Well, still a better career than in OTL - but a sad end to a very promising career. To be honest, I was almost thinking he was being set up to be a post-war Democratic President. But, I'm somewhat glad to see that this isn't so - with Heart being followed by Hughes, we really don't want to see three New Yorkers reach the highest office in a row (and I'm not sure how excited Western Dems would be to vote for another East Coaster - Western Populists often had a pretty ... chilly view of Eastern cities after all)
Cinco de Mayo
- Thread starter KingSweden24
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Indeed. New York is primed to hold an Ontario-esque position in American politics at this point in time anyways, so there’s definitely some Western Dems who are not too sad to see Sulzer flame out (Bryan, Kern and the gang first and foremost).
And I’m glad that I was able to successfully plant a red herring there with Sulzer! I’m sure you know the name of the postwar PresiDem but I’ll try to keep it a surprise a bit longer
So Sulzer is basically ITTL's version of Cannon in terms of being a powerful, authoritarian Speaker whose tenure prompted reforms once it ended?
Yup! Cannon was the direct inspiration for Sulzer’s speakership.
Of course Sulzer is a progressive where Cannon was… definitely not, so the exit of Sulzer and subsequent changes takes on more of a “continued proper spirit of reforms” vibe than a “ok we can seriously never let a Speaker be this powerful again” vibe
Cannon is a hell of a character but progressive he certainly was not.
Once I finish my TL I may write a book on the turn of the century speakers and how they radically transformed the office for good and ill.
That’d be an interesting and very under-explored project. If you do write that, please let me know so I can read it
I hope I’m not too late to speak on this but: the Sewer Socialism movement of Victor Berger and others would very likely see trying to get a governorship somewhere and fanning out as a great strategy
Definitely, that’s the brand that would actually have initial mass electoral appeal . We’ll be covering the Socialists and their brief early-1910s boomlet here in the next update, too
Dude, Caro has written a book on the History of the House, but I don't think anyone has written a popular history on the role of the Speaker. I'd read the HELL out of that!
They most certainly would. And I think their best bet would be in either Montana or Colorado, as both had a huge base of Miners were the IWW (which I don't think exists in this ATL?) was very popular and had sway, or possibly Dakota. Wisconsin is likely out - even if the Socialists manage to take Milwaukee (not beyond the question: both the GOP and Dems had horribly corrupt machiens there, and the Socialists were able to position themselves as the party of clean government - and they also extended needed municipal reforms and programs to the Poles and other groups), I don't think they're really going to have a shot at the governorship. Even in OTL, the LaFollette movement was willing to work with them, and did so many times (Phil LaFollette's secretary and bestfriend was a Socialist, for instance - and his death in a car accident really damaged Phil's reelection campaign in '38 - though that was an uphill battle anyway), and this would suck a lot of the wind out of the Socialists getting the governorship. Though there were rural Socialsits who did get elected to the Assembly during the early 20th century. And though I could see them having regional support in Minnesota, I don't see them getting the governorship,
Now Dakota is an interesting situation, because one could argue that Socialists DID gain control of that state in OTL. The Nonpartisan League was founded by a member of the Socialist Party who formed his own organization to focus primarily on the needs of farmers, named Townsley. Their innovation, though, was not NOT run candidates as Socialists - they ran them as Dems in Dem strongholds and Republicans in Republican strong holds. But once the members were elected, they caucused and planned together. The NPL ushered in state Hail Insurance, state grain mills and a state bank, along with a number of other needed reforms. And so, I could see them doing somethign similar in this ATL - they will still be largely Dems, but they will be Social Democrats who move into that party and start dragging it even further to the Left. And in this climate of the Cinco-verse, I could see their organization spreading far father than it did in OTL (In OTL it moved into Minnesota and helped found the Farm-Labor Party and then northwards into Canada where it become important in Manitoba and Sashkatchewan, but was met with violent resistance further South in the American Plains)
Thanks!
The (very very tentative plan) is a look at the Speakers from John Carlisle through Champ Clark with special focus on Reed and Cannon and how the Speakership transformed - especially during Reed and Cannon's long tenures. There's lots of cool articles from newspapers during that era that survive in archive form so I will certainly have lots of primary sources.
I will probably wrap up my TL by the end of the year (As on now I have roughly 30-35 more updates to write/edit) so I can start doing some research in the early part of 2023 if all goes well. I will certainly pick both of your brains and bounce ideas off you if you two are willing. If you have any books you recommend please send em my way!
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Certainly!!!! And a quick correction - I meant Remini wrote a history of the House, not Caro (I was talking about Caro to someone earlier and apparently had him on the brain!). But I'd love to help however I can.
Added to the Amazon Cart.
Joe Cannon wrote an autobiography that I can't wait to dig into. I'm assuming it is self-serving as all hell but hopefully, it is still an interesting read.
The IWW is still around, though it starts to lose steam the further East you go, thanks in part to the industries in question and then the strength of Democratic machines. It helps Dems that Hearst has walked the walked on labor rights and that the machines are much more connected to the AFL than OTL and the Liberals are softer on labor (getting better, but they’re not going to out-laborist Hearstian Democrats anytime soon or ever)
Looking very far ahead but the two pillars of the Democratic Party for the foreseeable future are white ethnic groups and organized labor. I'm incredibly curious as to how the party evolves once the first few generations of white immigrants fully assimilate. I'm reminded of a great book I read back in undergrad called "Working Towards Whiteness" that delineates how this transition occurred OTL.
It'll definitely become more of a labor-oriented party at that point once anti-Catholic hysteria dies down a bit and more white ethnics go "lace curtain." US politics won't be nearly as polarized on matters of race as OTL since there won't be nearly as many Black Americans, and the anti-Catholicism of the WASPy majority will take a bit longer to go away. So my longer term thinking is a politics more similar to Canada or Australia in terms of how it works and functions.
The bigger issue for Democrats will be when the tensions between its rural Western wing and its urban machine wing start to basically mean there's two parts of the party with little in common and one (the latter) with the lions share of control. That's several decades off but that'll be the bigger fray point that eventually unravels the Fair Deal coalition and ends a long run of consistent Dem advantages.
The American Socialists
"...irony that the Socialist Party's electoral success came in the party of the country where the IWW had long been most skeptical of electoralism. For all their dogged organizing in the Midwest and East, the party only held pat; it was out West where men like Ed Boyce of Idaho, Charlie Moyer of Colorado, Vincent St. John of Nevada, and Arthur Townsley of Dakota broke through to secure House seats, and longtime Dakota statesman Richard Pettigrew - a former Liberal Cabinet official, to boot! - declared himself a Socialist and became the party's first and for decades only Senator. This was the heartland of the Western Federation of Miners, which had historically advocated only for direct industrial action, and the small breakthroughs of the early 1910s persuaded Haywood at least a little that perhaps a change in his thinking was overdue.
Nonetheless, the 1910 election proved that while Socialists could win, they could really mostly only win where the conservatives were not a threat. Liberals were as exotic a creature in the Mountain States in 1910 as the spotted owl is today, so the Socialists could safely run against the dominant Democrats from the left. Back East, in competitive states where the AFL had organized most unions, the Socialists were often tarred even by union bosses as wild-eyed madmen who would either burn the country to the ground or throw it back to the hands of anti-union Liberals, and it was a message that often worked on the semi-literate working classes who placed a great deal of trust in their union machines.
This was the state of affairs that continued to persuade Haywood against full electoralism. Debs would later remark that the Socialists should have better leveraged their opportunities that emerged in the last years before the war, lest they sink back to being a scattered organization little better than municipal independents, such as the city government of Emil Siedel in Milwaukee that popularized the term "sewer socialism" and appealed to laborists and goo-goos alike in a curious fusion coalition for that time. But the Haywood-Debs rivalry, while not splitting the Socialists in two as many left-wing parties of the day would have otherwise, left it somewhat adrift and unable to form a coherent and overarching strategy, and though the IWW punched well above the weight of its total membership through its entry under the Socialist banner still could not break the ever-tightening bonds ahead of 1912 between Hearst's Democrats and mainstream organized labor..."
- The American Socialists
Nonetheless, the 1910 election proved that while Socialists could win, they could really mostly only win where the conservatives were not a threat. Liberals were as exotic a creature in the Mountain States in 1910 as the spotted owl is today, so the Socialists could safely run against the dominant Democrats from the left. Back East, in competitive states where the AFL had organized most unions, the Socialists were often tarred even by union bosses as wild-eyed madmen who would either burn the country to the ground or throw it back to the hands of anti-union Liberals, and it was a message that often worked on the semi-literate working classes who placed a great deal of trust in their union machines.
This was the state of affairs that continued to persuade Haywood against full electoralism. Debs would later remark that the Socialists should have better leveraged their opportunities that emerged in the last years before the war, lest they sink back to being a scattered organization little better than municipal independents, such as the city government of Emil Siedel in Milwaukee that popularized the term "sewer socialism" and appealed to laborists and goo-goos alike in a curious fusion coalition for that time. But the Haywood-Debs rivalry, while not splitting the Socialists in two as many left-wing parties of the day would have otherwise, left it somewhat adrift and unable to form a coherent and overarching strategy, and though the IWW punched well above the weight of its total membership through its entry under the Socialist banner still could not break the ever-tightening bonds ahead of 1912 between Hearst's Democrats and mainstream organized labor..."
- The American Socialists
Oh, trust me - even the self-serving ones can be very useful. Then you start getting itno their heads and figuring out what they put in, what they left out, WHY they did both, what this says about their psychology and politics
Okay, this is interesting. So Townsley does manage to get into Congress in Dakota - i somewhat wonder if this means he'll oddly enough have less influence than in OTL where he was the unelected leader of the NPL. Still, it's good to see him get into Congess - he always regretted not putting himself forward for the Senate in OTL. And its also good to see the Socialists in Milwaukee doing well - hopefully they can manage to keep the Dems and Republicans from turning the City commission and Mayor into nonpartisan positions (this underminded the Socialists, though not fatally)
By the way, I recently learned about another Socialist from my neck of the woods who was in the Assembly back in the late teens. Herman Marth. Not sure if you want to do anythign with him, but thought I'd point you in his direction. Honestly kind of shocked I didn't know about the guy and embarassed!
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Herman_Marth- Status