WI: Republican victory in 1936 elections?

bguy

Donor
For a dissent from the idea that Landon's domestic agenda was New Deal-ish see Elliot A. Rosen, *The Republican Party in the Age of Roosevelt: Sources of Anti-Government Conservatism in the United States,* pp. 54-55.

"Landon's domestic agenda extolled individual responsibility, fiscal restraint, efficiency, and government decentralism. Congress, he believed, had abdicated its authority to the executive; representative institutions were under siege. Speaking at Chicago on october 9, he pledged budget balance as 'absolutely imperative' to restore business confidence. Corporations would be granted tax relief, and destablilizing infaltionary policies would be avoided. 'The spenders must go,' he insisted, 'reinforcing his reputation as a budget balancer.

Of course given that FDR himself had campaigned on a balanced budget in 1932, enacted the Economy Act in 1933, and pushed through tax hikes and spending cuts in his second term, Landon campaigning as a budget balancer isn't that inconsistent with him being New Dealish.

"Landon's desire to return to states rights' was also reflected in his approach to social policy. Whereas Charles Taft urged acceptance of social insurance under the parameters legislated in 1935, landon condemned the law as paternalistic, discouragint infivifuals from saving for their own needs in old age. Landon proposed old-age pensions based on supplementary payments made to the needy administered by the states and funded in part by federal taxation for that purpose. Social insurance, he suggested, was 'an appropriate area for the states' not the responsibility of Washington. States, in fact, shied away from taxing employers and employees for thus purpose lest they lose out to those that did not do so.

Well again per Cushman (page 28), Landon's problems with the social security legislation were:

First, he noted, payroll taxes to finance the old-age pensions would begin to be levied in 1937, while no pensioner would receive any payments until 1942. Second, only about half of the nation's workers would be eligible for pensions under the Act. Third, even at full coverage, the pensions were, in Landon's view, parsimonious. Fourth, the Act's taxes were "a cruel hoax," because the cost of rising payroll taxes imposed on employers would be passed on to their employees in the form of reduced compensation.

So most of Landon's complaints against the social security legislation were for it not doing enough soon enough and due to it being financed on a regressive payroll tax, rather than out of any ideological opposition to the concept. Landon clearly accepted the idea of government financed old age pensions. Again from Cushman, in Landon's own words:

"We can afford old-age pensions... In a highly industrialized society they are necessary. I believe in them as a matter of social justice."

Landon wanted funding for these old age pensions to come from joint federal-state spending. He just wanted the federal funds to come from a "direct federal tax levied over a broad base" rather than through a payroll tax (which he felt would fall disproportionately on workers.)

(Cushman also notes that Landon also "promised to continue federal unemployment grants", so it doesn't seem like Landon had much of a problem with federal relief spending.)

"Norman Thomas, the Socialist Party candidate for president, chalenged Landon to define 'freedom from interference' since employers commonly equated it with their right to prevent unions from organizing a nonunionized plant or industry. Specifically, Thomas wanted to know where Landon stood in connection with the ongoing strife between labor and the steel industry. When Thomas deplored the low wage structure and unsatisfactory working conditions for miners in Cherokee County, Kansas, Landon held that the State of Kansas could not interfere with local issues such as of wages, health, and safety.

Maybe but the Republican platform in 1936 supported the enactment of state laws and interstate compacts to "abolish sweatshops and child labor, and to protect women and children with respect to maximum hours, minimum wages and working conditions."

And the platform provision, "Protect the right of labor to organize and to bargain collectively through representatives of its own choosing without interference from any source" likewise seems to disallow employers from preventing unions from organizing a non-unionized plant or industry.

Landon ran on that platform so presumably he was comfortable with it.

Elsewhere, Rosen states (p. 36): "in the end at Milwaukee in the course of the campaign, Landon proposed federally subsidized old-age pensions in the form of supplemenatey payments that assured a minimum income, too often in reality a means test and a return to classic poor laws."

Well, just as a matter of providing relief, Landon's old age pension proposal (which would have seen people receiving payments immediately) would have provided immediate relief, unlike the actual Social Security Act (where people wouldn't start getting payments until 1942), so in that sense Landon's social security proposal already was out-New Dealing the New Deal.
 
In both midterm elections for Harding and Coolidge the Ds had strong gains. They weren't dead

Well, those gains were only because the Republican gains were so ultramassive (three-fourths!) that the pendulum swung the other way. Unless the president is as effective as FDR, there are going to be gains for the non-incumbent in the midterms.

And even if that's true, if Harding lived, I think he'd fail to be renominated, and the new Republican candidate would be elected president in 1924 despite the Progressives doing better.

I do think the only way to reverse the partys' fates is by having Hughes win in 1916.
 
BTW, one should also note Landon's criticism of the Hull reciprocal trade agreements, which he said had "sold the farmer down the river." This cost him the support of some Democrats who were somewhat critical of the New Deal and might otherwise have supported him, like Dean Acheson. "When, as undersecretary of the Treasury he refused, on the ground of their questionable legality, to endorse the late 1933 gold purchases conducted by the Reconstruction Finance Corporation and funded by Treasury, Roosevelt asked for his resignation. Opposed to the centralizing tendencies of the Roosevelt program, Acheson attended the infamous Liberty League dinner held at Washington's Mayflower hotel in January 1936. Yet upon receipt of Warburg's communication, torn between his distaste for Roosevelt's erosion of a federal system based on the states and Landon's foreign policy, Acheson declared for Roosevelt. Landon's attack on the Hull program represented a challenge to Cordell Hull's efforts to revive international trade: 'I must be on his [Hull's] side.'" https://books.google.com/books?id=KWn5AQAAQBAJ&pg=PP53
 
Of course given that FDR himself had campaigned on a balanced budget in 1932, enacted the Economy Act in 1933, and pushed through tax hikes and spending cuts in his second term, Landon campaigning as a budget balancer isn't that inconsistent with him being New Dealish.

But *in 1936* calling for corporate tax relief and attacking the "spenders" could hardly be seen as anything other than as a conservative attack on the New Deal as it then existed. By the way, I do *not* say the conservative critics of the New Deal were all wrong. Rosen acknowledges "the questionable economics behind burdensome corporate and estate taxes levied in the 1935 and 1936 revenue acts, and passage of the crippling Public Utilities Holding Company Act, outdated by reforms in private utilities structures and operations..." https://books.google.com/books?id=KWn5AQAAQBAJ&pg=PP71 But whatever may have been the ultimate bad economic consequences of such policies, they were certainly not evident yet in 1936.
 
I don't say Landon could have won the election, but in addition to Maine and Vermont, he might have carried New Hampshire if he had chosen Governor Styles Bridges https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Styles_Bridges as his running mate. But someone noticed that the Democrats might start chanting, "Landon-Bridges Falling Down"... :p
 
I've just thought of a scenario to have FDR lose. Have the Hughes Court declare the New Deal null and void in 1935, have FDR do his court-packing thing early, and then have Long run for president as an independent. From there, maybe Landon can slip through the cracks and get elected in something electorally like 1968.
Still not enough; there just aren't enough Long and Landon voters out there.
 
IMO the only way for this to happen is if FDR is assassinated by Zanagra and John Nance Garner becomes President, which Ephraim explored in depth in The Falcon Cannot Hear.
 
Another interesting question may be if Landon could have lost respectably enough to where he could have pulled a Dewey and had enough pull in the party to run in 1940? Does not seem to change much, but considering how long he lived having a more influential Landon might have interesting effects on the GOP, or at least the Liberal Republican branch if he was the leader of it instead of Dewey.
 
Still not enough; there just aren't enough Long and Landon voters out there.

Well, I was thinking enough FDR voters see him as a dictator because of the whole court-packing thing and they either stay home or vote for Landon.

Of course, the easiest way is by having Zangara kill FDR. Then have President Garner do nothing, and we have a Republican in 1936.
 

bguy

Donor
Well, I was thinking enough FDR voters see him as a dictator because of the whole court-packing thing and they either stay home or vote for Landon.

Of course, the easiest way is by having Zangara kill FDR. Then have President Garner do nothing, and we have a Republican in 1936.

The problem with that scenario is President Garner won't do nothing. Most of the New Deal will still get passed on his watch.

Garner was a big supporter of deposit insurance (much more than FDR), so you will definitely get that (which was probably the single most useful New Deal program.) He also co-sponsored the Garner-Wagner relief bill in 1932 (a $2 billion dollar public works bill that was vetoed by Hoover), so you're certain to get large scale public works spending from President Garner as well. He was enthusiastic about securities regulation and the Public Utility Holding Company Act, so you definitely get that legislation. And he supported the Rural Electrification Act (which was the baby of his protege Sam Rayburn), so you'll see that as well.

As for the rest of the New Deal, Garner was skeptical about the NRA (he didn't think it would be workable and feared it would lead to cartelization) but indicated he was willing to see it tried, so he won't veto it if it is passed. I've never been able to find his views on the Agricultural Adjustment Act, but given that Garner was a Wilsonian progressive from rural Texas, its very difficult to believe he wouldn't have supported something like it. I also don't know his view on the TVA, but OTL he helped pushed the TVA legislation through Congress, and Garner certainly wasn't afraid to go against the President when he disagreed with him, so that suggests Garner was at least neutral on it. And as for the Social Security Act, I don't know what Garner's views on it were, but OTL it passed by veto proof margins in both houses of Congress, so even if Garner opposes it he probably won't be able to stop it. (Though I very much doubt Garner would veto a bill with as much popular support as Social Security.)

Thus most of the New Deal still happens under President Garner. The only major New Deal bill that is really questionable under President Garner is the Wagner Act, and even that might get through. (OTL the Wagner Act passed by an overwhelming majority in both houses, so it might be able to get enacted over a presidential veto, though unlike the Social Security Act, I think Garner will veto this bill unless it is majorly watered down.)

Now by 1936 the economy will probably be somewhat worse under Garner than it was OTL under Roosevelt since Garner probably won't spend as much on public works as Roosevelt did and will likely raise taxes much more than Roosevelt did in order to pay for his programs. (Garner did take balanced budgets seriously.) Still, Garner will obviously be doing more than Hoover to fight the Depression and will have some definite achievements going into the 1936 election (at a minimum the banking system will be stabilized, the securities market will be regulated, Social Security will be enacted, and millions of people will be getting jobs through government programs), si he should be able to win a comfortable reelection.
 
The problem with that scenario is President Garner won't do nothing. Most of the New Deal will still get passed on his watch.

snip

So he'll be less successful than FDR, but still pretty successful? I guess that makes sense.

BTW, hat was Garner's view on the bank holiday, and what would he have done.
 

bguy

Donor
So he'll be less successful than FDR, but still pretty successful? I guess that makes sense.

BTW, hat was Garner's view on the bank holiday, and what would he have done.

The books I have on Garner suggest that of the early New Deal it was only really the NRA and the Wagner Act that he was uncomfortable with, so I imagine he was probably fine with the bank holiday. (Garner had also previously staved off withdrawals from the two banks controlled by him back in Texas by personally guaranteeing every deposit in the banks, so he seems to have been a man with an appreciation for the grand gesture, so the bank holiday would have been right up his alley.) Garner's real focus on banking legislation though was in making sure it included deposit insurance (which FDR initially didn't want in the bill) as Garner was very insistent that no banking reform would work without deposit insurance because in his own words, "The people who have taken their money out of the banks are not going to put it back without some guarantee." (Garner was also confident that people would not run on banks which had government insurance.)
 
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