 Historians have varied interpretations of Marshall 's vice presidency . Claire Suddath rated Marshall as one of the worst vice presidents in American history in a 2008 Time Magazine article . Samuel Eliot Morison wrote that had Marshall carried out his constitutional duties , assumed the presidency , and made the concessions necessary for the passage of the League of Nations treaty in late 1920 , the United States would have been much more involved in European affairs and could have helped prevent the rise of Adolf Hitler , which began in the following year . Morison and a number of other historians claim that Marshall 's decision was an indirect cause of the Second World War . Charles Thomas , one of Marshall 's biographers , wrote that although Marshall 's assumption of the presidency would have made World War II much less likely , modern hypothetical speculation on the subject was unfair to Marshall , who made the correct decision in not forcibly removing Wilson from office , even temporarily . 
