Would a Teddy Roosevelt win in 1912 and 1916 avert the Great Depression?

It can't be much more. After all the OP requires TR to win in 1916 as well as 1912, which will be next to impossible if he has attempted to push the country into war, or if it is widely suspected that he will do so if re-elected.

And 1916 will be hard enough anyway. If TR is seen as a warmonger, the Democrats, who will have barely missed victory in 1912 and may well be in control of Congress, will make the very most of it. Add to this the fact that many (perhaps a majority) of the *Republicans* in Congress will be Regulars who supported Taft in 1912, and will in all likelihood be praying for a Democratic victory to give them a chance to regain control of the GOP, so that crippling himself further by advocating (or even seeming to advocate) war could easily put the final nail in his coffin.
Americans embraced the war after 1917. Given a proper build up, they could acept it as inevitable in 1915 or 1916.
The OP itself contains change. For TR to win in 1912 a shift of public opinion must have started. For him to win again in 1916 it must have become tectonic.
The fact is that it's to wide a POD.
TR wins 1912 is big enough to change US politics in a manner that will force us to reconsider everything about the 1916 election. With a double POD, we must assume that:
1. TR winning in 1912 changed things;
2. Him winning again in 1916 means that those changes were successful
 
Why should it be any more robust than OTL?
A shorter war or a less than World War (e.g. if Germany is clear that violating Belgian neutrality will bring in both Britain and the US but that a war with France and Russia won't or probably won't and they never do violate Belgian neutrality. OTL they could see that the US didn't want to get involved and the UK (or Grey and Crowe at the FO at any rate) did want to get involved and not on their side) would have huge implications for the levels of national debt in all major world powers plus lower levels of post war medical costs and disability pensions and no (or smaller) gluts of war surplus shipping, aircraft and lorries to cause an industrial recession. No Bolsheviks and Russia probably remains integrated in the world economy. Likewise with a reasonably stable Russia in the 1920s integrated in European diplomacy, China is less likely to be as chaotic and divided a country as the Great Powers (likely Britain, France, the US and Russia) can act in concert and (relative) harmony to maintain order. If the Austrian empire doesn't break up into smaller states with "beggar my neighbour" economic policies that helps world trade as well. So a shorter or less extensive WW1 or no WW1 at all and the world economy is automatically more robust. WW2 and the Cold War didn't help either but it was 1993 before global trade levels reached the same level as 1913 OTL.
 
Americans embraced the war after 1917. Given a proper build up, they could acept it as inevitable in 1915 or 1916.
The OP itself contains change. For TR to win in 1912 a shift of public opinion must have started. For him to win again in 1916 it must have become tectonic.
The fact is that it's to wide a POD.
TR wins 1912 is big enough to change US politics in a manner that will force us to reconsider everything about the 1916 election. With a double POD, we must assume that:
1. TR winning in 1912 changed things;
2. Him winning again in 1916 means that those changes were successful


So the OP should read "WI Americans were totally different people in 1912 than they were OTL"?
 
Wasn't it implicit on the title?
Maybe without the "totally' at least for 1912.
Alternate history creates alternate people.

Only gradually in most respects, and more in some than in others.

Frex, the 1912 campaign never touched on foreign affairs to any important extent, so there is no reason for a different outcome to have any noticeable effect on public and Congressional attitudes toward, say, a war in Europe. Any speeches on the subject by the POTUS - whoever he is - will be pretty much ignored unless they happen to agree with what most folks are thinking anyhow. Few if any opinions will be changed in any significant way. TR will be dealing with the same attitudes as Wilson was OTL.

The "bully pulpit" is largely a myth. It only works if the preacher is telling the congregation what they want to hear.
 
Only gradually in most respects, and more in some than in others.

Frex, the 1912 campaign never touched on foreign affairs to any important extent, so there is no reason for a different outcome to have any noticeable effect on public and Congressional attitudes toward, say, a war in Europe. Any speeches on the subject by the POTUS - whoever he is - will be pretty much ignored unless they happen to agree with what most folks are thinking anyhow. Few if any opinions will be changed in any significant way. TR will be dealing with the same attitudes as Wilson was OTL.

The "bully pulpit" is largely a myth. It only works if the preacher is telling the congregation what they want to hear.
And yet people keep running for president.
Sometimes there is a retrospective pessimism built into the conservative view of Alternate History. Nothing ever changes much, one president is more or less like the other, it's all Kismet.
One of the reasons why I keep myself out of that view is that I actually vote on every election and hope that it will mean something.
You may be right. I hope you're not, because if alternate historians can't change the past by changing election results that means that citizens can't change the future by casting votes.
I won't try to change your mind. I just like to think the cup is 1/16 parts full.
 
Americans embraced the war after 1917. Given a proper build up, they could acept it as inevitable in 1915 or 1916.
The OP itself contains change. For TR to win in 1912 a shift of public opinion must have started. For him to win again in 1916 it must have become tectonic.
The fact is that it's to wide a POD.
TR wins 1912 is big enough to change US politics in a manner that will force us to reconsider everything about the 1916 election. With a double POD, we must assume that:
1. TR winning in 1912 changed things;
2. Him winning again in 1916 means that those changes were successful

Will disagree on just about everything here.

1) Americans didn't "embrace the war" after 1917. The war was extremely unpopular all along and getting more so as it dragged on. Draft evasion was widespread. About 11% of the draft age population refused to register. Of those who were called up, 12% either didn't report or deserted soon after

2) It wouldn't take much of a shift of public opinion for Teddy to win in both 1912 and 116 let alone a tectonic one. All it would really take is for Taft and the Republicans to accept reality that they would lose in a three way race and embrace Teddy as the least worst option. Given the overall Republicanism of the era, a Teddy win would be possible with little change in public opinion other than accepting Teddy breaking the two term rule

Back to the OP:

The Federal Reserve Board was created under Wilson. Minor changes to that act, may have affected the decisions that lead to the great depression- or they might not have. There's really no way to know. We are talking about loosely connected events a decade and a half apart
 
And yet people keep running for president.
Sometimes there is a retrospective pessimism built into the conservative view of Alternate History. Nothing ever changes much, one president is more or less like the other, it's all Kismet.
One of the reasons why I keep my - self out of that view is that I actually vote on every election and hope that it will mean something.
You may be right. I hope you're not, because if alternate historians can't change the past by changing election results that means that citizens can't change the future by casting votes.
I won't try to change your mind. I just like to think the cup is 1/16 parts full.


Of course elections can change things. They just don't automatically change *everything* - at least not in the short term.

Had TR been somehow elected in 1912 - just conceivable if he can win the GOP nomination, Taft doesn't get on the ballot any other way, none of Taft's supporters vote for Wilson, and he gets at least two-thirds of the votes which went for Taft OTL - a very high hurdle but not totally ASB -- then clearly a *lot* will be different forty years on. By then, myriad butterflies will have resulted in millions of people marrying differently and/or having different children, so it will be a substantially different population.

But, as I see it, you are not giving time for any of this to happen. As of Nov 1916, the only ones who'll be different will be four-year-olds and younger. The rest of the population will be the same; and everyone over 17 will be much the same even in 1929. That year, about the only other change will be those who died in WW1 (or of influenza) OTL but survived TTL, or vice versa.

Nor is the 1915/16 population likely to hold much different views on foreign policy from OTL. Why should it? Foreign affairs hardly figured in the 1912 campaign, and those who voted for TR then didn't do so over foreign policy issues, and wouldn't necessarily agree with him about going to war in 1916, let alone 1915. After all, what exactly would they be going to war *for*? To defend the right of a bunch of mental defectives to sail (with their wives and kids!!) into the middle of a foreign war on a ship belonging to one of the belligerent nations, registered as an auxiliary cruiser, and which for all they knew might be carrying munitions? Was that really the sort of "right" for which a nation should rush to arms?

Also, TR himself may have been significantly changed. When reading his statements on the war, we need to keep in mind that when he made them he was a private citizen, and a very frustrated one at that. So he could fulminate to his heart's content. As POTUS, he's likely to tread a lot more warily, and will be well aware that the country is not, as yet, in the mood for anything heroic. He also has to look over his shoulder at Congress, which may well be in Democratic hands, and where even many Republicans will be cool or hostile toward him. He'll surely be far too smart to send Congress a war resolution which he knows is certain to be rejected, if they even deign to vote on it.

There may also be less to get heroic about. If the Germans are a tad more cautious in dealing with a US led by TR rather than by Wilson, the Lusitania may not get sunk at all, or else under different circumstances with a far smaller number of fatalities. After all, the vast majority of sinkings did not cause such a massive death toll. That one was exceptional.

In sum, a second TR Presidency will certainly change things down the line, and may possibly (not certainly) have butterflies which affect the course of the Depression. I just feel you are looking for far too much too soon.


BTW, I too always vote in every election or referendum. As Heinlein's Lazarus Long famously put it, there may well be nothing and nobody you especially want to vote for, but sure as heck there'll be somebody or something which you need to vote *against*.
 
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WW1 had too big an impact on US and Global finances for changes on it not to have an effect on the USA (and global) economy after the war.
TR is about as different from Wilson as a Shelby Cobra is from a Prius. He would have generated changes.
In this case constructing a minimal change narrative from the OP is reductive. Why have a TR POD and go small?
And regarding elections and the LL quote, while Wilson is someone you vote against, TR is someone you vote for.
 
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TR is about as different from Wilson as a Shelby Cobra is from a Prius. He would have generated changes.

Very likely, but it's anybody's guess what they might be - esp as TR would be long gone from the scene by 1929, and others, probably either Democrats or Regular Republicans, would be administering whatever he left behind. So their competence, rather than his, will be the determining factor.


To go back to the OP, the correct answer is "Maybe, maybe not. There's really no way of knowing."


Why have a TR POD and go small?

Not a question of going small, just of keeping it realistic.


Wilson is someone you vote against, TR is someone you vote for.

But 1912 is not the best time to do so. Not only are his chances of winning exceedingly slim, but even if he does manage to squeak in, he has done so in such a way that he's got half of his own party against him, as well as the Democrats. So he is likely to be in worse relations with Congress than any POTUS since Andrew Johnson.

Basically, he "made his bed" when he opened his big mouth and promised not to run again in 1908. He could have done a lot more (if the latter were even achievable) in another consecutive term than after a 1912 comeback, as Congress would have been much more co-operative.
 
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Why have a TR POD and go small?

How is a TR PoD different from any other PoD?

He was a smart politician with a colourful personality, but at the end of the day still a politician subject to the same practical limitations as any other. He was indeed popular, but if the 1904 election stats are any guide, little if any more so than McKinley in 1900, once allowance is made for the growth in the electorate. His EC landslide was largely down to Democrats abstaining, thanks to them having nominated their weakest candidate since 1872. Eight years later he would not have this advantage, as all the major Democratic hopefuls were safely in the mainstream of their party.

In 1912 he did well in Republican Primaries, but come November all he seems to have done is provide a temporary home for progressive Republicans who would otherwise have had to vote Democratic, as they were to do in 1916. In short, though his administration would have differed from Wilson's in style, I don't see why we should automatically expect it to produce world-shaking changes.
 
How is a TR PoD different from any other PoD?

He was a smart politician with a colourful personality, but at the end of the day still a politician subject to the same practical limitations as any other. He was indeed popular, but if the 1904 election stats are any guide, little if any more so than McKinley in 1900, once allowance is made for the growth in the electorate. His EC landslide was largely down to Democrats abstaining, thanks to them having nominated their weakest candidate since 1872. Eight years later he would not have this advantage, as all the major Democratic hopefuls were safely in the mainstream of their party.

In 1912 he did well in Republican Primaries, but come November all he seems to have done is provide a temporary home for progressive Republicans who would otherwise have had to vote Democratic, as they were to do in 1916. In short, though his administration would have differed from Wilson's in style, I don't see why we should automatically expect it to produce world-shaking changes.
Because he is a bigger than life figure well suited for bold, adventurous writing.
Like I said, he is a Shelby Cobra to Wilson's Prius. Now, you can buy a Cobra and use it perfectly reasonably as a daily commuter, but what would be the fun of that?
 
National debt as causal? I don't see it. Speculation on shares, & the Fed not reigning it in, yes. Plus overproduction (on the nutty theory, "Produce it & they will buy":rolleyes: ), & changes in fertility rates, plus the crash of agricultural production & prices (thanks to over-production as a result of the war). So unless you can entirely prevent WW1 (& so the demand for U.S. ag goods), which TR almost certainly won't do (assuming he could, which I'm dubious of)...
 
The Wall Street Crash of 1929 was widely founded on post-WWI markets conditions: with Europe destroyed, US were the top world financial power but they hadn't the means yet to manage their new power. US economy started to flood all markets with its products, taking advantage of European weakness, with Germany destroyed and Great Britain and France widely indebted. Thinking to have a market big enough, American factories and farmers entered in a overproduction phase. Conservative Republican Administration thought that free market and strongly capitalist policies were the Bible and promoted that without control, creating a great speculation bubble: farmers and factories started to ask loans, thinking to have a golden future, and banks were willing to do that for the same reason. But in the second half of Twenties the European Economy recovered and retained his place at least in Europe Markets. Overproduction had just caused a prices fall and this caused an other one: small business and farmers were forced to leave many products unsold and they started to indebt, while banks and companies (and the goverment) didn't realize the big cards castle on which US economy was based. In 1929 simply the speculation finished, the bubble exploded, the previous investments didn't return, farmers were not able to pay their debts and banks failed when the loans were not repaid. When the news spreaded, the Great Panic did the rest, destroying trust and turning the Stock Exchange in a mess, while Hoover started a disastrous trade war.

An other idea could be this: Teddy doesn't die in 1919. He was planning to run in 1920 so he gets the Republican nomination and returns to White House in a landslide. He promotes anti-trust bills and financial regulations that avoid big speculation. When the prices fall he get subsidies to farmers (a things Coolidge vetoed). In 1929 farmers are less indebted and so banks. Probably the Crash will be only postponed, depending Teddy's successors (my bet is a Hoover Presidency 1929-1937 and a Crash in middle-late 1930s).
 
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