Defeated for Re-election, Some of FDR’s Programs Had Been Herbert Hoover’s Ideas

The young businessman Herbert Hoover is at his office. Library of Congress. The image is in the Public Domain.

The Great Depression (1929 – 1942)

The hopes and dreams of millions were erased and replaced with misery and uncertainty of their futures. Many brilliant careers met the same fate, including that of our 31st President Herbert Hoover. He was easily elected in 1928 under the bright lights of continued economic prosperity, but by 1932 the economy was in shambles and the future looked dark. Americans felt like Hoover was cold and unresponsive, he was even referred to as “heartless” when it came to the needs of the nation.

Even though he had tried encouraging businesses, including banks to work together to solve the financial problem, he had made it clear that the government was not going to get involved.  He felt that the economy in time would right itself.

Are we Judging Hoover too Harshly?

And because of that, he was soundly defeated for re-election by Franklin D. Rooselt. The defeat was personally humiliating to Hoover, who had spent little time campaigning; ideologically, he had hoped to defeat Roosevelt, as well as the economic crisis, by sitting behind a desk. Hoover was at his best working with strategies, theories, and numbers, rather than people.

He was more interested in balancing the federal budget and making deals with industries, than finding practical ways to help the nation survive. Was Hoover judged too harshly?

Wasn’t he heralded as a humanitarian because of his service to the nation during World War 1 feeding millions of starving people in Europe?  What happened to his humanitarian side, or was he just misunderstood? Perhaps he was still playing the role of a businessman when the misery of millions needed a compassionate heart. Hoovers legacy is tied to this failure.

We may have been wrong in judging him so harshly. In the early 1920’s Hoover’s political prospects seemed unlimited. He was clearly a great success and was considered a rising star in the Republican Party.

The Prosperity of the 1920s

The 1920s was a period of dynamic growth in America. World War I had devastated the industrial landscape of Europe, and left American industries as the only significant economic power still standing. Factories happily produced automobiles, radios, washing machines, even refrigerators, and families continued to pour into cities, expanding their populations and resources so much that the federal government passed laws restricting immigrants. (Immigration Act of 1924).

High Production and Consumption

Both productivity and consumer consumption were high, and unemployment was nearly zero. Anyone who wanted to work could find a job. By the end of the decade, many wondered if the good times might end. Was it all too good to be true? Should they be mindful to avoid falling off that so-called proverbial cliff?

A Chicken in Every Pot

It is doubtful if Herbert Hoover uttered those words. Still, his 1928 Presidential campaign advertised him as the candidate who promised “a chicken for every pot and a car in every garage,” which translated into the message that most Americans wanted to hear. That message was that Hoover would take care of them and guarantee that prosperity and the good times would continue.

Election of 1928

Hoover won the 1928 Presidential election in a landslide, and because he had convinced voters that there was no cliff. His message was clear that the good times would continue, but of course, they would not. Hoover’s campaign slogan breathed confidence into Americans. Still, six months after he took office, the country did fall off a cliff, and the stock market crashed, and economies throughout the world collapsed, and the Great Depression began.

Herbert Hoover

Herbert Hoover had earned a reputation as a “genius,” “boy wonder,” and a “can-do” person who radiated supreme confidence. With Hoover, anything was possible because hard work equaled achievement, and felt he was living proof. During the campaign, a superman image emerged of him, the former President of the American Farm Bureau, J.R.Howard saying, “the American farmer has never had a more steadfast friend than Herbert Hoover.”

Friend to the Farmer

A headline from the Bay City Times, Bay City, MI. Friday, June 15, 1928, stated: “Presidential Nominee Has Had Spectacular Career.” His remarkable skills as an organizer, manager, and his wisdom when it came to solving the food crisis in Central and Eastern Europe after World War I was legendary. Even the young assistant Secretary of the Navy Franklin Delano Roosevelt said, {Hoover was certainly a wonder {boy} and I wish we could make him President of the United States}.

In the decade leading up to him becoming the 31st President of the United States, Hoover had led the Commission for Relief in Belgium, had become the director of the U.S. Food Administration, and served as the nation’s third U.S. Secretary of Commerce. It seemed that Herbert Hoover could do anything.

Herbert Hoover, 1928, Candidate for President of the United States. Courtesy of the National Archives.

He was an orphan at age 9

Headlines like “Hoover, the Boy Who Entered Business at 17, Who Fought His Way to the Top” continued the myth that Hoover was a superman. His rise to fame was impressive. Orphaned at the age of 9, he dropped out of high school because he had to work. After moving to California, he attended night classes and eventually worked his way through Stanford, earning a degree in engineering.

Hard work and intelligent

He was known for his hard work, as well as his keen intelligence, but also his aloofness and arrogance, predicated by his self-observation, “I have insisted on having my way.” Hoover was a self-made man who took great pride in his ability to overcome adversities. Some say he was challenging to work with, and Hoover added to that perception by saying, “It simply comes to this: men hate me more after they work for me than before.”

The Dark Days Begin

It is likely during this period of self-development he became acutely aware of the rewards of hard work and self-reliance. His ticket for the Presidency, however, rested on the boastful campaign slogan “a chicken in every pot.” By 1930, and with 25% unemployment, and with thousands of banks closed, and millions of Americans evicted from their homes and farms, the glow of a superman President began fading.

Americans remembered the infamous remark made by former President Calvin Coolidge about his successor, “the boy wonder had offered {him} unsolicited advice for six years, all of it bad.”

Do nothing

Hoover thought that it was best to do nothing because the economy would right itself. Americans needed to be self-reliant and not look to the government for help, of this he was sure.

No handouts

His administration made it clear that Hoover’s government would not be giving handouts to Americans, despite the hard times. Americans needed to be “self-reliant”; they needed “to be strong and independent,” and most importantly, they “needed to stand up on their own two feet.” America would not turn into a socialist society while he was in office. Americans wanted that as well, but many had already exhausted all of those grand notions.

Economic desperation grows

In a schoolhouse in West Virginia, a teacher told a young girl who appeared to be hungry, to go home and get something to eat.

The child responded, “I can’t,it’s my sister’s turn to eat.” In Detroit, Louise Armstrong wrote, “We saw a crowd of some fifty men fighting over a barrel of garbage which had been set outside the back door of a restaurant. American citizens are fighting over scraps of food like animals.”

Loss of homes, farms, and family

Millions of families lost their homes and farms through either eviction or foreclosure. In 1931 the Missouri Pacific Railroad reported counting over 200,000 homeless people living in their boxcars. The times were so bad that some parents abandoned their children. Children were turning up in bus stations, post offices, the hospitals and churches with messages pinned to their clothes, “please take care of little Johnny.”

Increase in crime and divorce

Some estimates suggest that the number of abandoned children amounted to nearly 1 million. Crime and suicide increased, while divorce and birth rates dropped because families could not afford to either split up or contemplate bringing more mouths to a family’s table when it was already bare of food. Hoover’s administration denied that there was a crisis. All that was needed, according to President Hoover, was to let the sick economy cure it.

Purge

According to Andrew Mellon, Secretary of the Treasury, “everything from banks to farms needed to be liquidated,” it “would purge the rottenness out of the system. High costs of living and high living will come down. People will work harder and live a more moral life.” There was an expressed coldness in the messages that came from the Hoover administration.

Lack of care

Hoover’s lack of empathy in addressing the suffering was disturbing, but his public comments placed him at odds with the personal tragedies occurring across the country. In 1930, telling bankers, “the depression is over.” and later, “I am convinced we have passed the worst and with continued effort, we will recover.”

Hoover was wrong.

It would be ten more years and another World War before the nation recovered, but Hoover had been confident that recovery was just around the corner. “No one has yet starved,” he said in another speech, but of course, that was false, too. New York had reported that at least 100 citizens had died because of a lack of food in 1931.

Tax increase

Always satisfied that he was right, Hoover pushed through the Revenue Act of 1932, raising the tax rate from 25% to 63% on the highest earners. He thought this balance the federal budget. It did not, and instead, Hoover’s thoughtless action discouraged consumer spending even more and created more obstacles for an economic recovery.

By increasing taxes on those who were already struggling, many wondered if the “boy wonder” cared about them. Americans were confident, too, that Hoover did not understand them, and he seemed to lack even the slightest show of empathy towards the suffering that millions were experiencing.

No programs to help the starving

State and local governments had no programs or funds to address the starving and people experiencing homelessness. Shantytowns began to spring up throughout the nation. Made of cardboard, scrap wood, and metal, it didn’t take long for the masses to start calling them Hoovervilles. And when the winters’ freezing began, the homeless began calling the newspapers that they wrapped around themselves for warmth Hoover blankets.

He feared socialism

Hoover refused to provide federal programs to the needy for fear that the nation would be “plunged into socialism.” He felt that government assistance would be the worst thing for a country in crisis, and rob people of the desire to help themselves.

Churches and volunteer groups

Hoover felt that addressing personal hardships should be part of the “natural generosity” of churches, and volunteer groups, such as the Salvation Army and Red Cross. The crisis, however, quickly overwhelmed their resources.

New York Times on Hoover – 1929

Less than a year after his landslide victory for President , the New York Times said this about Hoover, “the public is turning rather heavily against the Hoover administration.” Two years later, he tried another tactic to save the economy.  It was the Reconstruction Finance Corporation, or RFC, as many referred to it. Created, however, to protect banks, insurance companies, and railroads.  The millions of Americans trying to survive were clearly not signiicant enough for Hoover to consider.

Why can’t the government help the people?

U.S. Senator Robert Wagner asked the question, “if the government could help businesses, why couldn’t they help the people in need ?”

Later in 1932, an editorial in the New York Times said, “Hoover has failed as a party leader. He has failed as an economist …He has failed as a business leader …He has failed as a person because of his awkwardness of manner and speech and lack of mass magnetism.”

1932 Election

As it was in the 1928 match, the votes of the Presidential election of 1932 culminated into another landslide, but this time Herbert Hoover was not the winner. Hoover had squandered arguably the most massive mandate ever given a candidate in 1928, but, by 1932, the time had run out to resolve the growing economic crisis.

Franklin D. Roosevelt

New York’s Governor, Franklin Delano Roosevelt, bested Hoover by taking a more substantial plurality of the popular votes, sweeping 42 of the 48 states, and ultimately crushing the incumbent in the electoral college: 472 for Roosevelt and only 59 votes for Hoover.

Public wanted change

The voters wanted a leader who showed compassion, but, sadly, the awkward and quiet Herbert Hoover struggled to do that.

 Uncaring

Although Hoover’s political enemies framed him as uncaring and cold, in reality, he cared about the citizens and worked tirelessly to figure out a plan to save the economy. The problem was, his plans did not work, primarily because he refused to allow the federal government to provide direct aid to citizens. Hoover’s mistake was that he naively thought that all problems, even the vastly complicated ones like the Great Depression, could be solved by applying his philosophy of hard work and self-reliance.

Some of FDR’s Programs Were Actually Hoover’s Ideas.

Franklin Delano Roosevelt promised Americans a “New Deal,” and during his first “Hundred Days” as President he signed several groundbreaking new laws. The irony was that FDR’s “New Deal” loosely resembled those that Hoover had attempted. The difference was, however, the New Deal bills supported direct federal aid but also tightened government control over many industries.

Even more surprising was that many of the central ideas of FDR’s plan, such as agricultural loans, deposit insurance, and a government home-mortgage agency, were Hoover’s.

In the End

It didn’t really matter, neither Hoover’s ideas, or Roosevelts program brought an end to the Great Depression. World War II ended the Great Depression. The war demanded nothing less than full employment of the nations workers to run the assembly lines and factories needed for war supplies and the tremendous number of military personnel required for war on two fronts.

Sources:

Image: (Herbert Hoover, along with President Warren G. Harding and his wife Florence attend a baseball game in 1922.)

“Hoover, the Boy Who Entered Business at 17, Who Fought His Way to the Top” (June 15, 1928 edition of the Evening Star (Washington, DC)

M>Bay City Times, Bay City, Mi. Friday, June 15, 1928

New York Times, July,1932

The New Yorker Magazine “Hating on Herbert Hoover” by Nicholas Lemman, October 2017

About the Author

Allen Cornwell

Administrator

Allen Cornwell is a retired business owner and an adjunct professor of American History at a small college. He lives in rural Virginia and enjoys history, sports, old movies and visiting all types of museums. Cornwell has had a number of American history articles published and he earned his graduate degree in American History from Virginia Commonwealth University. He can be contacted at: allencornwell@mac.com

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