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Dr. M.A. Davis @mikedavis.bsky.social · 8m

come on Mel, surprise everyone and have this be a Book of Mormon crossover.

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Dr. M.A. Davis @mikedavis.bsky.social · 20m

once saw it put "HULK CAN'T SMASH STEEL BEAMS"

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Dr. M.A. Davis @mikedavis.bsky.social · 24m

in all seriousness, I think Murray is a much more likely threat to our national civil liberties in the 1930s than Huey Long, as it's much more likely he could have been POTUS.

Dr. M.A. Davis @mikedavis.bsky.social · 1h

2. The Fascist

Ah jeez, what to say about "Alfalfa Bill" Murray (1869-1952)? The virulent racism and anti-Semitism. The mass firing of college presidents who crossed him. The personal corruption. The use of the National Guard and martial law to enforce his whims. The drunken failson heir.

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Dr. M.A. Davis @mikedavis.bsky.social · 29m

and there was recent evidence for it - you could plausibly look at what had happened in postwar Germany with deficit spending and hyperinflation and say "get thee behind me, Satan!"

Dr. M.A. Davis @mikedavis.bsky.social · 35m

so okay, you might take issue with some of the thought experiments I've posted below - but I think all in all, this offers real evidence that FDR was indispensable.

No one else was going to:
support the New Deal AND internationalism AND see a Democratic Presidency carried through 1940 and 1944.

Dr. M.A. Davis @mikedavis.bsky.social · 36m

(Garner, BTW, wound up outliving virtually everyone else in the Roosevelt administration despite his age, dying in 1967 at the age of 98! One of JFK's last official acts was to call Garner on his 95th birthday; November 22, 1963...)

Dr. M.A. Davis @mikedavis.bsky.social · 37m

As for the international scene - look at the link I posted just above this. Like many white Southerners, Garner was an internationalist, with a newspaper in his district noting that it was the only area where he and FDR agreed by 1941!

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Dr. M.A. Davis @mikedavis.bsky.social · 39m

liberals in his first term but after re-election in 1936, he probably would have moved to the right, had some troubles, and seen a Republican victory in 1940.

www.loc.gov

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Dr. M.A. Davis @mikedavis.bsky.social · 48m

(One interesting thing, BTW, is that candidate Garner in 1940 was willing to let anti-lynching legislation come to the floor in Congress if it meant winning over Black voters in the North)

So likely President Garner would have been to FDR's right on the economy - he might have compromised with

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Dr. M.A. Davis @mikedavis.bsky.social · 52m

he had been willing to go along with spending in the first wave of the New Deal, but as FDR moved further to the left in his second term, Garner didn't go with him - for example he wanted to balance the budget, break the Flint strikes of 1936-1937 (on behalf of the bosses), and cut overall spending.

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Dr. M.A. Davis @mikedavis.bsky.social · 54m

tended to view his Mexican-American constituents extremely poorly.

Garner as VP was a loyal supporter of FDR and the New Deal in his first term but grew more and more disenchanted with Roosevelt. The "labor-baiting, poker-playing, whiskey-drinking, evil old man" was basically a conservative.

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Dr. M.A. Davis @mikedavis.bsky.social · 56m

sheriffs who use airplanes, prairie skyscrapers, mechanized farms, $100 Stetson hats. Conservative John Garner appeals to many a conservative voter."

If that sounds a little ominous, it was. Garner was a product of the south Texas of the turn of the 20th century, elected by the patron system, and

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Dr. M.A. Davis @mikedavis.bsky.social · 57m

"Cactus Jack is 71, sound in wind & limb, a hickory conservative who does not represent the Old South of magnolias, hoopskirts, pillared verandas, but the New South: moneymaking, industrial, hardboiled, still expanding too rapidly to brood over social problems. He stands for oil derricks,

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Dr. M.A. Davis @mikedavis.bsky.social · 57m

That's the POD for MAN IN THE HIGH CASTLE, among other things.

Certainly there's much about Garner to make a modern person unhappy. Here's how Henry Luce's TIME described him in 1940 when he sought the Democratic nomination before it became clear FDR would win that third term.

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Dr. M.A. Davis @mikedavis.bsky.social · 59m

6. Cactus Jack

John Nance Garner (1868-1967) tends to get demonized whenever liberal historians want to speculate on what-might-have-beens - after all, not only might he have won the nomination in 1932, he could have become POTUS in 1933 had Zangara killed POTUS-elect FDR in Miami.

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Dr. M.A. Davis @mikedavis.bsky.social · 1h

One interesting thing with Smith, BTW, is that he was also more internationalist than FDR - as early as 1936, he (IIRC) even advocated for the US to boycott the Olympics in Berlin, though like many US Catholics he took a very dim view of the Republican cause in Spain.

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Dr. M.A. Davis @mikedavis.bsky.social · 1h

we trace a direct line from Teddy Roosevelt to Franklin Roosevelt but plenty of people at the time did _not_ do so.

So President Smith (getting back to that idea) would certainly have been to FDR's right on the economy; though perhaps not as much as OTL.

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Dr. M.A. Davis @mikedavis.bsky.social · 1h

Many men (and women) who had been on the 'liberal' side in the 1920s were deeply uncomfortable with the New Deal - they saw its deficit spending as leading the nation to financial ruin, FDR's popularity seemed like nascent fascism, and the New Deal's social agenda seemed revolutionary.

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Dr. M.A. Davis @mikedavis.bsky.social · 1h

as just personal spite - which certainly was present. Smith never really took FDR seriously as a person after polio, and was outraged that his former protege had won the office Smith had been seeking for the last twelve years.

But also, let's give some space to Progressive anti-New Dealism.

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Dr. M.A. Davis @mikedavis.bsky.social · 1h

2. Modern liberals might like Smith but it's not at all clear Smith would like modern liberals. His ties to very wealthy men like John J. Raskob date back before 1932 and would continue afterwards, and of course he became a very bitter opponent of FDR and the New Deal. Sometimes this is written off

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Dr. M.A. Davis @mikedavis.bsky.social · 1h

But if you're trying to imagine a Smith Presidency after 1932, you have to reckon with two very serious problems:

1. Smith was not going to get the nomination in 1932 after losing in 1928. He was already anathema to many Dems and being a _loser_ on top of that finished him off.

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More details
Title: SMITH, ALFRED. HONORABLE

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Dr. M.A. Davis @mikedavis.bsky.social · 1h

5. Al Smith (1873-1944)

Al Smith tends to be a politician modern liberals identify with - an urban politician allied with Progressives, demonized for his religion and ethnic background, hated by bigots and nativists, you can draw direct links from him to a later generation of American politicos.

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Dr. M.A. Davis @mikedavis.bsky.social · 1h

But FDR had two serious rivals - former New York Governor Al Smith (1873-1944) and John Nance Garner (1868-1967!) - who I want to discuss specifically. (In a previous thread I talked about William Gibbs McAdoo, who might plausibly have been a candidate had things gone differently)

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Dr. M.A. Davis @mikedavis.bsky.social · 1h

So far the men I've been discussing were basically "dark horse" candidates - men that the convention might have turned to had the delegates deadlocked. This had happened several times during the 1920s (Harding in '20, Davis in '24) and was thought to be likely before FDR nailed the nomination.

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Dr. M.A. Davis @mikedavis.bsky.social · 1h

4. The Weirdo

I am not going to say much about Melvin Traylor, the Chicago banker who was not a serious Presidential candidate but did get quite a few votes at the convention, but he looks like a charming guy in this TIME cover from November 1932.

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