1933: Assassination attempt on FDR succeeds, Garner is President
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  1933: Assassination attempt on FDR succeeds, Garner is President
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Author Topic: 1933: Assassination attempt on FDR succeeds, Garner is President  (Read 958 times)
TDAS04
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« on: November 21, 2013, 03:22:25 PM »

In 1933, President Roosevelt is struck by Giuseppe Zangara's bullet, and the President dies.  Vice President John Nance Garner is sworn in as the new President.

How would history have been different?  What would a Garner administration have been like?  Would Garner have been the Democratic nominee in 1936
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LeBron
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« Reply #1 on: November 21, 2013, 10:05:42 PM »

Ouch. That would have sucked big time.

I think the fact that the Democrats controlled Congress would help in still getting the New Deal reforms passed, but not until at least 1934 or maybe even 1936 when they controlled a good number of seats in both houses could they override Garner's vetoes on any recovery legislation.

He would lose in the 1936 primary for sure though to someone much more liberal.
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Kalwejt
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« Reply #2 on: November 30, 2013, 01:11:10 AM »

Garner was quite popular among the Democratic base. After all, he was long considered a frontrunner for the 1940 nomination, even as his break with FDR was known.

He'd certainly be the 1936 nominee under such circumstances. As of his government, he'd probably act similarly to FDR in the first year or two (since they were initially in agreement). However, not on such scale. For him, that would be more an emergency measures than any deep reforms.
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Mechaman
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« Reply #3 on: November 30, 2013, 08:32:30 AM »
« Edited: November 30, 2013, 08:36:20 AM by Communists For McCain »

Garner was quite popular among the Democratic base. After all, he was long considered a frontrunner for the 1940 nomination, even as his break with FDR was known.

He'd certainly be the 1936 nominee under such circumstances. As of his government, he'd probably act similarly to FDR in the first year or two (since they were initially in agreement). However, not on such scale. For him, that would be more an emergency measures than any deep reforms.

Yes this.

You have to remember that FDR was actually campaigning as a critic of Hoover's enormous deficits in 1932.  His 1932 campaign was actually to THE RIGHT of Al Smith's 1928 campaign, who ran on a platform very similar to the New Deal BEFORE the Depression (Smith's right wing turn would come a bit later, in the mid 1930s).  Many people say that FDR took ideas from Hoover, it'd be more fair to say that he took them from Smith.  Many considered FDR's tenure as Governor to be Smith's spiritual fifth and sixth terms.  While FDR was already a pretty liberal politician by that time (he was probably one of only a very few Anti-Tammany Hall reformers who had good intentions and wasn't motivated by anti-Irish bigotry), dealing with the Great Depression pushed him way to the left into what would've been (at the time) considered borderline socialist territory.  And mind, he was President and Garner was Vice President.

Keep in mind, just twenty years or so before most people in both conservative and liberal camps thought that direct government intervention in how businesses were ran was wrong (talking about things like fire escapes).  And this was a period of time when anti-trust legislation was all the rage.

As President, I wouldn't imagine that Garner would sit back and be like "oh hells bells!" unless he really wanted to lose re-election in 1936.  It was considered pretty objectively by most people that emergency government interventionism was required by 1933.  Hell even Hoover did something, though he refused to get directly involved in business (his downfall).  Garner, who actually did have a somewhat "liberal" record (if we're thinking about Wilsonianism), might've governed as FDR Lite.
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Kalwejt
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« Reply #4 on: November 30, 2013, 02:55:00 PM »

Garner was quite popular among the Democratic base. After all, he was long considered a frontrunner for the 1940 nomination, even as his break with FDR was known.

He'd certainly be the 1936 nominee under such circumstances. As of his government, he'd probably act similarly to FDR in the first year or two (since they were initially in agreement). However, not on such scale. For him, that would be more an emergency measures than any deep reforms.

Yes this.

You have to remember that FDR was actually campaigning as a critic of Hoover's enormous deficits in 1932.  His 1932 campaign was actually to THE RIGHT of Al Smith's 1928 campaign, who ran on a platform very similar to the New Deal BEFORE the Depression (Smith's right wing turn would come a bit later, in the mid 1930s).  Many people say that FDR took ideas from Hoover, it'd be more fair to say that he took them from Smith.  Many considered FDR's tenure as Governor to be Smith's spiritual fifth and sixth terms.  While FDR was already a pretty liberal politician by that time (he was probably one of only a very few Anti-Tammany Hall reformers who had good intentions and wasn't motivated by anti-Irish bigotry), dealing with the Great Depression pushed him way to the left into what would've been (at the time) considered borderline socialist territory.  And mind, he was President and Garner was Vice President.

Very true.

During the campaign, FDR actually used a lot of a small-government rhetoric (Government - Federal and State and local - costs too much or eliminate unnecessary functions of Government), while Garner accused Hoover of "leading the country down the path of socialism".

Hoover is reputed to have said, as he was just to leave office, that Roosevelt "will continue my work", though Mechaman is right to point out Smith administration inspired the Democrats more than weak actions by Hoover.

As of Smith turn, his personal resentments toward Roosevelt after the 1932 nomination battle certainly played a part in his later turn to the right.
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RogueBeaver
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« Reply #5 on: December 07, 2013, 05:40:47 PM »

Garner would've governed as FDR-lite, but I doubt you see much of a permanent welfare state unless Congress overrides his vetoes to enact something. No Wagner Act since Garner was very hostile to organized labor. No Court-packing either. Congress can be a problem: on one hand he handled them very well, on the other they'd probably push for things more liberal than he wanted. Though of course Rayburn and Robinson might temper that out of deference. In foreign affairs Garner was probably aligned with his fellow SoDems, but he didn't have the skillset required to even try nudging the country in an internationalist direction. More conservative economic policy in his second term.
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