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Editor says, what if Thomas Dewey won in 1948? muses Eric Lipps Please note that the opinions expressed in this post do not necessarily reflect the views of the author(s).
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In 1950, Vice-President Earl Warren was sworn in as president of the United States following the assassination of President Thomas E. Dewey by Oscar Collazo and Giselio Torresola, members of a radical organization demanding independence for the U.S. commonwealth of Puerto Rico.
President Warren, Part 1Warren, who had served as a district attorney and attorney general of California before winning the governorship of that state in 1942, had been expected to be reliably conservative based on his record in his home state, where, among other things, he strongly supported the World War II internment of Japanese Americans. To the dismay of the right, however, once in the White House he swiftly revealed himself as a champion of liberal causes, leading to a series of spectacular confrontations with Congress and the conservative wing of the Supreme Court.
In 1952, a bitterly divided Republican Party narrowly nominated President Warren for reelection to the office he had inherited. Supporters of Warren's opponent in the primaries, Ohio Sen. Robert Taft, registered their displeasure by staying away from the polls in droves that November, ironically helping top elect the Democratic candidate, Illinois Gov. Adlai Stevenson, whom they despised as a liberal intellectual "egghead".
In a further irony, Taft died January 31, 1953, while Warren would live on until July 9, 1974. Had Taft won the nomination in '52, his vice-president (whoever that would have been; speculation centered on Warren's fellow Californians William F. Knowland and Richard Nixon) would have assumed the presidency just as Warren had done.
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Eric Lipps
© Eric Lipps,2007-.Story Tags
Permalinks: Post, Day. Browse Thread: President Warren Source: Wikipedia Labels: Earl Warren, Thomas Dewey, 1948 Presidential Election, America, Politics. Editor says, In our history, of course, Dewey lost the 1948 presidential election in the closest contest of the twentieth century before the controversy of 2000. Collazo and Torresola attempted to assassinate President Truman on the date given, but failed. And Warren, whose ambitions were believed to include the presidency, was appointed Chief Justice of the Supreme Court by President Dwight D. Eisenhower in 1953, serving in that office until his death.
~ I'd be interested in hearing the answer to that question myself...
~ Considering that Warren was a disaster to the nation's courts that we have still to recover from, he would be just as awful as president. Overall, I see nothing good happening along this line of history except that with just one term this guy's ability to do damage to society and the nation would be limited inscope.
~ I don't know enough about Earl Warren to comment, other than that he was a Supreme court justice that conservatives hated.
Comment from Ben Camo on Facebook: The Thomas Dewey Expressway would now be the Harry S. Truman Expressway......you think?
Comment from Jeff Mayers on Facebook: Well, if Thomas Dewey won in 1948, then there might have been a few things that happened diffrently with regards to domestic policy, but not regarding foreign policy.
Comment from Tom Hickie on Facebook: cool idears
~ Absent Truman why would the Democratic nominee have been Stevenson? Most logical would have been Ike.
~ Except that Eisenhower made it clear, when he finally indicated a party preference, that he considered himself a Republican.
© Today in Alternate History, 2013-. All characters appearing in this work are fictitious. Any resemblance to real persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.
