Tillman must survive long enough to embed the bargain

Surviving the 1918 primary would probably return Tillman to a safely Democratic Senate seat because victory in the party contest was effectively decisive in South Carolina. Merely reaching the Washington conference would not be enough to secure the counterfactual. Treaty implementation, appropriations, and the first replacement decisions would occupy most of a Senate term. The counterfactual therefore keeps Tillman influential until roughly 1928, long enough to embed the political and industrial settlement through another election cycle.