There is a musician very much involved them a good living as a computer programmer. Some of the most shoplifted and lived in squats. So theres all sorts of different people. Unfortunately, weve run out of time. 20 thank you for questions. Human to touch on many areas i hope we would have more time to explore and theres so much more in the book. Masha gessen will be signing outside. Id like to ask all of you to think about supporting the program that brings these kinds of writers to los angeles. Donations of course i am sure if you talk to luis outside, you can find out a way to handle that. Look forward to Masha Gessens new work. Shes riding on the boston massacre. When do you expect [inaudible] you can look forward to that. 20 thank you so much for coming to los angeles. That [applause] [inaudible conversations] up next, after words, with guest host amity shlaes, author of the forgotten man. This week, Herbert Hoover asks burke, george nash in his latest, tree in a period in it, the Hoover Institution fellow refers to the missing link in the hoover memoirs. He provides 31st political for huckabee and the most historic conflict. This program is about an hour. Host hello. The book is the crusade years 19331955 Herbert Hoovers lost memoir of the new deal era and its aftermath. The editor is george nash, the most esteemed scholar of Herbert Hoover today. Herbert hoover served from 1929 to 33, which means he was the president who saw the worst years of the depression. The Great Depression was so bad that a lot of our modern hits arenas about assigning blame for it, figuring out whose fault the depression was. Many people blamed hoover and down the decades increasingly so. The 31st president of the United States was ranked 37 out of 43 in a recent u. S. News poll. The magazine wouldve hoover he was known as a poor communicator who fueled and exacerbated the depression. Not only those on the left, but also sometimes on the right, assign blame to herbert and we are here today to talk about that specifically. President hoovers own analysis, his own work, which blames other people as well including his successor, Franklin Roosevelt and his predecessor, calvin coolidge. We want to welcome you viewers to this revision. A frequent guest on this channel. Richard burr and smith introduced and interviewed him a few years ago for another book. We would give license to this controversial depression subject. We will break our hour into three parts. The first part is to remind ourselves to supervise. The second part is to talk about the production of this tremendous book and its many pages and much editing in detail. The third part will talk about why it matters, what about the Great Depression and today cspan viewers welcome. George, welcome. It really begins in college and youve written a whole book about that. Rated hoover go to college and how does it affect him . Guest yesterday was first of all born in 1874 in i o is the son of quakers, son of a blacksmith and he was orphaned before he was 10. What not to live at the. Never had more than a middleschool education really. And then applied for entrance into newly formed Stanford University in the summer of 1891 and got admission and was told to take additional tutoring the help of which he passed most of the entrance exams and was allowed to enter. He was probably literally the first at the Stanford University in the fall of 91, getting his dormitory room ahead of anyone else. That became, in a deep sense, his alma mater. Remember he is an orphan boy was trying to make in the world. He was only 17 when he entered college and he was rather shy. But he blossomed in college and became student body treasurer by the time he was out of college. Stanford meant so much to him that about 25 years or so after that, after world war i, hoover literally built his own home on the stanford campus and that is still there. Is the official residence of the president of the university. Host dr. Nash, what did he do with his education he got there . He said it mining engineering . Guest its official nature was geography and the adventures in engineering and not quickly became his career after you graduate in the class of 1985. After a year or two of the United States he got a break and was hired by a british mining Engineering Firm that was preeminent in the world at the time and he was sent as a very young man to australia and before he left australia at the age of 23 come he was always manager of one of the great gold mines of the estonian gold rush, since a while yet it was called. From there, he went to got married to a stanford woman who also was a geology major, possibly the first such woman in the United States to have been major. We cant be sure, but she was certain a pioneer in her own right. They went to china for a couple years and eventually hoover used the base during his mining engineering career, which took him out to world war i. He became very successful at it, traveled all over the world, lived in places like irma, china, australia and so forth and had a Great Success at the first career. Posters to stop a minute and think about this. Imagine you have a son or daughter and he goes to college and studies the thing the world needs most at that point, getting minerals out of the ground, a growing economy needs minerals, especially with the world islamic Gold Standard. Your child is the best educated in that area. He studied with masters at stanford and is also the most able. Some of us that the best paid young man of his generation. Certainly one of the most successful. He wasnt just any success. Youre quite right. He became the outstanding writing engineer this time who is recognized for that. He was earning in 1908 to 1914 money probably in excess of 100,000 a year, which is a lot of money in the preincome tax stays. But you know, he didnt want to stop there. By the time he was 40 he was probably a millionaire, immodest millionaire. Not a midas or rockefeller perhaps, but he wanted to do more with his life. Just making money isnt enough. Having done well, he wanted to do something more creative, perhaps give back in the chain of circumstances led to his second career as a humanitarian. Thats right. Professor nash has written about each stage of his early life. He moved first in wartime to getting americans back and then to a great rescue of the people of belgium and then to be also food administrator. At the beginning of american politics quiet when the First World War broke out in the month of his 40 earth day, he had these notions whos going to return to the United States and get into public life in some vague way, probably by buying a newspaper. He would become a newspaper owner. At any rate, circumstances turned his life in a different direction and as he pointed out, he first helped american tourist standard in europe get home and then was asked to organize what was thought to be a temporary emergency Relief Mission to help the distressed people of belgium who are just been overrun by the german army at the start of the war. They didnt have enough food. That turned into something without precedent in the history of humanity, feeding the entire occupied nation of several Million People, over 9 Million People of utah couple million in northern france. That made hoover an International Hero and american benevolence. The new world coming to hope the old in its tribulations. Hoover was doing this not by conducting war but dealing with the problem of forest a humanitarian. That made him an International Hero, an american here as well and he entered the Wilson Administration when we entered the war and became food administrator. Now hes kind of a world food released new field humanitarian relief, earned himself of the humanitarian that was the master of emergencies, at the end of the war, he went back on wilsons instructions to organize many countries receive orchestrated men for sales cheated and tens of millions of people were dependent on relief. At the time if the opportunity to form opinions about the revolutions going on in europe, whether west germany or russia. He had investments they are and so it happened with the russian revolution. Oeuvres in american traveled all over the world. Five times before world war i. He was a perceptive observer constantly comparing these other social systems in many which were feeling. There was great turmoil in the aftermath of world war i and the communist taken over russia, the bolshevik revolution in 1917 and hoover had basically pulled out of russian mining interests before the revolution, but he lost a fortune in the communist came in comiskey is the mines and general chaos ensued. He saw one of the great lesson teacher from that wartime in postwar experience, he saw what he regarded as the failure of commandandcontrol economies as we would say, he used the word socialism, bolshevism and so forth, especially in russia. He thought that its a great failure, but also as a great challenge philosophically to the american way of doing things. After his humanitarian episode probably resulted in his saving more lives than any person has ever lived. A remarkable achievement. After that he returned to the United States in 1919 and entered American Public life. Host thats right. We will move through the career to brief the reader so we can get to the controversy. He was such a success that both parties vied for his attraction and in the end he went republican. He was commerce secretary to president harding and president coolidge and didnt get along very well with president coolidge, jd . Guest initially they did, but became an increasingly tense relationship, partly for reasons of temperament. Partly hoover was much more aggressive in terms of wanting to build public work expenditures and so on and that grated against coolidge more fiscal conservatism. They were both party loyalists, so coolidge did endorse whoever ultimately and 28 and again when hoover ran for reelection. Its a complicated story. Host thats right. Hoover and president because he becomes within a year, the stock market crashes. Hoover is stuck with the albatross of a downturn and this is why theres so much emphasis on him, so much focus. What did hoover do in the depression. This first years as president to point out the highlights. Guest hoover does not believe in the philosophy of laissezfaire. He frequently disparage that in his writings even before he was president. By the historic standards of the presidency, he was an activist at the start. We try to do is pray and leaders of industry, labor, bankers and so forth and have a cooperative approach that would stimulate recovery through Greater Public works spending and the like. There were phases to let hoover did and he did send things that hes been criticized over by conservatives agreeing to the terrace, for example. There was a great terror, which he signed. Some of us have seen a scene in Ferris Buellers day off. That tariff was a burden on business at a time when business could afford it. Guest hoover was reluctant to sign it, but it had been pushed through when it was something his party stood for mr. A high tariffs to the Republican Party. He did hope that in the law as written, he could turn it to better damage by setting up the Tariff Commission that would presumably be more impartial and perhaps lower as well as raise tariffs. He had a kind of hope that scientifically things would work out better. That probably was a forlorn hope. Host what about wages . Guest he and other leaders had a few wages should remain where they were. The argument being this would create purchasing power for people who are struggling, perhaps the unemployed and so forth. That has been much debated. Host use like henry ford. Henry ford police pay high and buy back the car. Its not keynesianism because keynes wasnt done this way, but in idea very popular now. Consumer spending is good for the economy. Host who was a proto keynesian at that point in the sense he believed in stimulating the economy through countercyclical Public Expenditure on public works. He had a certain interest in that kind of thing. So that was part of his early policy. What happens to hoover is the depression deepens and hoover didnt know was that the Great Depression. They thought it was a typical cyclical event. The pattern did not hold and keep it, hoover found himself facing an creasing pressure from the left for greater and greater miniatures for greater intervention of the economy and he started to hold the line against that and became very much a fiscal conservative balance the budget can save the Gold Standard republican in the last year or two of his life. That perceived rigidity on his part is part of the reason he got attacked is supposedly not doing anything. He was quite activist first time in claiming policies that might not have been all that effect is. On the other hand coming was valiantly struggling against a total statist or such as he saw coming in the new deal. Host theres so many cliches about hoover, but theyre very different. Some people blamed him for being to act as some people blame him for doing nothing. Neither is entirely correct. This is why your writings about hoover are so important. There is a thirdgrade measure often discussed, which is they had an enormous tax increase in the later part of hoovers time and i often think, what do you think dr. Nash, that he was blamed wrongly because in todays terms to go into a high tax, the 60 range for the 25 or 24 that they had when he started seems like a lot, but he was operating in a Gold Standard world and in a Gold Standard world, washington must balance the budget. Even worse recession by taking the gold away. What do you think about this tax increase and whether hes wrongly blamed about it . Two things. There is a consensus among economists and politicians of both parties in the late 31 and early 32 that the federal deficit was so gigantic. 50 of federal expenditure. There had to be tax increases to balance the budget because as you say, balancing the budget was perceived to be critical to recovery. The question was do you have a National Sales tax . To a lot of miscellaneous taxes . The income tax . Some evidence what was called at the time the manufacturers sales tax, but eventually what happened was there was a lowbudget taxes. I have to point out the consensus of economic thinking at that time was that this was a wise idea. This is not something hoover hoisted on the congress. There was consent to print the battle was dussault richard do Something Else . Those are the parameters of the debate. Secondly, if you look at the results of the tax increase, even after rates were raised, 90 of the American People did not pay any income taxes still. I am inclined to think that weather was a good idea or bad idea, it was not the catastrophic explanatory idea for the late phase of the depression that some on the right would say. I tend to think a tax increase, while probably a mistake a understanding of policy was not nearly as much of a mistake are in the context you might say which wasted a house . Hoover has gotten too much criticism on that one. Host right. You think of this sort of an emotional arc. The stock market went down into the 40s from 381. The countries very angry. So who had they chosen to blame . Hoover is the most blamed president anyway. Quickly to move on a little bit before we talk about your work and the work of a biographer and editor, hoover is out in 33, kind of add on its rear end unfortunately, not included and goes back to california. You had said he invented the expresidency because he lived very long after the presidency, you know, how they record in fact until jimmy carter surpassed him. Can you briefly tell us what you did in that postpresidency. Guest youre exactly right. He was a pariah when he left office and hated as much as any person in american history. He did not go quietly away. He did go to california where he lived and stayed out of sight for about a year and a half so he gave roosevelt a chance. Hoover didnt want to just start rousting about roosevelt. At the very start wanted to permit a genuine change of administration. Hoover then became partly for reasons of temperament because of the desire to vindicate himself and partly because he saw great threat emerging, he became very active as an expresident. Its been said he invented the expresidency. Theodore roosevelt had some inclinations along that line. But hoover became the leader of the opposition. He wrote a book in 1934, which was his return to the same College Challenge to liberty. Perhaps well talk about that in a moment. He ended up becoming a vigorous critic of the new deal. He actually really wanted to be president again and theres considerable evidence in 1840 he was angling for, hoping for the republican nomination. He wanted to return and stay in public life. He became the intellectual leader of the Republican Party during the period from 1933 and the advent of eisenhowers administration to return the republicans to the presidency in 1953. In that period, hoover became a man of the right because even though he saw himself as the progressive republican and historic liberal, who is battling what he saw a much greater status from the left and that pushing towards the right. During these years hes writing books, doing all sorts of philanthropic work. People forget for almost 30 years he was chair of the boy scouts of America Movement and made that into a major philanthropy for urban voice. He did a hu