Chapter XCVII: An Unnamed Deal
The simplest comparison between President Landon's foreign and domestic programmes is this; the former acquired a moniker "Moral Neutrality", while the later did not. This did not reflect the relative importance of the two, as any political analyst will tell you domestic issues decide almost all non-war time elections, but it did reflect the lack of a coherent ideology behind the domestic programme. There was no overarching vision or desire to remake society, the economy or indeed anything else, the aim was to escape the Depression and then worry about the future. While this may sound short sighted and decidedly lacking in ambition, it was an objective that had defeated the two previous Presidents, three if one counts the stunted term of Garner. So where Theodore Roosevelt had his 'Square Deal', Woodrow Wilson 'The New Freedom' Landon had a blank, an apparently unconnected series of legislation with no obvious or even rhetorical linkage. While this certainly helped to keep expectations low, and perhaps reflected Landon's own preference for delivery over presentation, this does not mean the package itself was devoid of content or controversy.
We have already indirectly covered the bulk of Landon's Foreign policy objectives, the administrations judgement on Spain had induced a rash of exports to the Republicans, a symbolic minority paid for in cash but the bulk on credit. While this trend would stutter as France began tightening the screw, keen to squeeze out 'rival' US goods in favour of their own manufacturers, the generous credit terms of the US exporters kept them in the game. One entirely unexpected outcome of the credit trade was to wake the US financial markets from their slumber, after the Wall Street crash and the systematic collapse of the American banking system the financial system had fallen into a coma. However the export trade to Spain generated a large volume of credit notes, notes the industrial firms were naturally keen to cash but who's value depended entirely on their being a Republican Spanish victory. Therefore there soon developed a market for these 'Spanish Credits', instruments that bore similarities to the 'Cotton Bonds' that the Confederates had issued during the American Civil War; their value rose on news of Republican success, but slumped after a defeat. This development was far from universally welcomed and opposition soon coalesced around the well known Senator Gerald Nye. Nye, who had led the Senate Munitions Committee barely a year earlier, raised the spectre of the Great War and the 'Merchants of Death' who believed had profited from the conflict and who he argued had forced America into the war to protect their investments. Despite Nye's abject failure to find any evidence of this it was a popular argument and a tough charge to refute; the similarities were obvious and the debts were racking up daily, worse the Monarchist government (under British prompting) had explicitly stated they would not honour the war-debts of the Republican Government. For men such as Nye this was a red rag to a bull, a clear sign that America would inevitably be dragged into the war to protect the banks and munitions industries and that only a new, stricter, Neutrality Act could prevent this. While Landon was able to deflect the initial charges by further extending the "Lusitania clause" to cover corporations and financial institutions, his speech on the matter causing a mini-collapse in the value of the 'Spanish Credits', Nye was perseverance itself and the issue would re-emerge as the factions in Spain left winter quarters and began the new campaigning season.
George Gallup, one of the founding fathers of public opinion polling in the United States. Gallup had leapt to national prominence by correctly calling the complex 1936 Presidential Election, the vote distribution part at least; Gallup made no pretence at calculating the post-vote the political wrangling. Keen to build up a regular business in political polling outside of election type Gallup developed his 'Presidential Approval Rating System', a system to gauge popular support for the incumbent President on a rolling basis. Landon would be the first President subject to this monthly ritual and one which soon caught on amongst journalists looking for an easy hook to hang stories or opinions onto. The early months of Landon's Presidency would show a significant upturn in his ratings, though if this was due to the repeal of Prohibition, his modest domestic reforms or the natural tendency for the nation to rally behind a new President after a divisive election campaign is less clear.
As we leave foreign policy and move onto Landon's domestic agenda it is worth noting the areas were there was no change; both tariffs and the gold standard retained their sacred cow status and no efforts were made to change policy on either front; the 'Strong Dollar' and protectionism were key pillars of the Landon Administration. On the domestic front there is rally only one subject worthy of mention, the Labor Reform Act (LRA), also known as the Norris-Hartley Act after it's two sponsors Senator George Norris and Representative Fred Harley Jr. The LRA is justly accused of being a confused Act, as it was drafted without a guiding vision and had to pass through a divided Congress where majorities were assembled on a vote by vote basis this is hardly surprising. In the grandest traditions of industrial labour relations law the Act was duly acted by unions and employers, both vehemently arguing the legislation was biased in favour of the other. In truth the Act tried to balance off a pro-union change against a pro-business reform but such judgements are necessarily subjective, particularly when the issue of States Rights meant individual states could (and did) make their own changes and when the Supreme Court was not afraid to step in and clarify certain parts. In broad terms the LRA introduced a Federal minimum wage (and allowed States to introduce their own minimum wage), removed the last anti-trust limitations on unions, made it simpler for them to organise and outlawed a range of 'unfair practices' such as intimidation or victimisation of union officials or supporters. On the flip side the 'Closed Shop' (where only union members could be hired) was banned in favour of an assumption 'Right to Work' (where union membership was not compulsory), though States could legislate for a 'Union Shop' (where any non-members had to join with a set time of starting work) should they chose. In addition a list of labour side 'unfair practices' such as wildcat strikes, sympathy strikes and secondary action were all outlawed and the Federal Executive was empowered to seek strike-breaking injunctions in the event a planned or ongoing strike "imperilled the national health or safety".
Whether this mix of reforms was pro- or anti-union depended very much on the exact circumstances, the variation in state's legislation meant a local in one state could be a winner, but in the adjacent state a net loser. As an example the nascent auto-mobile unions in Michigan benefited immensely from the protections on employer 'unfair practices' and were able to severely restrict the infamous Ford Service Department's deplorable campaign of violence and intimidation. On the negative side Michigan did not introduce a minimum wage and despite their best efforts remained a right to work state, severely undermining the unions plan to forcibly unionise the entire industry whether they wanted it or not. In contrast the West Coast aerospace unions in California and Washington saw success as those states introduced the 'Union Shop' and with this in place membership exploded as the major aviation firms of Boeing, Douglas and North American were unionised in short order. The exact popularity, or not, of the LRA is hard to gauge with so much else on-going at the same time, not to mention the fact that it would take several protest, court cases and interpretations before the exact impact of the new Act became clear, however it doesn't appear to have been wildly unpopular beyond the partisans of both extremes.
The only other Act passed at the time that was worthy of note was the Hot Oil Act that passed through Congress almost in parallel with LRA but to considerably less fanfare. The Hot Oil Act was, in essence, little more than the cartelisation of the American oil industry; a decidedly risky area for an ex-oilman such as Landon to enter. There was however a genuine problem, after the East Texas oil find of the early 1930s there was a glut of oil on the US market that flattened prices, to deal with this the Texas Railroad Commission (which had somehow become the oil and gas regulator in Texas) introduced quotas on production. Though these had survived repeated legal challenges they faced the problem of 'Hot Oil', basically over-quota oil being smuggled into pipelines, at which point it was untraceable. The solution was the Hot Oil Act which required permits from anyone using a pipeline, records of production and shipping and extended the quota system nationwide. Such was the success of the Act that it inspired Britain to found the Imperial Organisation of Oil Producing Countries (IOOPC) in the late 1930s. Somewhat amusingly the IOOPC would attract immense vitriol from US politicians for it's "domination" of the world oil market (and price) to the detriment of US oil majors, the irony entirely missing an angry Congress. In the short term however it, along with the sky high tariffs, stabilised the US domestic oil price to the advantage of producers (and the cost of consumers) and doubtless saved several of the shakier oil majors from collapse while pushing smaller, less well connected, producers into bankruptcy.
In summary the Landon Administration's opening months were, overall, a success, he managed to deliver on some of his key campaign promises (Repeal of prohibition, 'Moral Neutrality' and labour reform) and had survived the initial backlash of those opposed to such changes. However the later half of the year would not go so smoothly, not least as his domestic agenda began to run into trouble and the opposition to his Spanish policy grew ever stronger.
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Notes;
The LRA is an unholy mix of the New Deal labour laws and the post-WW2 reaction against them. Is it balanced? I think so but what do I know? It seemed Landon ish, a few social reforms mixed in with a sweetner for business but I'm sure people will tell me it's actually a communist manifesto/evil opression of the masses.
Gallup Presidential Approval did indeed start in early 1937 and so I thought I'd through that one in as a bit of colour. I'm figuring Landon is probably dragging most of his party with him, the Righters as well and a few moderate Dems, against are the labour friendly Dems and the pro-biz Reps but he's OK at the moment. On that basis I'm guessing public opinion is probably OK at the moment, particularly with beer now an option.
Finally the Hot Oil Act is OTL and was rushed in by FDR after his first attempt was declared unconstitutional and alarmingly centralising. Certainly there was a problem with a collapsed oil price and the solution was a government backed price fixing cartel, OTL this did inspire OPEC but TTL there is no OPEC and instead the world can rest assured it's oil supply is in the hands of Britain and the IOOPC. Sadly I doubt this will stop Congress complaining about evil cartels despite it basically being their own fault. Also I suspect Landon will be far more vulnerable on this being an ex-oil man, FDR basically got a free pass on it but I doubt Alf will be so lucky.
In any event, now back to Britain for a string of updates. Why it's almost as if this were a British AAR!
