Balloon #2
Section Three: The Presidential Succession Crisis of 1902 and the Election of William Jennings Bryan
President William McKinley's Funeral Service, 1901
In the Two Worlds it is the history of the United States of America that diverges the most rapidly from one another. Such a radical distortion of national history would not happen again in Pershing's World for another fifteen years with the succession of events that led to the creation of the Federation of People’s Republics in the territory of the fallen Russian Empire. Why is it that the histories of these two countries, that would become superpowers in both worlds, were so rapidly distorted while other countries would take decades to see real difference within their territories? A theory that has been accepted by most in the allohistorical community is that these two countries, in the early 1900s, were in a state of flux and change, where the decisions of a few key individuals and the occurrence of a few distinct events could have an enormous influence on the future. With small unimportant changes percolating throughout the entire world by 1897, it is theoretically impossible that one such important historical figure wouldn’t be affected in some way within a few years. This is true for Theodore Roosevelt and Vladimir Ilyich Lenin, the first of which began a radically different life in the other world due to the lack of his experience in Cuba and the second of which would die from tuberculosis in the year 1900.
Theodore Roosevelt was working in the United States Department of the Navy as Assistant Secretary in the year 1898 when the Spanish-American War failed to begin. In our sister timeline he did not suddenly rise as a national hero. He continued in his position as Assistant Secretary of the Navy for four more years than he did in our timeline until finally becoming Secretary of the Navy in 1902.
With Roosevelt in the Naval Department, President McKinley had no easy answer to who would replace the late Vice President Garret Hobart who died from heart failure in 1899 (in both timelines). As in our world, he favored the selection of the “father of the Senate” William B. Allison but the Senator declined. Joseph G. Cannon was eventually chosen as a trustworthy representative of the “Old Guard” Republicans, a good man to complete the ticket. What President McKinley did not know was that he had chosen his presidential successor.
Leon Frank Czolgosz had in both timelines a similar life. He was an unemployed Polish-American factory worker who became obsessed with the anarchist movement in the late 1890s. Already a distraught individual, having been bullied throughout his childhood and constantly at odds with his family, he decided to assassinate President McKinley after reading of the successful assassination of King Umberto I of Italy by fellow anarchist Gaetano Bresci. In September of 1901, having bought a revolver, he moved to Washington D.C., renting a room in a low-class apartment. He began stalking President McKinley, attending every public event he could and learning his weekly routine. Finally, on October 11, Leon approached the President on the street as he was entering a carriage and shot him point blank four times. [1] President William McKinley would not live to see the next day. As in our timeline, Leon Czolgosz was eventually tried and executed to the dismay of the anarchist community. Unlike in our world, in Pershing’s World Joseph G. Cannon was the man that succeeded to the presidency.
“Uncle Joe” Cannon’s presidency was eventful, but short-lived. As in our home timeline, Booker T. Washington, the most important black leader of the era, became the first African American to be invited to dinner on November 6, 1901 at the White House. There he discussed politics and racism with President Cannon. White outcry especially in the Southern states was very strong. In an interview six days later Cannon refused to ameliorate the situation and pugnaciously threatened his naysayers. He is quoted as having said: “Being invested by the Constitution of this great nation with all Presidential powers and responsibilities, I promise to do all I can to obstruct those that would rather return to those oppressive institutions that have been removed through four years of fraternal bloodshed. We, as a people, have already won that battle, and whoever wants to return to it I shall consider an enemy of the state. The time has come for a leader to right the wrongs that have been wrought in many states of the Union to deny the Negro his rights and freedoms that were attained for him a generation ago.” This caused further outrage in the South to the point that three federal buildings were bombed in Alabama and South Carolina.
On December 5, President Joseph Cannon delivered a 15,000-word address to Congress asking its assistance in curbing African-American segregation and disfranchisement that was sweeping the South. Cannon had found a crusade and the newspapers lambasted him and his efforts continuously. Hostility grew quickly in the South during the winter months. On January 12 a protest march on the United States Capitol in Washington D.C. was organized by Southern right’s activists, mimicking the march by Coxey’s Army in 1894. Nearly 8,000 supporters showed up for the event and attracted national attention. The Cannon administration, unwilling to back down, organized a press conference on the 14th of January where President Cannon denied that he would change his position on the racial civil rights issues. After speaking for twenty minutes, young Alabaman reporter Timothy Scott pulled out a gun that he had carefully concealed in a briefcase and fired two shots before he was detained. One of the bullets struck the newest American President on the side of his the face. President Joseph G. Cannon succumbed to his wounds two days later. Timothy Scott would follow the path of Leon Czolgosz to execution by electric chair. [2]
After two assassinations in the last four months, the United States of America was left in complete shock. This would be come to be known as the Succession Crisis of 1902 [3]. In this dire time, it was not to be left without at least a temporary leader. On January 17th, twelve hours after the death of Joseph G. Cannon, the current Secretary of State John Hay took the oath of office and was sworn in to the office of President. Hay began his presidency with a bout of intense melancholy brought on by the deaths of four close friends of his in the last four months: William McKinley, John Nicolay, Clarence King, and now Joseph Cannon. He would report: “I wonder how much grief I can endure. It seems to me that I am full to the brim. Yet I feel no disgust of life itself, only regret that so little is left and so narrow a field of work remaining.”
Nearly immediately talk had begun of calling a special presidential election that November. While the 1886 Presidential Succession Act put to bed the calling of a special election in the event that both President and Vice President are unable to fulfill a term, many questioned why an unelected official like John Hay should be placed at the head of the country for the next three years. In February, newspaper magnate William Randolph Hearst began a campaign for a 1902 presidential election and called John Hay’s presidency “Undemocratic and Un-American” while nevertheless praising him for his ability as Secretary of State. President Hay had no intention to fight for his newfound position; indeed he had expressed his intention to leave politics since the year 1900. Later on he would actively support the idea of leaving the presidency to another if such an action was made legal in Congress. Senator Mark Hanna had emerged as the front-running leader of the Republican Party and though no enemy of Hay he desired a better man at the helm of the country, say, himself. It was a poor move to make in hindsight. The Republican-dominated Congress was able to pass in the spring months a 1902 Presidential Succession Act that re-established the special presidential election that had been removed from the 1886 act. A presidential election was to be held in November of that year and as such shift the presidential election cycle by two years.
William Jennings Bryan Campaigning for the Presidency, 1902
In June the Republicans convened in Chicago and Senator Mark Hanna was quickly nominated as the party's candidate. While he would have appreciated the nomination of Charles W. Fairbanks for vice-president, Hanna accepted Robert R. Hitt as Vice President on the ticket to appease the radical wing of the party. In July the Democratic Party met in St. Louis and despite challenges from Grover Cleveland and Alton B. Parker, William Jennings Bryan managed to secure candidacy for the third time in a row. His opposition, the “reorganizers” as they called themselves, was in the planning stages of pushing for an alternative candidate who would better represent the party as a whole and the calling of a special election caught them off guard. Though Bryan was somewhat reluctant to run again after so little time to change the national mood and knowing that if he lost a third election he could never run again, he saw the turn of events as being divinely orchestrate and took his God-given opportunity [3]. There was little question that Hengry G. Davis of West Virginia would accompany him on the ticket in order to secure the West Virginian vote.
The campaigning of the 1902 election was the oddest that had been organized for decades due to the rushed nature of the occasion. Southern agitation was still high: since the assassination of Cannon, the trial of young Timothy Scott received national attention and something of a media war was being waged between the different regions of the United States. Everyone wanted a scapegoat for the terrible events that had caused the Succession Crisis; the South and racism was an easy target for Northern newspapers, while in the South commentators blamed Northern radical progressives and government centralism for creating the tensions that caused Scott to kill President Cannon. The nation had not faced such a division since the years following the Civil War and the bombing of several post offices in the Deep South generated fear across the country that it was heading towards another conflict. State’s rights became a very important issue everywhere, especially in the South. Bryan was the first to name himself champion and defender of Jeffersonian ideals. Hanna came in second and despite many speeches he was unable to secure the confidence of voters that he was the “State’s Rights candidate”. Even in the East and in the West, where state’s rights weren’t the predominant issue at hand, there was much attention given towards which candidate would better hold the country together. Rich industrialists and business magnates sided once again with the Republics, but only a few months to campaign, the financial advantage wasn’t as important as in earlier elections. Bryan used the campaign slogan “Let the People Rule”, very similar to his 1908 campaign slogan in our own world and his platform was a reprise from 1896 and 1900 though with more emphasis given towards strict constitutionalism, state’s rights and cutting government budgets than towards free silver. Hanna’s campaign was based on the slogan of “Continuing the Legacy of McKinley” and stressed opposition to the administrative style of Cannon.
On the morning after the election in November, although the returns were not all in, the Democratic Party began to realize that a miracle had been wrought. It was exactly what they had desired from William Jennings Bryan since he had taken control of the party six years ago. It is important to note that in Pershing’s World, the 1900 election had been much more close and the Democrats had managed to carry Delaware, Maryland, Nebraska and Utah which they hadn’t in the equivalent election in our timeline [4]. This explains why it was comparatively easier for Bryan to make a comeback than in the 1908 presidential election in our world. In 1902 the Democrats won all of these states and in addition were able to take the electoral votes of Indiana, Kansas, Ohio, Oregon, South Dakota, Washington, West Virginia, and Wyoming. Indiana, Ohio and Oregon were surprise victories for the Democratic Party as each had been won with less than 10,000 votes. William Jennings Bryan was to be the 28th President of the United States of America beginning on March 4, 1903. Everyone in the Union, the common man, the industrialists and business magnates, Southerners and Northerners, the labor unions and the farmers could sense that a new era was to begin in American history. Bryan had been such a controversial figure who had promised a complete restructuring of society, he had held principles and ideas so utopian in character that perhaps not even the Founding Fathers could have rivaled him. In contrast to the great compromising politicians of the century, Bryan was a man whose principles could never be so diluted, and his determined optimism was about to infect an entire nation for good or for worse.
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[1] In Pershing's World the Pan-American Exposition was not delayed due to the Spanish-American War and was held in 1899 at Cayuga Island with much less spectacle compared to our timeline. As such, Czolgosz had to find a different time and location for his plans.
[2] Full credit goes to the poster Abe Lincoln for this idea which he wrote
here.
[3] This factor in motivating Bryan to run again in 1902 would never be publicly acknowledged until the 1920s. For years he did not dare mention that the killings of McKinley and Cannon, men he deeply respected, were caused by the intention of God.
[4] A much closer presidential race due, once again, to the lack of the Spanish-American War which made McKinley look like the stronger candidate. Here the public was still very happy with McKinley's administration but not to the degree as IOTL.
Comments?
I had thought that maybe putting up the German lyrics was a better idea but the best translation I could get just looked odd in the actual post.
