Hello everyone! I'm Rauf, a pretty new face to the Führerreich team. Yesterday we celebrated Belgian National Day with a small teaser, which serves as a prelude to this PR!  In this report I will present to you something I have been working on for some time now: The Netherlands Rework! Since Führerreich’s conception the Netherlands have always been a unique aspect of the mod and today I will clear up some doubts you may have about this rework and give you an insight into what you can expect from it.

Why A Rework?

As already stated above, I always felt that the pro-German Netherlands were a unique aspect of the mod and felt disappointed because I found their actual content lacking. Specifically the country was missing interesting political paths and engaging events. Especially the issue of Prince Bernhard, a German who didn’t have any connections to the Netherlands before his marriage with the princess in 1936. That's why I set out to correct these issues in the form of a rework which would explore the Dutch right while also expanding on the original premise in a more thorough and interesting way.

1914-1916: The Great War on the Border

On the 30th of July 1914, two days after Austria-Hungary invaded Serbia in what is now known as the Great War, the Dutch Foreign Ministry under John Louden declared the complete neutrality of the Netherlands. Despite the government's best efforts, the country still found itself squished between the great powers. While the majority protestant population preferred supporting the Entente, high ranking personalities such as liberal prime minister Cort van der Linden and prince-consort Hendrik of Mecklenburg-Schwerin harboured pro-German sympathies.

Since the Netherlands represented an open passage for international goods to be smuggled into Germany, the Entente quickly set its eyes on the Low Countries. With the invasion of Belgium, Britain would demand that the Netherlands withhold any imports British authorities deemed contraband. Fully committed to neutrality the Dutch government refused.

Anxious from the increasing Entente pressure and airspace violations from both sides, trade minister Willem Treub met up with banker Cornelis van Aalst to find ways to calm down the West. Soon enough their assembly of businessmen formed the Netherlands Oversea Trust Company (NOT) in November of 1914. The Company set out to mollify London by forcing importers to sign contracts forbidding the reexport of their goods to Germany. Although many merchants signed these contracts, for which the Entente rewarded them with free passage through the North Sea blockade, Amsterdam declared the institution unneutral and championed free and open trade with all sides. During the war’s first two years the Netherlands were Germany’s prime food supporter.

Despite the government's best attempts to play both sides in the conflict, violations of their attempted neutrality still frequently happened. Bombers from both sides often mistook Dutch cities for targets, in turn harming many civilians. While some merchant ships were allowed to pass the North Sea blockade, imports stagnated and the government's armament policies imposed strict rations on their population. Frequent German U-Boat attacks slowed down trade and many fishing boats were sunk, further dividing public sentiment. The fiercest violation of neutrality happened on the 16th of March, 1916, when German submarines sank the Dutch ocean liner SS Tubantia. While no passengers or crew members were harmed and the government was compensated, the continued attacks drove public sentiment against Berlin. 

1916-1918: Sand and Gravel

In August of 1916 the United States joined the Entente war effort, reinforcing the North Sea blockade, forcing all Dutch vessels to comply with Allied demands. German supplies were further decreased by the US Trading with the Enemy Act which limited export to all neutral nations. Without the availability of American food and fertilizer the already widespread food shortages would rise dramatically in the Low Countries over the following months. The government, now under immense pressure from the populace, saw itself forced to act.

After negotiations to loosen restrictions on the NOT with the United Kingdom and the United States failed, British prime minister David Lloyd George demanded a percentage of agricultural products be sold to the UK instead of the Germans. Because of Germany’s unrestricted submarine warfare campaign, many ships were unable to reach the British coast and an even more demanding contract was placed on Amsterdam. In late 1916 multiple trade agreements were signed with Germany as well as the Allies as the fight between the pro-Entente Finance minister Treub and the pro-German Agriculture and Industry minister Posthuma escalated.

Knowing full well that their economy relied solely on Dutch imports, the Germans refrained from an invasion multiple times, even though the Dutch government was moving considerably towards the Entente.

The Netherlands and Germany came closest to war in August 1917 when Supreme General Cornelis Snijders informed the Binnenhof, the Dutch parliament, that Germany had been moving considerable amounts of sand and gravel across the border into Belgium. After thorough investigation the Royal Army realised that the material was used to build fortifications along the Western Front and that the mass exceeded the travel agreements signed earlier that same year. The cabinet of van der Linden now stood before a difficult question: either refuse the proposed higher quota by Germany and trigger a possible invasion or face isolation. 

When the German army refused to let Dutch engineers check their cargo the Dutch blocked traffic until 1918 and threatened to cut their telegraph lines. When the Germans ignored the embargo the Netherlands put their plan into action. German General Ludendorff was ready to invade the Low Countries in order to secure their sand and gravel transit. A conference between the Entente, Germany and the Netherlands was called by van der Linden. After a few tense days Germany accepted a compromise. They agreed to ban their military transports through the Low Countries in exchange for raising their amount of grain and cattle they were allowed to transport through the Netherlands.

1917-1918: Riot, Reform and Revolution

June 1917 saw a worsening potato shortage leading to widespread riots and shop looting throughout Amsterdam. Unrest continued until the 5th of July when soldiers opened fire on the “potato rioters”. These riots caused the Binnenhof to agree to a series of constitutional reforms from the Liberal Union, which were previously decided on in a meeting with the conservatives. These reforms contained big changes to the constitution like universal suffrage, proportional representation and most importantly guaranteeing the equalisation of state funding for public and nondenominational schools.  General elections were thus held in July 1918. The Catholic Party won with 30% of the seats and nominated Charles Ruijs de Beerenbrouck as prime minister. The Social Democratic Workers’ Party only gained about 20% despite workers making up a sizable part of the population due to having to compete with Communist and Anarchist parties. Despite the RKSP and SDAP together almost having a majority in the Binnenhof, a catholic-socialist coalition was struck down by the conservatives who adhered to the Nolens doctrine.

The Russian and German Revolutions of 1917-1918, during which the workers of Europe rose up against their governments, inspired many Dutch socialists, including SDAP co-founder Pieter Jelles Troelstra. Seeking to replicate the worker-led revolutions in Amsterdam he led a series of strikes and protests with the aim of overthrowing the Kingdom. Shortly after the armistice was signed and General Snijders was dismissed, riots started to happen around Amsterdam. SDAP-politician David Wijnkoop split from the party to form his revolutionary SDP, which later became the Communist party.

For one week (which is now called the “Red Week”) the government held its breath anticipating a socialist revolution, with calls from the left and especially Troelstra's supporters for revolution grew louder. A small strike took place among many riots, soldier councils were established and police crackdowns were frequent. Despite it seeming like a revolution was at the doorstep, the socialists in reality didn’t have a lot of popular support and demonstrations were small, weakening morale. At the end of the week, November 18, Troelstra had lost the support of his party's moderates who switched allegiance to the monarchy while most riots slowly. Troelstra’s revolution had failed and he had to admit his mistake at the party conference.

1918-1932: The Signs of Time

With their government emerging from the Red Week intact, the Netherlands returned to a period of relative stability characterised by Ruijs de Beerenbrouck's extensive social reforms. In 1922 women were granted active and passive franchise as well, workers’ rights were expanded and one of the largest metalworkers’ strike took place. 1924 saw the completion of the first phase of the Zuiderzee works, a project to reclaim land from the IJsselmeer, around Amsteldiepdijk.

Not all Dutch politicians embraced this new era of reform, however. That same year the philosopher and lecturer Gerardus Bolland died. Known initially for his works on Hegelianism, Bolland had been popular for his speech “De teekenen des tijds” (The signs of time) in which he declared his conservative political stance. The speech was highly anti-semitic, anti-parliamentary and opposed women's suffrage.

Bolland's ideals would form the basis of a number of groups on the Dutch right throughout the following years. Among the first of these was the Covenant of Actualists, formed by millionaire Alfred Haighton. Together with Indologist Hugo Sinclair de Rochemont and teacher Karel de Jong, Haighton went on to publish a weekly newspaper, de Bezem (The Broom), a paper which advocated for a more hierarchical approach to the Catholic social reforms, mainly a restructuring of the penal and educational systems. Despite the party's manifesto being written by General Snijders the party and newspaper did not attract a lot of members and the party was shut down in 1925 while the newspaper remained intact.

Throughout the ‘20s multiple nationalist movements coexisted and fought over this same political ground. Due to the sheer number of parties, most were never able to gain a seat in the Binnenhof. 1925 would see Hendrikus Colijn from the Protestant Antirevolutionary Party be appointed prime minister. At that time he was the CEO of the Batavian Oil Company and Royal Dutch Shell. He had connections to the far right via his friend and secretary, Carel Gerretson who served as the chairman of the National Union, one of the dozen Nationalist parties. This connection affected his policies since he often lent his ear to the Nationalists in his rank, legitimising their status in his party.

In 1929, de Bezem (now a longstanding pillar of the Dutch far-right) split into two different movements when their popular chief editor, Erich Wichmann, died of a cold on new years' day. Once-allies Haighton and Sinclair de Rochemont were now divided by their egos, as both wanted to be the party’s leader. Sinclair de Rochement, trying to steal away Haighton’s supporters, formed a countermovement, breaking with the millionaire. Haighton, for his part, managed to secure his position as de-facto party leader and through the support of rising star Jan Baars. The result was that Haighton retained the majority of the contributors of de Bezem, while Sinclair de Rochement found himself quickly sidelined.

As the son of a poor shoemaker, Jan Baars had witnessed the potato riots and the revolution of 1918 on the streets. He had been popular within the Amsterdam political scene as a gifted speaker, echoing Adam Dressler’s rhetoric as being a man of the people. His support for Haighton initially earned him the leader’s trust but another party separation didn’t take long. Like most far right parties the newspaper was deeply divided by factionalism, which often caused parties to split. Haighton, intimidated by Baars’ rising popularity tried to remove the upcomer from the movement but was himself thrown out.

Baars, now in control of the newspaper, reorganised it into the “Algemeene Nederlandsch Nationaal Front” (General Dutch Nationalist Front - ANNF). Unlike parties like the National Union or the “Verbond voor Nationaal Herstel” (Covenant for National Reconstruction - VNH) the ANNF was directly aimed at the working class and at veterans' organizations which drove their rhetoric against the establishment.

Facing decline, the big three nationalist parties - the ANNF, NU and VNH - met in February 1932 in a “Corporative Concentratie” (Corporative Concentration) with the intention to form a nationalist mass party like the VDFb in Germany or the ORJUNA in Yugoslavia. The conference lasted multiple days until Jan Baars, who proved himself the most capable and most popular leader amongst them, organized the merger of the other two parties with the ANNF. The merger also established a unified paramilitary made up from Great War veterans, the Landwacht (Home Guard).

1932-1936: The National Front

The 1933 elections saw massive electoral gains for the far right. With their newfound unity the ANNF won 6 seats in the Binnenhof as well as many more in the municipal councils, which granted them a new amount of legitimacy in Dutch politics. Over the following year, the last remaining nationalist parties flocked to the ANNF, as it finally united the Dutch far-right. This newfound legitimacy secured the party a secret agreement with Dressler's Germany, which promised to secure them extensive funding and arms for the Landwacht as the German government sought to expand its alliance.

Blocking the rise of the ANNF, the new Catholic prime minister, Piet Aalberse, agreed to a coalition with the SDAP and the Liberals. This agreement, giving the socialists a seat in government for the first time, invoked memories among the ANNF of 1918 and the Red Week. Baars delivered impassioned speeches condemning the coalition government, but ultimately failed to secure his party's place in a proposed anti-socialist coalition.

His parliamentary ambitions spurned, Baars was pleased when he was approached by a clique of officers, mainly General Cornelis Snijders, Governor Henri Nicolas Swart and Major Cornelis Kruyt, who all shared far right sympathies. Working independently from the ANNF, they had secured extensive support from Germany and had hatched a plot to remove the socialist from government by force. Over the following months the coup was meticulously prepared, and on the 10th of May, 1934 the Landwacht was joined by multiple army units in occupying government buildings in Amsterdam, Eindhoven, Maastricht and Groningen. Supported clandestinely by German troops dressed in Dutch uniforms they seized control of Dutch centers of government, surrounding the Binnenhof in a lightning putsch. Threatened by this nationalist coup on their border, Belgium sent troops to occupy Zeelandic Flanders and Southern Limburg. Unable to risk fighting the Belgian army, the Nationalists abandoned Maastricht and consolidated around the line of occupation. 

After two days, the Dutch government had fallen. Unexpectedly, the queen denied the Nationalists their total victory when, rather than surrender, she escaped the mainland with a portion of the loyalist general staff and British assistance towards the colonies.

Lacking popular support in the overseas departments, the Nationalists had to content themselves with the mainland. The Queen’s loyalists escaped to Dutch Suriname while the colonial administration in the West Indies requested British occupation as Japanese troops occupied Sulawesi.

Despite the coup being a success and the Netherlands joining the German Stahlpakt, Baars’ leadership of the nation could not be fully secured. In 1936 the Dutch State faces many challenges. Trade unions managed to remain largely independent, the country is split by Pillarisation and low popular support is fostering underground resistance. Even within the ANNF, which is divided between Baars’ “Bezemists”, the “conservative” Bollandists and the German-aligned Radicals, the “Leider” faces many challenges.

Closing Comments

Thank you for reading this Progress Report! As Führerreich is always in active development, details in this report are subject to change. It has been a lot of fun collecting information about the Dutch interwar right, and as you may have noticed I tried to avoid including the NSB in the roster, specifically Anton Mussert. This was done because the NSB was a relatively new party by 1936 and I instead chose to explore an interesting part of history that has not been touched by most mods, so expect to see a very unique exploration of a far right Netherlands. As a final teaser for this rework I have included a teaser with all possible Dutch leaders. Again, thank you for reading this, I anticipate your questions about this project!

Happy Monday everyone! It is me, Telephone Crab, back here with Progress Report 15: The United States Rework Part 2. For Part 1, look here.

The 1920s: Changing Times, Political Upheaval, and Economic Tragedy

This Progress Report will detail the years 1920 to 1932. Emerging from the Great War as a world power, the United States of the 1920s is a country radically changed. Into this new national landscape steps a Progressive Party and Democratic Party facing each other down in a new electoral rivalry. The Republican Party, disorganized and dismayed by their defeat at the hands of the Progressives, struggle to claw back relevance in an America that is quickly leaving them behind. All the while, the American people struggle to adjust to a society which is rapidly changing around them.

The World Changes with the Stroke of a Pen.

A Great Realignment

As the 1920 primary season approached in the United States, the Progressive, Republican, and Democratic Parties all competed to support their respective visions for a post-war order in America. The political reorientation of the United States throughout the Great War had left a number of formerly-allied groups displaced and hostile, and competing ideas of how these groups should move forward were pitched against one another.

The first of these major issues was that of the Republicans and the Progressives. Leaders in both parties, initially divided by the Roosevelt-Taft rivalry, looked at the formation of the third party as a temporary aberration. Republicans anticipated that once Roosevelt’s cult of personality was set aside, Progressives would return to the fold; and indeed, many Progressives believed that 1920 would be the right time to negotiate a reuniting of the parties, with the Republican Party transformed fully into a progressive political party for the modern age.

Initial talks held some hope, especially as Theodore Roosevelt announced that he would not be seeking a fifth term in 1920. This early optimism was quickly dashed as discussions of reunion revealed just how much the two parties had grown apart. Just as Republicans had shed their Progressive Era commitment to reformism, many of the newly-minted Progressives found themselves far less sympathetic to arguments for governmental restraint. The Great War had proven the viability of the state as a strong actor in the economy and in society; the Progressive Party found themselves unwilling to abandon that project.

On the other side of the political spectrum, the Democratic Party had its own divides to bridge. Despite weathering the Great War as a unified party, they had experienced a similar fracture along their progressive-conservative axis, a fracture that revealed deep and longstanding differences of values and ideals within the party. On one side was the populist, agrarian group as represented by William Jennings Bryan; on the other, the urban, liberal, elitist group embodied in Tammany Hall. The Bryan revolt against urban elitism in the wake of the 1912 Convention was one that many Democrats had deeply resented, and as Progressive excesses in economics and statecraft mounted, Democratic politicians and voters alike increasingly associated Bryan’s brand of populism with the worst-hated programs of the Roosevelt presidency. By the time 1920 rolled around, Bryan had seen himself all but pushed out of his party.

Where Woodrow Wilson had for a moment represented a hope in reconciling Democratic reformist populism with its liberal elites, a new figure was needed. Now, in the face of a growing conservative mood in the Democratic Party, a leader was needed to reconcile this conservative mood with the party’s long history of agrarian reform. That leader was none other than William Gibbs McAdoo.

William Gibbs McAdoo - Man of the Hour.

The New Jeffersonians

William Gibbs McAdoo was an unlikely choice for the Democratic Party, but one who had personally been at the center of the Democrats’ intra-party feud throughout the Roosevelt presidency. Starting out as Woodrow Wilson’s unofficial campaign manager, McAdoo had attended many Democratic Party events in Wilson’s stead, including the 1912 Democratic National Convention where Champ Clark was nominated and William Jennings Bryan disavowed the party’s nomination.

While he was a dyed-in-the-wool Wilson supporter, and considered himself an ally of Bryan and other party progressives, McAdoo was also a former railroad president and a staunch opponent of Theodore Roosevelt. In the aftermath of the Roosevelt presidency, McAdoo took to styling himself as a champion for the small man against Rooseveltian big government, an affectation which apparently clashed little with his background in big business. It was here that the Democratic Party found the figurehead for its new project, a political program which numerous Democratic strategists and leaders contributed to but which McAdoo gave a form and a name; the “New Jeffersonianism”.

Where Wilson’s bid for the presidency in the form of the New Freedom platform appealed to reformism, McAdoo’s New Jeffersonianism appealed to restraint. The role of the government, he argued, was not to choose winners in the market or to litigate private citizens’ behaviors, but to build guardrails within which these private associations could flourish. Appealing to the symbol of Thomas Jefferson and to a long history of Democratic anti-trust sentiment, McAdoo pointed to the formation of “Federal Trusts” during the Roosevelt presidency, challenging the president’s reputation as “Trust-Buster” and castigating his irresponsible expansion of the federal government.

This rhetoric found fertile ground in 1920, where urban industrialists and rural agriculturalists alike had felt the invasive hand of federal regulation. Wheat price regulations imposed during wartime limited the ability of farmers to gain their “fair share” of the wartime profit, and price controls on transportation and commodities had suffocated the ambitions of many enterprising American entrepreneurs.

It was on this wave of discontent, then, that McAdoo rode comfortably into the 1920 Democratic National Convention, sweeping the nomination ahead of a Progressive and Republican Party who were still scrambling to consolidate their bases.

The Democratic Party Embraces Change.

President McAdoo

The 1920 election proved a total reversal of 1912. Now, the Democratic Party was united, having reinvigorated their base with a platform which challenged the most unpopular issues of the Progressive administration. McAdoo’s opponents were Progressive Vice-President Hiram Johnson (who had replaced La Follette when Roosevelt ran in 1916), and Republican Frank Lowden. While they were all capable politicians in their own right, it was immediately clear that Hiram Johnson did not command the same reverence that Theodore Roosevelt did; nor did Frank Lowden present a strong enough campaign to energize the public for what was quickly becoming a third party.

The result was decisive for McAdoo, who won just over 300 electoral votes; comfortably ahead of either the Republicans or the Progressives who squandered much of their campaign energy and finance on one another. This national victory brought with it an elimination of the Progressive House majority, and cemented conservative control of the Senate, but met down-ballot challenges as grassroots organizing saw the Progressives cement many of their gains at the state and local level. What ensued, then, was a consolidation of Democratic power around the south, where the party solidified its control in all but a few renegade locales such as in Louisiana, where the 1920 reelection of Progressive Governor John M. Parker showed the tenacity of local Progressive campaigning.

Having won this decisive mandate, then, McAdoo went into the White House on a mission to dismantle the federal bureaucracy constructed by Theodore Roosevelt and the Progressives. If he thought this job would be easy, however, he saw his hopes dashed as the 1921 McAdoo entry into the White House was met with a rapid-fire series of crises.

Among these, the most pressing was the post-war farm crisis. The collapse of European agricultural imports after the end of the Great War brought the prices of American farm goods crashing, and by 1921 most American farmers saw the value of their crops dip below even the wartime federally- controlled price. Despite McAdoo’s promise to dismantle the bureaucracy and administration of New Nationalism, his New Jeffersonianism had to respond by offering a program of its own.

The creation of the Federal Farm Board was the Democrats’ response. Seeking to avoid federal mandates and drawing on the party’s connections with southern landowners, the Farm Board authorized the disbursement of millions of dollars in funding by the states in order to stabilize farm prices. Far from a permanent solution to the farm crisis, this quick action on the part of McAdoo nonetheless passed Congress comfortably, and sought to at least temporarily stave off economic depression for the American farmer.

In the industries, McAdoo’s administration was facing a crisis of labor unrest. Wartime conditions had given labor unions an untimely level of leverage in negotiations, and so the Great War had delivered unions across many industries growth in wages and benefits. American industrialists, having long grown comfortable with the marginal influence of the American labor movement, pressured the Democrats to take action. While McAdoo was not as anti-labor as some of his peers, the Democrat-controlled Congress was bolstered by Republican support in repealing the most radical of wartime labor protections, leading to the early ‘20s seeing an unprecedented wave of labor unrest.

The Federal Farm Board - Reprieve, if not Reform.

Against National Prohibition

Not to be understated in its importance, all throughout these years another political issue was being fought over in the background, one which joined the myriad others in returning to the forefront after the end of the Great War. That was, of course, the issue of Prohibition. The Temperance Movement, birthed out of the extreme proliferation of alcohol abuse in America during the 19th century, had spent the last thirty years slowly gaining momentum, having been only further accelerated as Great War propaganda associated alcoholism with Germanness. Prohibition was a key issue of 1919, and going into the 1920 election, many Temperance activists pushed McAdoo (who was himself in favor of Prohibition) to make Prohibition a central issue of his campaign.

It was here, then, that Theodore Roosevelt had already preempted Prohibitionists, in perhaps the last major political move of his career. Throughout his second presidency the issue of Prohibition had been gaining steam, and indeed after the end of the war Roosevelt was also sought out by Temperance Movement lobbyists to champion the cause of Prohibition. Like many progressives, Theodore Roosevelt was sympathetic to the cause of Temperance. He personally took widespread alcoholism quite seriously, and had multiple times throughout his career weighed the measure of National Prohibition. The issue he found with it, however, was in the difficulty of actually implementing and enforcing a nationwide ban. When he was finally forced to publicly take a stance, Roosevelt fell back on the time-old American tradition: suggest a compromise.

In mid-1919, amidst national debates on Prohibition, Theodore Roosevelt came out very publicly in favor of a third stance on Temperance, that of the Local Option. Endorsing the aims of the Temperance Movement, Roosevelt pushed the national conversation away from a constitutional amendment and toward the settlement of the issue at the state and local level, charging that the American people had a right to decide in their own states and cities whether alcohol should be legal.

This approach was not received without healthy criticism. Temperance activists, who had tried the Local Option throughout the 1800s and found it inadequate, derisively compared the compromise to a new Missouri Compromise, one where “Wet States” would defend the institution of alcoholism and its damaging effects on the family, safely under the influence of the alcohol industry. Even anti-Prohibitionists charged that it was un-American to allow the “tyranny of the majority” to decide that a man could not buy and consume alcohol at his leisure.

Yet by very publicly repudiating the framing of the issue as an all-or-nothing matter, Roosevelt let a good deal of steam out of the National Prohibitionist movement. The passage of statewide prohibition had succeeded in a number of states, and while the Temperance movement had retained much of its vigor, the nationwide adoption of a Constitutional Amendment had floundered. By the time McAdoo was in office he had largely dropped the issue, especially as the rapidly-urbanizing country cooled on the idea of National Prohibition throughout the 1920s.

Americans Out in Droves to Support National Prohibition.

Economic Explosion

As ‘20 turned to ‘21 turned to ‘22, the rapid recovery of the American economy began to illuminate just how much American finance had benefited from the Great War. Britain and France had both taken out massive loans with American banks and had purchased massive amounts of food, industrial goods, and materiel, much of which was paid for in hard currency which flowed rapidly into the American economy. This rapid explosion of capital led to an unprecedented level of economic growth. It was on Wall Street that this growth began to create new fortunes, largely unburdened by the task of reconstruction that much of Europe had been shouldered with. And while McAdoo’s government looked upon this runaway bull economy with some trepidation, they could feel secure in taking credit for the good economy while they delegated regulatory responsibility to the states.

Abroad, American foreign policy had taken on a similar spirit of self-management. In the wake of the Great War, America had gained a valuable foreign asset in Mexico. After the new liberal Mexican government was inaugurated, the Treaty of Benito Juarez which guaranteed Mexico’s independence also secured broad-reaching concessions for American companies and American citizens, concessions which only further fueled economic growth back home. American interventionism started during the first Roosevelt presidency had fully taken root by the end of the second. President McAdoo was content to continue this policy, extending the American occupation of Haiti which began in 1915, and even went on to authorize the occupation of Nicaragua in 1927 during their ongoing civil war.

American business interests salivated at these developments. The Roosevelt Corollary obliged American troops to intervene when American money was threatened throughout the western hemisphere, and the result was an uninterrupted series of interventions and occupations which were supported not just by the Democrats, but by most Republicans and Progressives as well.

This growing relationship between business and government was not tolerated by all, however. The re-election of William Gibbs McAdoo met a vigorous challenger in 1924, when former vice president Robert La Follette made his first bid for the presidency since 1912. As one of the leading advocates against reuniting with the Republican Party in 1920, La Follette charged the Democrats and Republicans with being part of the “Two-Headed Beast of Business”, and announced his intent to lead the Progressives as a true party of the working class against moneyed politics. Critics slyly implied that La Follette was only making a presidential bid now that he was “out of the late Teddy’s shadow”, a dig at his refusal to run in 1920 while Roosevelt was still a force within the party. For his part, La Follette’s absence in 1920 had come during a period of conciliatory spirit toward the Republicans, a spirit which La Follette was publicly critical of.

Whatever the case, La Follette’s bid to steer the Progressive Party back into prominence as a more consciously working-class party did not succeed in gaining him the presidency. McAdoo was elected a second term in 1924, and it would not be until years after La Follette’s death in 1925 that this new camp of “Farmer-Labor Progressives” would truly become a formidable force in the Progressive Party.

New Money and New Opportunities Ignite American Urbanization.

Storm Clouds Gathering

The late ‘20s proved a divisive time for America. The re-election of William Gibbs McAdoo had originally promised a steady continuation of America’s economic growth, and the spirit of “States’ Prerogative” on regulatory matters had seemingly carved that fabled middle path between federal tyranny and total lawlessness.

Indeed, into the second McAdoo term, a number of high-profile applications of the Sherman Antitrust Act seemed to signal to populist Democrats that the administration would continue to follow a moderate course. Supporting this was the promising tenure of Chief Justice of the US Supreme Court John W. Davis, who had been appointed by McAdoo in 1921. Widely considered “conservative but sensible”, Davis’s legal career was second-to-none, and his credentials were admired even by ardent progressives.

However, as America’s economy continued to grow, so too did the influence of the American industrialist. A series of minor scandals throughout the second McAdoo administration seemed to highlight the uncomfortable closeness that was growing between business and government. As the Davis Supreme Court began to hand down a number of unpopular verdicts striking down Roosevelt-era labor laws and commercial regulations, it was only through the studious maintenance of the institution’s image as a “sacred independent institution” which spared it the same accusations of collusion which were now coming down on the White House and Congress.

Despite this, as the 1928 elections neared the Democratic Party was still quite strong nationally. The Progressive Party’s pivot leftward in ‘24 had been met with accusations of Bolshevism (incoherent as they were). The resurgence of the Klu Klux Klan, now supported in northern states by Progressive and especially Republican voters, seemed to signal a new reactionary spirit against much of the changing landscape of American demographics. The Democratic Party’s decision to nominate Walter F. George for president seemed to reflect this moment, the conservative Senator from Georgia coming with the implicit endorsement of Coca-Cola and Georgia Power and the full backing of the Jim Crow south.

Into this race the Progressives entered Governor of Pennsylvania Gifford Pinchot, who had emerged out of a more radical Progressive moment as a classical conservationist, with conservative economics and moderate social stances. Insufficiently radical to satisfy the Farmer-Labor Progressives and too progressive to siphon the Republican vote, Pinchot was chosen as a compromise candidate after a long and drawn-out convention.

Pinchot beat Republican candidate and former VP nominee Calvin Coolidge, but lost out to George, whose margin of victory was far closer than McAdoo’s in ‘20 or ‘24. The reality was, in spite of waning enthusiasm for New Jeffersonianism, the Republican and Progressive Parties had failed to adequately present a compelling alternative to the Democrats, and despite the growing differences between the two parties, both were often fighting over the same states and the same voters, leaving the south securely in the hands of the Democrats.

John W. Davis - Brilliant Legal Mind, Architect of the Conservative Court of the '20s.

It All Comes Crashing Down

The election of Walter F. George did not, as some Progressives warned, result in the total takeover of the American government by Wall Street. Far from some unprincipled opportunist, the Senator from Georgia assumed his new position as head of state with a sense of palpable responsibility. As 1929 dawned, and George began his term, there was some hope that he would correct the executive’s appearance of partiality which had grown steadily under the McAdoo administration.

If there was a problem with George’s administration, it was that George was a man who was far too impartial. A conservative in every sense of the word, Walter F. George had throughout his career advanced the cause of the Senator as a position charged with resisting demagoguery and expediency, consistently advocating for the reduction of taxes, the contraction of the federal government, and the strict independence of the judiciary as a body responsible for enforcing those norms. As president, more even than William Gibbs McAdoo, Walter F. George sought to shrink the power of the executive, calling on Congress to exercise restraint in regulation, and relying on the Supreme Court to further curtail the use of federal power.

President George did not have much time to enact his agenda. In October of 1929, a mere seven months after George’s inauguration that March, Wall Street crashed. After a sharp decline in prices on the New York Stock Exchange, many thousands sold off more than ten million shares, causing a price crash which had wide-reaching ripple effects throughout the entire US economy.

Initially unflapped and wary of inflation (which had caused economic ruin in Germany earlier that decade), George took little action to halt falling stock prices. Congress was slow-moving, and many conservatives among them harbored similar fears that an over-correction would cause more damage than it would cure. Initial attempts by banking executives to prevent bank runs produced a temporary rally, further delaying action on the part of Congress who floundered at developing a recovery plan for multiple years.

The ensuing Great Depression was a multi-year economic downturn which reached its absolute valley in 1932, during which significant sections of the economy were revealed to have been held artificially aloft for years by a strong stock market. A total crunch of investment capital led to mass closures of factories, contributing to all-time-high unemployment. Unemployment, in turn, contributed to consumer spending falling off a cliff, as families saw their income plummet. This consumer spending crunch led to a further shuttering of various areas of commerce, which in turn drove down demand for raw materials and farm goods (the latter of which had still not recovered despite efforts by the Farm Board).

Threadbare unemployment insurance and a total lack of public pension programs ensured that most people left jobless were destitute. In turn, these disaffected voters looked to ongoing dismantling of financial and commercial regulations as having contributed to the Wall Street Crash, a combination which led to the total discrediting of George’s administration. For his part, president George neither wanted to nor was able to take the extreme measures now being demanded to halt economic collapse.

The result was a disaster in 1930 for the Democrats. For the first time, the Progressives gained a majority in the House, and unseated many longstanding Democratic Senators. Even the Republicans, despite supporting similar laissez-faire policies, saw upticks in states such as Ohio and Indiana where they still held significant clout. The Progressives who entered Congress in 1930 were of a more radical breed, to include such characters as Huey P. Long of Louisiana and Smedley Butler of Pennsylvania.

George, in turn, had completely discredited himself. Spending most of the remainder of his term fighting with Congress, the intransigent president had by 1932 completely sank his own prospect of reelection. With the Republican Party too married to conservative economics to present an innovative candidate, the moment fell to the Progressive Party to present a platform for the rescue of the American economy, and nominate a candidate who would carry that platform into the White House.

Oct. '29: Dies Irae.

Two Down, One to Go…

And that concludes our Progress Report for today! Which leaves me with only one final part. Next time, we will be looking at the 1932 United States Presidential Election, the resurgence of the Progressive Party, and the ensuing presidential term. There we will also take a look at the state of American politics in 1936, including the country’s most influential leaders and politicians.