What if President William McKinley had never been assassinated?

[Mike67]

What if President William McKinley had never been assassinated? I think President McKinley would have won Re-Election in 1904 over Democrat Alton Parker. I don't think President McKinley would have run for a Third Term considering how bad the health of his wife was I think Teddy Roosevelt would have had the 1908 Presidency handed to him on a silver platter easily beating William Jennings Bryan,he would have defeated Woodrow Wilson in the 1912 Elections for his Second Term and I think he would have beaten Democrat Thomas R Marshall for a Third Term as President in 1916.

[FEMA Camp Administrator]

McKinley had already won a second term in 1900. It would be someone else in 1904.

[Mike67]

McKinley had already won a second term in 1900. It would be someone else in 1904.

Thanks for the info

[True Federalist (진정한 연방 주의자)]

McKinley had already won a second term in 1900. It would be someone else in 1904.

Not necessarily. McKinley would have been only 61 in 1904, and probably still popular. Also Ida's health no doubt would have been better had her husband still lived. He might not have gotten the nomination in 1904, but I see no reason he wouldn't have tried.

[Mike67]

McKinley had already won a second term in 1900. It would be someone else in 1904.

Not necessarily. McKinley would have been only 61 in 1904, and probably still popular. Also Ida's health no doubt would have been better had her husband still lived. He might not have gotten the nomination in 1904, but I see no reason he wouldn't have tried.

Great points you make True. McKinley's death caused Ida's health to slip fast. It would have been very interesting to have had Teddy Roosevelt President during WW1. I think the US would have entered WW1 in 1917 or possibly even earlier under the Administration of TR just like it did with Woodrow Wilson.

[True Federalist (진정한 연방 주의자)]

McKinley had already won a second term in 1900. It would be someone else in 1904.

Not necessarily. McKinley would have been only 61 in 1904, and probably still popular. Also Ida's health no doubt would have been better had her husband still lived. He might not have gotten the nomination in 1904, but I see no reason he wouldn't have tried.

Great points you make True. McKinley's death caused Ida's health to slip fast. It would have been very interesting to have had Teddy Roosevelt President during WW1. I think the US would have entered WW1 in 1917 or possibly even earlier under the Administration of TR just like it did with Woodrow Wilson.

Unless McKinley dies in office, Teddy doesn't become president, at least not immediately after him.

[Kingpoleon]

Butterflies very well could avoid WWI all together.

[True Federalist (진정한 연방 주의자)]

Butterflies very well could avoid WWI all together.

It could affect when it happened, when the US got involve (if at all) and if we ended up on the British or German side. But avoiding the Great War altogether was pretty much impossible by 1900.

[Mike67]

Butterflies very well could avoid WWI all together.

It could affect when it happened, when the US got involve (if at all) and if we ended up on the British or German side. But avoiding the Great War altogether was pretty much impossible by 1900.

If Teddy Roosevelt had been President the US may have entered WW1 in 1915 or 1916 because he heavily criticized Woodrow Wilson calling him a coward for not declaring war on Germany after the sinking of the Lusitania.

[mencken]

McKinley had already won a second term in 1900. It would be someone else in 1904.

Not necessarily. McKinley would have been only 61 in 1904, and probably still popular. Also Ida's health no doubt would have been better had her husband still lived. He might not have gotten the nomination in 1904, but I see no reason he wouldn't have tried.

You do not think McKinley would have stuck to precedent?

[True Federalist (진정한 연방 주의자)]

McKinley had already won a second term in 1900. It would be someone else in 1904.

Not necessarily. McKinley would have been only 61 in 1904, and probably still popular. Also Ida's health no doubt would have been better had her husband still lived. He might not have gotten the nomination in 1904, but I see no reason he wouldn't have tried.

You do not think McKinley would have stuck to precedent?

Grant had flirted with the idea of trying for a third term and the reason no other two-term president tried for a third term in the 19th century had nothing to do with Washington's precedent.  Jefferson was tired of the presidency and essentially quit before his second term was over in all but name.  Madison, Monroe, and Jackson all retired because the Presidency was proving personally ruinous to them financially because of the inattention to their own personal affairs and thus felt the need to resume control of their plantations.  McKinley likely would have been in good shape physically, financially, and politically, and he would have been relatively young.

[LabourJersey]

According to several books, Roosevelt may not have even got the nomination in 1904, regardless of his popularity. Mark Hanna's New York allies wanted to make TR Vice President mostly to get him out of Albany; I doubt Hanna and his cronies, if they were still in the White House, would have let a true Reformer like TR get the nomination at the Convention.

[mianfei]

What if President William McKinley had never been assassinated? I think President McKinley would have won Re-Election in 1904 over Democrat Alton Parker. I don't think President McKinley would have run for a Third Term considering how bad the health of his wife was I think Teddy Roosevelt would have had the 1908 Presidency handed to him on a silver platter easily beating William Jennings Bryan,he would have defeated Woodrow Wilson in the 1912 Elections for his Second Term and I think he would have beaten Democrat Thomas R Marshall for a Third Term as President in 1916.

If the GOP avoided a split like that of 1912 – and Theodore Roosevelt was the kind of strong leader who might have had enough power to allow that – it did not have too difficult as task to hold power throughout the 1900s and 1910s.

The Democratic Party had become insignificant in most of New England, the Pacific States and the Upper Midwest as a result of the System of 1896, and I do not see anyone before Al Smith managing to mobilise its urban white ethnic base enough to threaten a united GOP. Put plainly, if there had been someone in the 1900s and 1910s able to do what Al Smith did in the 1920s, it would have been done then.

The big question is whether Theodore Roosevelt would have been able to get America through World War I as successfully as his distant cousin was to get the nation through World War II. Theodore’s imperialist leanings do not suggest he would have been able to avoid a war altogether, and the possibility of entering World War I on the German side – more realistic with a Republican President not bound to the old-stock South – would have been very problematic for relationships with Canada and also with the Yankee populations that remained the core of the Republican Party.

For this reason, it is likely Theodore Roosevelt would have, as Wilson did, joined the war on the British side. The question is whether Teddy would have fought it better than did Wilson?

If he did not, he might have suffered a defeat rivalling Alf Landon’s in 1936 to a Democratic Party much less dissociated from the Southern landowners than even FDR’s party was. That might have led to a 1920s even more extreme in its racial discrimination – even to a Ku Klux Klan that ruled the whole US as it did states like Colorado and Indiana in reality.

If he did, would this have established longer-term GOP dominance than actually observed?

[True Federalist (진정한 연방 주의자)]

Granted, it would've taken some time before the conquered Canadian provinces were admitted as States, and the Quebecois would've caused us as many problems as they did for English Canadians, but we'd have digested Canada just fine once we "liberated" it.

[Amenhotep Bakari-Sellers]

Then, probably Charles E Hughes becomes president instead of Theodore Roosevelt

[MarkD]

I wonder if anybody would have been able to persuade McKinley to appoint Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr. to the Supreme Court in 1902? If that appointment had not been made, it would have been a terrible shame, because Holmes was one of the most outstanding Justices we've ever had. What would the Court have been like for the next 29 years without "The Great Dissenter"?

[Amenhotep Bakari-Sellers]

Probably a Democratic successor 1 term wins in 1904 and Charles E Hughes would of been elected in 1908. It would have been harder for Teddy Roosevelt's rise, if McKinley hadn't been killed.

[Schiff for Senate]

McKinley had already won a second term in 1900. It would be someone else in 1904.

Not necessarily. McKinley would have been only 61 in 1904, and probably still popular. Also Ida's health no doubt would have been better had her husband still lived. He might not have gotten the nomination in 1904, but I see no reason he wouldn't have tried.

But he likely wouldn't try and break the two-term precedent Washington set. If he did it's possible he gets punished at the polls - he might take the nomination but a good Democratic candidate might be able to pull off an upset win (then again, FDR won in 1940 by a lot).

[Schiff for Senate]

I think Theodore Roosevelt was going to become president someday; if not in 1901, then he might have been the party's nominee in 1904 and won anyway. He was McKinley's vice-president, young, energetic, photogenic, popular and a war hero. Why not?

[StateBoiler]

I just listened to a podcast on the 1900 election. McKinley was talked into running again in 1900, so even though he would've been eligible to run in 1904, he would've likely passed.

Think Teddy would've at least ran for the Republican nomination in 1904. However, I don't think he gets it due to antipathy to him was high. The reason he became VP? A New York Republican powerbroker hated him and wanted New York Gov. Teddy Roosevelt out of New York politics. Teddy of course thought the VP job was a dead-end and wanted nothing to deal with it, but this powerbroker worked the Convention hard and got everyone onboard, including Teddy. Throw in that national party chair Mark Hanna thought little of Teddy telling McKinley at the start "your job is to live the next 4 years". Teddy would've been a strong candidate among the grassroots but if these machine smoke-filled backrooms live up to their reputation, Teddy should not have become the nominee in 1904 after McKinley served his 2nd term and they would have instead as a stop Teddy candidate backed...who knows who.

In the event he did however, that means he'd probably served from 1905-1913. And if he was as popular as he was when he left office, it means his political heir is the one that handles the growing conflict in Europe in the runup to the 1916 election, not Woodrow Wilson. I see no way Wilson ever becomes president without McKinley's assassination.

[Agonized-Statism]

As much as I like to think this means a socialist US by 2021, some progressive gets elected eventually. Probably not Roosevelt, though.

I can't see a Democrat winning in 1904. The party had been in disarray since the Civil War, made worse by WJB's disruption.

[All Along The Watchtower]

Philander C. Knox succeeds him as President in 1905.