WI: President Charles Evans Hughes

[ZMF]

Charles Evans Hughes was the Republican candidate for President in 1916, going against Woodrow Wilson. He lost the presidency by twenty-two electoral votes, and California by about a third of a percent. In his campaign, the former Supreme Court Justice snubbed Governor Hiram Johnson of California, not meeting with him during his campaign's swing through California, which may have been the reason for Johnson to fully support Hughes. If California had gone Republican, which would have been more likely with a Johnson endorsement, Hughes would win the Presidency. Let's say Hughes meets with Governor Johnson, Johnson publicly endorses Hughes, and then Hughes wins the Presidency. How different would the former Justice's presidency been compared to Wilson? Could Hughes keep America out of World War I, or would he follow Teddy Roosevelt's advice and still enter into the war? How different would things be?

 

[David T]

I doubt that the famous Long Beach episode was what cost Hughes California. Secretary of the Interior Lane, a Californian, wrote after the election:

"The result in California turned, really as the result in the entire West did, upon the real progressivism of the progressives. It was not pique because Johnson was not recognized. No man, not Johnson nor Roosevelt, carries the progressives in his pocket. The progressives in the East were Perkins progressives who could be delivered. The West thinks for itself. Johnson could not deliver California. Johnson made very strong speeches for Hughes. The West is really progressive. . . ." https://books.google.com/books?id=8mwoAAAAYAAJ&pg=PA227

What alienated California progressives (and progressives in the rest of the West) from Hughes was not his manners (his snub of Johnson at Long Beach) but his politics. California labor, for example, which strongly backed Johnson in his own campaigns, spurned his backing of Hughes. Wilson did especially strongly in heavily unionized cities like San Francisco. This should not be surprising, given Hughes' opposition to the Adamson Act, which provided for an eight-hour day for railroad workers. William Allen White, who supported Hughes, nevertheless lamented, "He talked tariff like Mark Hanna. He talked of industrial affairs like McKinley, expressing a benevolent sympathy, but not a fundamental understanding. He gave the Progressives of the West the impression that he was one of those good men in politics—a kind of a business man's candidate, who would devote himself to the work of cleaning up the public service, naming good men for offices, but always hovering around the status quo like a sick kitten around a hot brick!" https://books.google.com/books?id=cnU9AQAAMAAJ&pg=RA1-PA138

 

[David T]

To recycle a post of mine from last month:

***

The US will get into the War on schedule; unrestricted German submarine warfare made that inevitable. I think Hughes is more likely to get the US into some sort of League than Wilson did, because he will not be so stubborn in dealing with senators who supported the idea but wanted some voice in it.

One thing I wonder about is whether Hughes might be less repressive against "Reds" and other opponents of the war--at least once the war ended. One thing that indicates he might be: his opposition to the expulsion of the Socialists from the New York state legislature in 1920. http://archives.chicagotribune.com/1920/01/10/page/1/article/hughes-slaps-act-against-5-socialists

He will almost certainly lose in 1920. Dissatisfaction with the war and its results--even by people who supported it in 1917--would probably doom any administration in 1920. *Any* peace treaty, even one less defective than Versailles, is going to leave millions of Americans dissatisfied, especially from ethnic groups. ("It doesn't assure a free Ireland!" "It's too hard on Germany!" "No, it doesn't give enough to Poland!" "It doesn't give enough to Italy!" "No, it gives Italy too much at the expense of the South Slavs!" Etc.) The economic conditions of 1920 and the unpopularity of "profiteers" will also hurt Hughes, especially since the GOP was associated with business. No, 1916, like 1928, was one of those elections a party is better off losing.

(He might even be defeated in a rematch by Wilson in 1920--without the strains of the White House, Wilson might never get that stroke.)

 

[Anarch King of Dipsodes]

[Hughes] will almost certainly lose in 1920. Dissatisfaction with the war and its results--even by people who supported it in 1917--would probably doom any administration in 1920... The economic conditions of 1920 and the unpopularity of "profiteers" will also hurt Hughes, especially since the GOP was associated with business.

I think you overlook the question of how the war was conducted (that is, the war effort at home) by Wilson, and how it would be conducted by Hughes (probably much differently) and the different impact on U.S. OTL, Wilson's war regime became very unpopular. It was wildly intrusive and dirigiste, with some major failures and fiascos resulting.

That's leaving aside the American Protective League and Attorney General Palmer.

Another question is what the Hughes administration would achieve in mobilizing U.S. war power. Would the U.S. be able to contribute enough force for the Allies to win in 1918? Would the Allies win in 1918 anyway? (some historians think so) Would that diminish the U.S. contribution and U.S. losses? Or would the Allies have to proceed with Plan 1919, which means the war continues and ends in a very different way. possibly with much greater U.S. involvement?

I think these questions have to be addressed before concluding that 1920 would go against incumbent Republicans.

Though it is interesting to note how many post-war elections have gone against the war-winners:

- The U.S. in 1848, 1920, 1946, and 1992.
- Britain in 1945.

There have been some "khaki elections", where the wartime party won on its record:
- The U.S., 1868-1872, 1898.
- Britain in 1900, 1918, and 1983.

 

[David T]

I think you overlook the question of how the war was conducted (that is, the war effort at home) by Wilson, and how it would be conducted by Hughes (probably much differently) and the different impact on U.S. OTL, Wilson's war regime became very unpopular. It was wildly intrusive and dirigiste, with some major failures and fiascos resulting.

First of all, there is no way to conduct a modern world war that is not "intrusive" and "dirigiste"--please name me one country that was really (not just nominally) involved in the First or Second World Wars that ran the war effort according to laissez-faire principles. Second, the war itself was *from the beginning* not all that popular, especially with certain ethnic groups, as can already be seen in elections in 1917. It might be even less so in this ATL, when many people would say "Wilson kept us out of war for three years--if he had only been re-elected maybe we could have stayed out..." Third, in Great Britain note that the "khaki election" was in 1918, when war feelings had not yet subsided--we are here talking about 1920 when the postwar disruptions had set in (as in 1946). As for relatively minor wars like the Boer War, the Spanish-American War, the Falklands, etc., they are beside the point--*of course* they disrupted the average citizen's life very little! Jingoism is easy under such circumstances. As for the ACW, even Grant in 1868 got far from a landslide (losing New York state, for example) and would have had an even closer call if not for the newly enfranchised African American voters of the South. In any event, in the ACW it was obvious enough that the very existence of the nation was at stake in a way that was much easier to see than in World War I. And finally, again I don't see how you can have a peace treaty that won't be upsetting to some large group of Americans or another--under Hughes or anyone else.

 

[Mikestone8]

And the cost of living had gone through the roof during the war and its immediate aftermath. Millions of Americans were struggling to make ends meet. Unless Hughes can somehow prevent that, he is toast.

 

[David T]

And the cost of living had gone through the roof during the war and its immediate aftermath. Millions of Americans were struggling to make ends meet. Unless Hughes can somehow prevent that, he is toast.

Fredrick Lewis Allen in his classic history of the 1920's, *Only Yesterday* imagines a middle-class couple of 1919:

"Mr. and Mrs. Smith discuss a burning subject, the High Cost of Living. Mr. Smith is hoping for an increase in salary, but meanwhile the family income seems to be dwindling as prices rise. Everything is going up, food, rent, clothing, and taxes. These are the days when people remark that even the man without a dollar is fifty cents better off than he once was, and that if we coined seven-cent pieces for street-car fares, in another year we should have to discontinue them and begin to coin fourteen-cent pieces. Mrs. Smith, confronted with an appeal from Mr. Smith for economy, reminds him that milk has jumped since 1914 from nine to fifteen cents a quart, sirloin steak from twenty-seven to forty two cents a pound, butter from thirty-two to sixty-one cents a pound, and fresh eggs from thirty-four to sixty-two cents a dozen. No wonder people on fixed salaries are suffering, and colleges are beginning to talk of applying the money-raising methods learned during the Liberty Loan campaigns to the increasing of college endowments. Rents are almost worse than food prices, for that matter; since the Armistice there has been an increasing shortage of houses and apartments, and the profiteering landlord has become an object of popular hate along with the profiteering middleman. Mr. Smith tells his wife that "these profiteers are about as bad as the I. W. W.'s." He could make no stronger statement." http://xroads.virginia.edu/~hyper/allen/ch1.html

My guess is that Hughes will be blamed for "profiteers" at least as much as Wislon was--maybe more so, since the GOP was associated with big business more than the Democrats were.

 

[Mikestone8]

Journalist Charles Willis Thompson expressed the view that in 1920 the Republicans didn't really need to nominate anyone at all. The people were so cheesed off with Wilson that they would have voted for unpledged Republican Electors and allowed them to choose whoever they wanted. I suppose a cynic might say that the Harding nomination came about as close to doing this as was feasible in practice.

I fear that the backlash against President Hughes would have been much the same.

 

[bguy]

My guess is that Hughes will be blamed for "profiteers" at least as much as Wislon was--maybe more so, since the GOP was associated with big business more than the Democrats were.

Wlison though seems to have been spectacularly unprepared for dealing with the post-war economic problems.

From The Harding Era, Warren G. Harding and His Administration by Robert K. Murray.

"The Wilson Administration was woefully ill prepared to handle these normal stresses of demobilizaiton, let alone the much more complicated economic and social readjustments necessitated by the end of the war. Wilson had no one to blame but himself. As early as October 1917, he had been urged to create a reconstruction commission to study postwar problems, but he considered the time not yet ripe for such a move."-pg. 72

"By December 1918 President Wilson accepted the fact that his administration had no postwar plans. He even justified that condition. In his December message to Congress, just before departing for Versailles to make postwar plans for the entire world, he remarked that as far as the domestic American scene was concerned the American people would make their own reconstruction plans and "any leading strings we might seek to put them in would speedily become hopelessly tangled because they would pay no attention to them and go their own way."-pg. 73

"In the absence of any postwar blueprint the whole wartime regulatory structure quickly collapsed."-pg. 73


And even before his stroke post-war President Wilson seems to have been almost entirely disengaged with domestic matters and to have very little in the way of ideas to deal with the economic problems.

From The Harding Era, Warren G. Harding and His Administration by Robert K. Murray.

"His mind was so preoccupied with League maters that the government drifted aimlessly befor the sea of postwar problems that threatened to engulf it. Only intermittenly did Wilson turn his attention to domestic issues and then he dealt with them hurriedly before plunging back into the League struggle."-pg. 75


From Woodrow Wilson, A Biography by John Milton Cooper, Jr.

"The president seemed removed from the racial violence as well as other serious domestic problems, such as a rash of strikes, unemployment, inflation, and the continuing anti-rafical crusade that would culiminate in a full-fledeged Red scare at the end of the year."-pg. 510

"He had resumed cabinet meetings, and on July 31 the discussion for the first time dealt exclusively with troubles at home: inflation and another threatned railroad strike. Inflation, which had earned the initials HCL (for "the high cost of living," was particularly troubling, and the Republicans were trying to reap partisan gain from it. In response, Wilson spoke to a joint session of Congress on August 8. As with the speech to the Senate a month earlier, this one gave him great trouble in writing, and his delivery was rambling and disorganized. Substantively, aside from vigorous enforcement of laws and the dissemination of economic information, he had little to recommend: 'We must, I think, freely admit that there is no complete immediate rememdy from legislation and executive action.' He digressed with a description of the destruction wrought by the war, he attempted to link problems at home with delay in ratifying the peace treaty, and he delivered vague injunctions."-pg. 511


Now I don't know if Hughes would have ultimately been any more effective at dealing with all the post-war economic problems than Wilson was. (The post-war economic disruption is likely beyond the ability of any President to effectively manage.) But Hughes could hardly do worse at preparing for the post-war economy than Wilson did, and Hughes certainly won't get bogged down fighting over the League like Wilson did and presumably won't have Wilson's health issues, so Hughes will have a lot more time and energy to devote to domestic matter than Wilson did. If Hughes at least looks like he is seriously trying to solve the domestic problems then that might be enough to give him a fighting chance come 1920 since the Democrats themselves are pretty divided at this time.

 

[Anarch King of Dipsodes]

... there is no way to conduct a modern world war that is not "intrusive" and "dirigiste"...

But there are degrees. Wilson's war administration was (AIUI) the empowerment of a collection of Progressive academics, who saw it as their chance to Fix Everything. They went on a spree of regulations and government takeovers, not just to prosecute the war, but to re-organize society on "scientific" principles. These were overconfident wannabe social engineers given practically unlimited power.

IMO, Hughes would have done differently, with substantially less collateral disruption.

Another question is the extent of the U.S. war commitment. How many troops, how big a war budget? How quickly to mobilize? OTL, Wilson seems to have decided on all-out commitment from the beginning, or very early on. Hughes might take it easier. That too would make a diffference.

Suppose the U.S. ramps up slower, so that the war doesn't end in 1918? Won't that have lots of knock-ons?

 

[David T]

...Another question is the extent of the U.S. war commitment. How many troops, how big a war budget? How quickly to mobilize? OTL, Wilson seems to have decided on all-out commitment from the beginning, or very early on. Hughes might take it easier. That too would make a diffference.

Suppose the U.S. ramps up slower, so that the war doesn't end in 1918? Won't that have lots of knock-ons?

The party of hawks like Theodore Roosevelt and Elihu Root and Henry Cabot Lodge, the party that criticized Wilson for being too pacifistic and for insufficient "preparedness" is going to have less of a war effort than Wilson? Why? What is the evidence for that?