Within a matter of weeks/months after TR took the second spot on the 1900 GOP ticket, there was a grass roots movement begun pushing for TR for president in 1904. Had McKinley survived, that movement would likely have only gained momentum every time Roosevelt spoke (and you know he wouldn't miss an opportunity) to the point where the party bigwigs would have had to go along with TR at the top of the ticket in 1904 or face a mutiny as never had been seen before.
 
I disagree respectfully. Within a matter of weeks/months after TR took the second spot on the 1900 GOP ticket, there was a grass roots movement begun pushing for TR for president in 1904. Had McKinley survived, that movement would likely have only gained momentum every time Roosevelt spoke (and you know he wouldn't miss an opportunity) to the point where the party bigwigs would have had to go along with TR at the top of the ticket in 1904 or face a mutiny as never had been seen before.


They fended him off in 1912, when there were far more primaries than in 1904. And the 1904 GOP Convention will be dominated by McKinley supporters.

Most likely they do what their successors did in 1916, choose someone just Progressive enough to hang on to a respectable chunk of TR sympathisers, but less likely to rock the boat in a big way.
 
They fended him off in 1912, when there were far more primaries than in 1904. And the 1904 GOP Convention will be dominated by McKinley supporters.

Most likely they do what their successors did in 1916, choose someone just Progressive enough to hang on to a respectable chunk of TR sympathisers, but less likely to rock the boat in a big way.

In 1912 TR was a lot more radical than he had been in 1904. And also in 1912 the incumbent president was running, and it is always difficult to deny an incumbent renomination.
 
In 1912 TR was a lot more radical than he had been in 1904. And also in 1912 the incumbent president was running, and it is always difficult to deny an incumbent renomination.

True, but I always had the impression that he was nominated for VP precisely in order to "sideline" him - because he would have less political clout as VP than as Governor of NY.

If correct, that rather sounds as if the bosses were already maneuvering to keep him out. Of course such maneuvers don't always succeed, but they seem to have been trying their best.
 
They fended him off in 1912, when there were far more primaries than in 1904. And the 1904 GOP Convention will be dominated by McKinley supporters.

Most likely they do what their successors did in 1916, choose someone just Progressive enough to hang on to a respectable chunk of TR sympathisers, but less likely to rock the boat in a big way.

The comparison to 1912 isn't valid: the party was split badly between mildly progressive Taft supporters and more vociferously progressive TR supporters. There would be no such split in 1904: any of TR's potential challengers (e.g., Charles Fairbanks) would be colorless to the point of being invisible next to TR. TR had the personality and command of the language to become the first vice president since van Buren to be nominated for the presidency.
 
The comparison to 1912 isn't valid: the party was split badly between mildly progressive Taft supporters and more vociferously progressive TR supporters. There would be no such split in 1904: any of TR's potential challengers (e.g., Charles Fairbanks) would be colorless to the point of being invisible next to TR. TR had the personality and command of the language to become the first vice president since van Buren to be nominated for the presidency.


Would the Party bosses mind their candidate being "colourless"?

It's not as if any of the last five Republican Presidents had been particularly glamourous. And is there any reason to suppose that the Democratic candidate, whoever he is, will be all that thrilling - unless it's Bryan, who will probably scare enough people off that the GOP wins anyway?
 
Top