A Small Change

Updated Sunday 15 May, 2011 12:18 PM

A Small Change

It is a point of fact that William McKinley was assassinated, leading to his vice-president Teddy Roosevelt becoming President. McKinley is one of those gray presidents of America, known for a small war (Spanish-American) and for his connections to William Jennings Bryan (defeated him in 1896, thereby politically stopping the Populist movement) and TR. He was killed by a lone anarchist – someone who in our era would probably have been labeled a publicity seeker and possibly insane. So there should be no problem having him die in his first term instead of his second.

Let’s make the assassination simultaneous with TR charging up San Juan Hill (and yes I am aware of the attack really being up Kettle Hill and having as much or more to do with the Buffalo Soldiers and Pershing as TR and the Rough Riders, but that’s another story). The purpose is to replace McKinley with a different Mark Hanna client, the VP. This VP was an even grayer man, a Garret Hobart of New Jersey who held no prior political office of any sort.

Now in OTL, McKinley equivocated over the imperial results of the Spanish-American war. While an orthodox late 19^th century big business Republican, McKinley actually had a conscience. He equivocated between the budding Imperialist block and the anti-imperialists in the New England and Progressive wings of the GOP. Hobart has no public record on this issue beyond one tie-breaking vote as VP to annex the Philippines, which was administration policy. This allows me to put words in his mouth, having him take what I feel is a more interesting course of actions.

The main issues at the peace were what to do about Cuba, Puerto Rico and the Philippines. In the end we allowed a nominally independent Cuba, made a colony out of the Philippines and basically left Puerto Rico to the Navy Department in a fit of absent mindedness. However, each was addressed as a separate issue. Presume instead that we took them as one issue. We had promised Cuba independence. Between the promise and the Southern desire not to see white supremacy threatened by admitting a non-white majority state, direct annexation of Cuba was not a wise decision. So take the Cuban precedent and extend it to all three. All three are made independent republics but:

1. Military treaties are forced on them as a condition of independence, including bases by which we basically control their military. This is what we de facto did with Cuba. This just makes it de jure.

2. We formalize the Platt Amendment allowing us to intervene where necessary to protect American interests. We did this with Cuba. We now extend this to the other two.

3. We set up a customs union with all three, putting them inside the American tariff wall (McKinley had been elected on a high tariff policy). This both insures their rapid economic development and forever ties them to the US (the cost in drop of standard of living would defeat any nationalist movement seeking to revoke the treaties).

Now all of this seems fairly minor, but larger actions can grow from small ones.

First, it avoids the messy colonial war we fought in the Philippines for years after the nominal end of the Spanish-American War. We killed over 10% of the Philippine population and set back Philippine democracy with effects still felt to this day. We get our bases without oppressing the Philippine Republic, which had cooperated with us against Spain.

Second, it provides a structure for the informal Empire we developed ad hoc in the Caribbean. By 1920, the same status would have been extended to Panama, Nicaragua, Hate and Santo Domingo (possibly to Liberia and the Virgin Islands as well).

Third, the fight over the larger colonies precluded our purchase of the remaining Spanish Pacific Empire. Instead they sold these possessions (the Marianas, the Carolines, the Marshalls, Yap, Peleau, Northeast New Guinea, the Bismarks and the northern Solomons) to Germany. From there they were conquered by Japan (and New Guinea, the Bismarks and the Solomons by Australia). If these were US possessions, Japan more firmly decides that it is a land power instead of a sea power. The giant Japanese Navy in all probability never gets built. With the money thus saved Japan is able to hold on to its post WW1 mainland gains (Manchuria, Inner and Outer Mongolia, the Russian Maritime Province, and Transbikal Siberia). Without the naval rivalry, there is much less reason for the US to view Japan as an enemy as opposed to as a valuable trading partner. The US would therefore not require the UK to let the Anglo-Japanese Alliance lapse in 1922 as a condition of the Washington Naval Treaties. This started the chain of events that led to WW2 in the Pacific. Absent the Japanese owning the Mandated Islands and having a large fleet, the whole Orange Plan rivalry does not happen. Instead we let Japan and Nationalist China fight each other to exhaustion in the 1940’s. Japan is probably a minor Allied power, providing some ships and men to the British in return for a free hand in its sphere. This is what happened in WW1. The net effect is probably the extermination of the Maoists. China is split into several states under varying degrees of Japanese control. The Nationalist rump in Chunking and several of the extreme western Chinese warlord states devolve on Russia as allies in the post WW2 period (Chiang’s son had a Russian wife from the prior period of Nationalist – Soviet alliance). India would have acquired a protectorate over Tibet on independence. Decolonization of most of the world would have been delayed for at least a generation with no colonial collapse in Asia in WW2 and a much weaker Communist block.

Without a Pacific War, the Battle of the Atlantic ends in 1942. The Normandy Invasion comes in 1943. The war in Europe probably still needs until 1945 to end. The argument that Russia won the war by itself holds much less weight outside of Communist circles. A very different world from a few simple changes. Oh and poor Hobart dies on schedule in 1899, making John Hay the first Secretary of State to ascend to the Presidency. This in turn makes it unlikely that Teddy becomes President, but that’s another ATL.

Turning back to our little Caribbean Empire, these states experience a growth rate that never really happened in OTL. By WW2 they have a European standard of living. Their resources have been developed by a combination of democratic government (we use the Platt Amendment for something more than the defense of American investment) and US trade. There is probably a fair degree of population intermixture between them and the mainland. This in turn probably prompts Honduras and El Salvador (and maybe Costa Rica) to request similar status. By today, they essentially have US standards of living (say Canadian which is a little less than ours) and form a firm line of American defense against the chaos of South America and the stagnation of the formerly British Caribbean.

The development of the Philippines is even more interesting. It is further from the US and thus less likely to get as much investment. It also does not get a major war fought there in WW2, with all the destruction that caused. It also gets the full civilian war boom the US and Canada had during WW2. Without the nationalist and collaborationist issues to distract Philippine politics, it by now has approaching a Europan standard of living and forms a major counterweight to Japan economically. The population is probably as high as currently but is a product of immigration more than large family size (higher income tends to produce smaller families). The Philippines probably have more European, Chinese, Indonesian and Indochinese ethnic populations from that immigration. They are NAFTA members with an economy on par with that of Italy.

Oh, yes, and Australia and New Zealand have acquired a major new market for food and raw materials in a rich, developed Philippines.

All this from a few simple changes in the status of some small ex-Spanish colonies.

FeedBack Form

Hit Counter