What if Al Smith (D) had become President in 1924?
- Thread starter Keenir
- Start date
Al Smith couldn't be nominated in 1924- the Democrats were split between the dry, Protestant, Bourbons and the wet, Catholic, urban liberals. That's why McAdoo and Smith slugged it out for 103 ballots before (shocker) a Bourbon, John Davis, was nominated and the Dems came in third place PV-wise for the only time in the 20th century. Al Smith cannot be elected because of the accurate, if bigoted catchphrase of "Rum and Romanism". Also he has close ties to Tammany Hall, which even in the 1920s was frowned upon for a presidential candidate.
If he had become President (If), and if he managed a second term, I'd expect people to say things like "Damn Depression Democrats. Everything was going great under the Republicans until they came along" come 1929.
Then the Bourbons retake control gleefully in 1932. "OK, you had your chance. Now we're taking over again, permanently. Put on the dunce caps, will you?"
And then things would go down hill as business was expected to fix the Depression...and in this ATL 2010, Jaided Railman would not come in here soon to choke me to death for saying that.
Paul V McNutt
Banned
Al Smith lost votes because he was Catholic but he also won many Catholic votes becoming the first Democrat to carry Massachusetts, Rhode Island and Connecticut. I would say he lost because voters tend to support the president's party in good economic times and because he was running against a hero. If had won in 1928, he probably would not have done much about the depression.
Smith got taken care of by Raskob after 1932 and the lad from the Lower East Side had a corner office on the top floor of the Empire State Building. He became a Bourbon & blasted FDR's domestic policies until the war broke out.
OTL Davis won only 29% of the popular vote in 1924, and Smith received only 40% of the popular vote when he ran against Hoover in 1928. In 1920, Cox received 34% of the popular vote. None of them did significantly well in the Electoral College, and Smith received the least Electoral Votes of all three.
For Smith to be elected in 1924 there would have to be a big POD sometime before that to break the Republican hold on the 1920's.
For Smith to be elected in 1924 there would have to be a big POD sometime before that to break the Republican hold on the 1920's.
Paul V McNutt
Banned
Sorry missed the 1924. Smith would have had to beat an incumbant President in good economic times. I don't think a Smith candidacy convinces Lafallote not to run.
Maybe Harding's corruption and so forth makes bigger or earlier waves, whether Harding lives or all of it gets dumped on Coolidge. I don't recall when Harding's administration had all the dirt revealed, though.
I think it was pretty early, when he was still alive.
I think the only way for it to be really effective during an election is if Harding lives. Coolidge was just VP at the time, which would've been seen by the public as not really involved in all that because the VP doesn't do much (although Coolidge was the among the first to really get involved as an advisor to the President).
EDIT: Would LaFollette not running help Smith or Harding/Coolidge?
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Best way. Have Hughes win in 1916, so that US participation in WW1 takes place under a Republican administration. Then the postwar backlash and eagerness for "normalcy" puts the Democrats in charge right through the 1920s. Smith doesn't have to be the beneficiary, but he ciould be.
Probably Coolidge if anybody.
Iirc a lot of La Follette's voters were German-Americans rewarding him for his opposition to WW1. If he doesn't run, they probably vote against the Democratic Party which took America into the war.
Paul V McNutt
Banned
I remember reading that the facts of Teapot Dome started emerging after Harding's death. Maybe if Harding lives have the dirt come out in the fall of 24. The tricky part here is how to have Smith get the nomination.
It could get worse; Smith's Catholicism is going to make him massive conspiracy theory fodder in the 1920's US. It's entirely possible that once the Depression starts Smith ends up getting assassinated by some Protestant fanatic who wants to stop Smith from "carrying out the Pope's orders to destroy the American economy so it will be easier to sell the country to the Catholic Church" or some such nonsense. At the very least, it probably gives anti-Catholic bigotry in the US a slightly more extended life.
1928 was really Know-Nothing 2.0, with 1960 as 3.0. A tunnel being built under Staten Island was billed as a transatlantic Chunnel that led directly to the Vatican basement. I know it makes Birthers sound sane, but many evangelicals believed it. One Southern preacher spelled it out quite clearly: "A vote for Al Smith is a vote against Christ and you'll be damned." Unlike his fellow Quaker, Nixon, Hoover didn't condemn a word of it even though if McAdoo had been the Dem nominee Hoover would have been on the hatemongers' hit list.
Suppose the scadals about Harding came out but he survived and somehow gets the Republican nomination. Does that Make Smith winning possible?