The senators who followed Tillman concentrated on banking and law rather than using naval appropriations to build South Carolina industry. Omaha-class light cruisers were close to the largest hulls Charleston's existing ways could handle, yet none was assigned there. Their absence provides a concrete test of how much procurement influence disappeared with Tillman. A surviving senator would demand at least part of the class for Charleston and use the wider allocation of hulls to reward Democratic constituencies. Tillman also cast industrial patronage as a legacy project, arguing that Reconstruction had left South Carolina badly wronged and that he should leave the state richer and stronger. That grievance helps explain his fixation on state capacity without excusing his racial politics.
Chapter · 41:51-56:09
The Omaha orders reveal the first divergence
Tillman's less naval-minded successors let Charleston miss the Omaha program; his survival would almost certainly redirect cruiser orders there.