The American Monarchy: 1938 - 1941Prime Minister Francisco Villa entered into the summer 1938 elections immensely popular. The 59-year-old Villa was re-nominated unanimously at the SDP convention in Philadelphia, where he called for even further progress: nationalization of major industry following final ratification of the 23rd amendment, national healthcare, social security, and civil rights legislation. Villa would spend the rest of the spring and the summer focused on foreign policy, particularly the situation in China and relations with Ireland. In March 1938, he finalized the
Irish-American Defensive Pact, after months of negotiation and a two-week visit to Ireland with Crown Prince Robert. At the ILP convention in Kansas City, there were calls from many delegates to disband the party and join the SDP, as there were fears that the SDP would win a majority of seats and no longer need the ILP in their coalition. The motion was narrowly defeated, mostly due to apprehension from the isolationist wing of the party, following the Irish-American treaty. William Borah declined to run for re-election as party leader, and Kansas Senator Alf Landon was elected as party head on the fourth ballot. At the Liberal Party convention, held in Boston, R.B. Bennett was challenged for the nomination by Senator Arthur Vandenberg of Michigan, an ardent isolationist who opposed Villa's treaty. Bennet, an interventionist, supported the treaty. Vandenberg defeated Bennett 57% to 41%, and Bennett quickly endorsed him, though some interventionist Liberals walked out of the convention. A week later, at the Populist convention held in Richmond, Virginia, Theodore G. Bilbo also lost his bid for re-election as party leader. Hugo Black, a former Royal Councilor from Mississippi who had lost his seat in the 1934 election by less than 5,000 votes eventually won election as Populist Party leader. While Black promised a revival of the party, it had, in the four years since its landslide 1934 defeat, fallen apart in many ways, losing many of its financial backers and struggling to recruit candidates. Finally, at the ANL convention held in late May, Alvin York was easily re-nominated, and the party platform was re-written to emphasize a strong military and protecting American interests around the world, in an attempt to gain the support of interventionist Liberals.
The June election saw a landslide victory for the SDP, as the party gained control of a majority of the seats in the Senate. The Populist Party’s vote share fell to a new low of 2.4%, only 0.9% higher than that of the Communist Party. The Liberal Party again suffered losses, and the ILP was surprised to see their vote share decrease, as many of their voters switched to the SDP. Besides Villa’s party, the only party to increase their total vote share was the ANL, which shockingly won the second highest popular vote share. The Senate would only briefly reconvene that fall to overwhelmingly approve the Irish-American Defensive Pact, before the Royal Council elections that fall, which saw further SDP gains.
The Senate after the Election of 1938:
Liberal Party: 20.7% PV (-5.4%)
39 CS; 55 PLS; 94 Total Seats (-47)
Social Democratic Party: 40.8% PV (+11.3%)
162 CS; 108 PLS; 270 Total Seats (+98)
Populist Party: 2.4% PV (-1.1%)
5 CS; 0 PLS; 5 Total Seats (-18)
Independent Liberal Party: 11.6% PV (-6.6%)
11 CS; 31 PLS; 42 Total Seats (-47)
American National League: 21.7% PV (+3.2%)
33 CS; 56 PLS; 89 Total Seats (+14)
Other Parties: 2.8% PV (-1.4%)
0 CS; 0 PLS; 0 Total Seats
Total: 500 Seats
MapThe Royal Council after the Election of 1938:
Liberal Party: 10 Seats (-8)
Social Democratic Party: 35 Seats (+11)
Independent Liberal Party: 4 Seats (-3)
American National League: 5 Seats (+2)
Total: 54 Seats
MapThe Second Villa Cabinet (July 1938):
Prime Minister: Francisco Villa (SDP-HM)
Deputy Prime Minister: Norman Thomas (SDP-NY)
Majority Whip: Harry S Truman (SDP-MO)
Secretary of State: Norman Thomas (SDP-NY)
Secretary of the Treasury: Henry A. Wallace (SDP-IA)
Secretary of War: Robert F. Wagner (SDP-NY)
Attorney General: Seymour Stedman (SDP-IL)
Secretary of the Interior: Glen H. Taylor (SDP-LK)
Secretary of Agriculture: Sam Rayburn (SDP-TX)
Secretary of Commerce: Harry Hopkins (SDP-NY)
Secretary of Labor: J. S. Woodsworth (SDP-ON)
When the Senate reconvened in 1939, the focus was, much to Villa’s disappointment, foreign policy. The war in China had become increasingly bloody, as Japanese and British forces pushed into the country from the north and south, respectively. Alvin York, leader of the ANL, called on Villa to stand up to the British-Japanese alliance, warning that, if he did not, they would soon rest their eyes on American possessions. Opposition Leader Vandenberg seemed to come to Villa’s defense, warning that an American excursion in China would lead to the unneeded deaths of thousands of Americans. In April 1939, after a series of bitter meetings with his cabinet (which was largely split between isolationist and interventionists), Villa agreed to send a detachment of the Pacific fleet to the Philippines, along with an additional 30,000 American troops. In the summer of 1939, as Oswald Mosley won a landslide re-election in the United Kingdom, Secretary of State Norman Thomas was in Europe before the League of Nations, demanding that Britain halt its invasion of China; a week later, the House of Commons overwhelmingly voted in favor of leaving the League. Meanwhile, in the United States, Villa had turned back to his domestic agenda. With the passage of the 23rd amendment in late 1938, the SDP-dominated Senate easily re-passed the
Railroad Act and the
Banking Act, nationalizing major railway lines and banks. The passage of these acts, now constitutional, was applauded by the left, but the Liberal Party fiercely opposed it, and petitioned King Henry to veto the bills, which he refused, arguing that they represented the will of the people.
As 1940 began, Prime Minister Villa and his government attempted to continue to push forward with their domestic agenda, but the Senate was once again distracted by international developments. In China, Chinese forces had attempted another assault on Hong Kong, believing that, if they took the British enclave, they would be able to end British involvement. The assault, began in late 1939, was called off by the spring of 1940, with the British defenders again having turned back the Chinese assault. By the end of the
Second Battle of Hong Kong, nearly 350,000 Chinese soldiers were dead, with British and Japanese losses at about 100,000. On April 19th, the British Field Marshall Harold Alexander began a massive assault on the important southern Chinese city of Kunming, where Chinese forces had been heavily fortified. In the United States Senate, Shadow Secretary of War William Dudley Pelley, an ANL Senator from Carolina, demanded that America intervene, before Kunming fell and “Britain, the eternal enemy of American freedom, controls the entire orient!” In May, as the
Battle of Kunming continued to rage, Villa presented the
Lend-Lease Act to the Senate, permitting the King to supply the Chinese government with vast amounts of war material. Though his party was split on intervening in China, the folksy and charming Majority Whip Harry Truman was able to twist enough SDP arms to get most of the party voting for the act. Along with ANL support, the Lend-Lease Act was passed 303 to 195 in late May.
Following the summer recess, the Senate returned to domestic policy. After a month of debate and amendments, King Henry signed the
Social Security Act of 1940 into law in September 1940. Villa, though initially pleased with the passage of the landmark legislation, was frustrated once again when, just a week later, on September 19th, Kunming fell to British forces. Villa called an emergency cabinet meeting, and the King arranged a meeting between Villa, his cabinet, the monarch and his advisors. King Henry argued that, if the United States waited much longer to intervene in China, then it would be too late. Secretary of War Wagner argued that the American people wouldn’t support an unprovoked declaration of war against the British and Japanese and that the United States was not prepared for war in China or the inevitable naval conflicts in the Pacific and Atlantic. As the meeting ended, the king and the cabinet agreed to wait on entering into the conflict formally and continue funding the Chinese war effort. When the Prime Minister returned to the Senate, he oversaw passage of the
Two-Ocean Navy Act, which called for an increase in the United States Navy by 50%, and the
Selective Training and Service Act, beginning the first peacetime draft in the country’s history. When 1941 began, the outlook in China was still grim, though a change in Chinese strategy, as well as the support of American weapons and money, had slowed down the British and Japanese advances. The Americans had encouraged the Chinese to go on the defensive and used scorched-earth tactics and guerilla warfare to slow down the Japanese and British.
On Easter Sunday, 1941, three bombs exploded outside the Belfast City Hall, killing two British soldiers and nineteen civilians. The next day, Prime Minister Oswald Mosley blamed the terrorist attack on the Irish government, and within days, the United Kingdom and the Irish Republic were at war.
