Transcripts For CSPAN2 Book Discussion On Herbert Hoover In The White House 20160902

And its nice to see so many of you on this gorgeous day. I know the temptation is to be outside. But im glad you joined us. Welcome to the Herbert Hoover president ial library museum. One of 13 such institutions operated by the National Archives and records administration. Im tom schwartz, and director, and i have the great pressure of introduce ago guest speaker there are few housekeeping matters. As a courtesy to our speaker, and other members of the audience, please silence your cell phones and other electronic devices. Remember, this is being recorded for later broadcast on cspan. And no ring tone warrants being captured only National Video of for an audience. Well have amp supply of Herbert Hoover in he white house high high which home sure heed be april to sign. Visit our other exhibit, world of the gangster, and take a palm card from the lobby which highlights our upcoming programs, events and exhibits. If youre not a member of our foundation, i hope you will take home a membership application and consider joining. The hoover president ial Foundation Supports all of our exhibits and programs, including travel grants, which provided our speaker several weeks of research in the library collections. Finally, if youd also help us by fill ought survey form after the program, before you leave, that helps us in evaluating the programs we provide. Charles rapleeye is an Award Winning investigative journalist and editor. His interests are wide ranging. He has written about the media, law enforcement, organized crime, slavery and the american revolution, as well as the wellreceived biography of robert morris. Finance year of the american revolution. A native of cambridge, massachusetts, he attended the university of wisconsin where he majored in economics. One of the strengths of his study of the hoover presidency is to explain in simple language the complicated Economic Issues that brought about and sustained the Great Depression. Ladies and gentlemen, please welcome charles rapleeye. Hi there and thank you for coming out today. Its a little awkward for me to come to the hoover institution, the hoover president ial library, and talk to people about Herbert Hoover, what i know about Herbert Hoover, because i feel like a number of you will know more about hoover today than i would know in another five years of research. I feel like this is the place of some aficionados and some experts, and i appreciate your listening to what i might have to add. What im going to do is not so much talk about what well, what i feel like i can add is what i found that struck me about hoover. I knew something about hoover when i started but not a whole lot. I feel like im sort of every man that way. So the things i ran across that really struck me and surprised me, i thought would be of general interest, of interest to you people. Also want to thank tom swartz for the invitation to speak here, and particularly Matt Schaffer and spencer howard, who were the researchers who worked with me hand in glove for a couple of years on constantly my constantly calling on them for new information to look up a document i had missed to assist me on fining and locating material. Theyre very good at what they do and i appreciate how helpful they were to me. Ill start with an anecdote. Hoover the first thing that struck me about hoover, which i found so compelling and revealed him in a real human dimension was hi constant conflicts. He was never very settled on what he was doing or how he was dying it. He was full of second guesses about himself, about his strategies. He was of a divided mind, and that was before the presidency. Its very much part of his character. Ask then during the presidency it continued to sort of plague him. Couldnt have been very easy. Heres the a story i thought sort of brought some of that out. On a saturday afternoon in may, 1931, when the depression had really set in and hoover was under a lot of pressure. President hoover spent a rare free hour chatting with the journalist, reporter who made the switch early from print to the more immediate medium of radio. It was more a conversation than an interview, and hoover was feeling free and glib, but he was president , after all, and before it was over, the discussion turned to the upcoming election. The reporter asked hoover if he were worried about the campaign prospect. No, not at all, the president quickly replied. It was obviously too flip a response considering the state of the economy and the popularity of Franklin Roosevelt. Im sorry, this is early 32 so he knew that roosevelt was he was up against roosevelt. After a pause, hoover decided to explain himself. Quote the reason im not worried is because i dont give a damn whether i am reelected or not. Here was hoovers old ambivalence about politics based by three trying year inside the white house. A candid remark that was in exactly true and carried the potential for political damage. The reporter ended his visit shouldnt after hoovers statement. A few minutes later hoover called in his press secretary, ted jocelyn, and were vaguely what he might know about the reporter. Jocelyn said he new him as a correspondent foe the black lip daily eagle. Hoover then asked if the reporter understood the white house rules f reporter that all talks with the president are confidential. Jocelyn said he couldnt say for sure. Then run him him him done. I said that would cause a sensation if rae peteed. And jocelyn jumped and caught the reporter and the store was squelched for jocelyn, it was confirmation of hoovers unacknowledged but ill concealed yearn to return to office. The president may say he doesnt give a damn about reelection but wants it more than anything else. And part of this what i liked about this is this anecdote is that hoover is of two minds and its not clear that he knows which side he is on. These conflicts are internal and they beguile hoover as well as everybody around him. Hoover could also show in his duality some real determination, some real sense of what he wanted and where he was going. And an example of that to me, the telling one, is when he first learned that Calvin Coolidge was not going to run for reelection, hoover then was serving in coolidges cabinet and was a like by and odds on favorite to succeed coolidge if coolidge were to step aside. But when this happened, hoover had no warning of it. Nobody had any warning of it and that was sort of the way Calvin Coolidge didding did things. He would surprise people. And he did this in on this occasion he called reporters to his vacation where he was his vacation spot in the midwest where he was taking some time out from the white house, and coolidge said, i do not choose to run for my reelection. And at the time that was big mystery, what did coolidge really mean . Did he mean simply he is not going to run, which is what it turn out to be. But he wasnt real straightforward in what he said. Didnt explain and it people were wondering. It was announced by telegram and followed hoover was in grove, a place that then and now is a retreat for the elite and a place where they can let their hair down. Hoover loved that place. When the word came in that coolidge made this announcement, there were hundreds of telegrams to the front office at the bohemian grove, asking what hover hoover had to say. A crowd of men made their way to hoovers home and cabin to learn what he had to say. The ap cable was followed by hups more so many the switchboard operator had to sent out for help. Most called for hoover to announce his candidacy for the nations top office, but hoover responded with caution. I regret the suggestion that the president might stand down, hoover said in a statement for reporters. In case it was unclear, hoover add, president coolidge should be renominated and reelected. That same day, hoover sent out a tell gram of his own, this one a private communication, instructing a cohort of friends and political barkers in new york to sit tight there might be a campaign but saying more right now would appear unseemly. There should be no demonstration of any kind until coolidge clarified this cryptic utterance. This was for show. Hoover wanted to conceal his ambition from the public and from president coolidge, whose real motives remained obscures, and i should ad also from lou hoover who was not a big fan of herbert jumping into the public arena, and for months leading up to his decision to speaker the race, hoover kept his conversation about politics secret from lou. He would tell his friends, not now. Wait until were alone. That same night, everybody hoover told his people to sit tight. He made a hasty exit to conduct a secret midnight meeting with ralph arnold, his principal booster in california and then they retired to a booth in a nearby tavern to talk withmer privacy. Arnold was a stanford friend and had taken the train north or short to its to seek permission to put hoovers network of political backers into motion. That night, hoover gave arnold his blessing. Herbert hoovers campaign for the presidency got underway that night. And as if to confirm the decision, the information day hoover ordered his personal secretary to distribute to his intimates reasons the country a secret code that would be employed for political communications. So once again you have hoover telling some people one thing, some people another, and kind of hedging bets with himself. He wasnt sure yet he was in the race. But he is getting things into motion, and to some degree thats typical political you got to be careful what you say publicly and you have another agenda privately. But you get the sense with hoover that this really he had trouble settling it in his own mind before he gets into larger scenes of action. What i found, too, was that having made it to the white house, this sense of internal conflict continued to bedevil hoover and it was not just internal. In other words, people could see it. And they were surprised at this. Hooverbefore he war, had always been a super executive and man of quick decision and firm conviction, and that once he was in the white house that seemed to dissipate and it was confusing to the electorate, confusing to people around him. Now, another short passage, quoting clarence dill, a colleague of hoovers, a member of congress when hoover was secretary of commerce, and theyd worked together on a number of things. Clarence dill noted hoovers transformation from effective cabinet officer to a guarded and cautious president. This is early in his term. This was soon after becoming president. This change came over him. Dill was a congressman from washington state, a democrat, hoover being a republican so not of the same party but not especially partisan who sat in the senate and. He found that economy secretaries to be flexible and constructive. Quote, he was one of the most affable, agreeable and helpful men in the cabinet, dill said, during a 1967 oral history interview. So he is looking back. But something had changed upon hoovers election. Quote, it seemed to me he had lost his political charm, if some might call it that, dill said him no longer had that friendly, affable attitude, when he became president. He was distant. He had high respect for the office and this is what dill attributed this to. In dill residents view hoovers reserve game distinctly more pronounced after the election, the same transition Thomas Stokes noticed during the campaign when he remarked on hoovers personality and how he now appeared timid. Dill in his recollection, said he made two early trips to the white house to discuss legislation, what surprised on both occasions to find that the president , whom he form formerly considered a friend, wouldnt look its hmm. He looked at the ceiling or the floor or out the window when i tried to talk to him. Dill found the visit so disturbing he avoided any further encounters with the president. He never lost his respect for hoover, however. And to the end considered him a great character, one of the standouts he had met in the course of his own public career. But the presidency, dill said, smothers hoovers better quality. Quote, i think the office of president impressed him so much he lost his effective personality in trying to respect the office, dill said. Always felt mr. Hoover was so impressed we the office he couldnt be the free, open man he was. This ambivalence and this sort of hesitation in the face of conflict, and you think back to hoovers years at commerce, conflict he thrived on, but somehow once he took the central position of president , hesitation became his mode. Some again, this is all early in game. And it took a real toll on hoover. He was elected by a landslide, and was very popular across the country. Within a year and this is the october hoover takes office in march. The crash hits turned the end of october but the stock market crash, people didnt immediately recognize, oh, here comes the beginning of the Great Depression. That took months to sink in, or even years to recognize quite how deep the trough was they were heading into. But so that even before this happened, hoover, his Political Capital was all gone. He is a hobbled president , even on the onset of the depression. So its to keep in mind as the story progresses that as i utilize the device and telling the story i divided the book into three parts and the first part is called the rise and fall of Herbert Hoover. So im dating his fall to 1930. Before the depression was his burden to bear. The point is that he was not well suited to be president. Im not the only person to run across that. Ill quote from walter litman, one of the great pundits of the time and this was his analysis of what had happened. This, again, in early 1930s. Litman writes my own notion is that a close examination of mr. Hoovers conduct in the critical matters will disclose a strange weakness which renders him indefensive at the point where indecisive to point where the battle can be lost. And this called the peculiar weakness of mr. Hoover. This weakness appears at the point where in order to win he would have to intervene in the hurley burly of conflicting wills which are the living tissue of popular government. End quote. The pattern was there for all to see when lines were drawn and the contenders look for convention. Hoover tended to fade away. His voice mute and his purpose obscure. Knowing hoover was new to elective office, litman laid the president s failings to the vaguery of democratic process. Quote, he is baffled and worried. His action paralyzed by his own inexperience in the very special business of democratic. So might see hoovers remote bearing as arrogance, but litman felt otherwise. Again, the source was in the system. Hoover prized certainty, lit man rote and was excessively diffident in the presence of the normal irrationality of democracy. Hoover was quickly emerging as a caution to those who saw as the dry logic of the engineer as an antidote to the practice of politics. Litman again, quote in the realm of reason he is an unusually bold man in the realm of unreason he is for a statesman exceptionally thinskinned and an easily bewildered man. So this is hoover on the verge of the depression, occupying an office that he didnt quite fit, trying to lead a people that was not hearing him, and then the depression sets in. And this, i i felt was what im talking about next. Hoovers frustrations in the white house. I think to Say Something about hoover. He is generally understood to be a pacific sort of composed, very dignified fellow, and dignity was very big in his mind and dignity was big part of his conception of the presidency. So when it started to turn against him, he felt really bamboozled, frustrated, and angry. I think it says a lot before being president. What Pressure Cooker that thing is when things start to go wrong, and here are a couple of quit anecdotes about hoover feeling the heat. The first one involves this was, again, ted jocelyn, his press secretary, and a big supporter of hoovers. He wrote a book offeredwards after wards trying to salvage hoof hoovers reputation but politically that was not going to happen. Now, this is 1931 and the depression is really starting to grip the country. At the frustrations mounted in the long days piled one after another hoover started to show the strain, quote, the president is dog tired, jonathan noted in july. How he stands up under the pressure is a mystery to me. Seeking somehow to ease hoovers burden, jocelyn played a wild card. He contacted byron price, a wellliked Washington Bureau chief for the associated press. The president needed someone to alter his outlook. Quote, he is in a state and maybe a talk with you will do him good, jocelyn told byron price. Its not an interview, just a talk, he told price. Price was intrigued and upon being ushered into hoovers office he was astonishinged. He didnt look to me like the hoover i had been seeing, price recalled later. His hair was ruffled. He was almost crouching behind his desk and burst out of me with a volley of angry words. Not against me or the press but against the politics poll pos and foreign governments with absolutely unbridled language. I started to wonder what that actually means. Some people talked about hoover being able to swear with the best of them and in the mining camps of the australian outback and you can imagine thats some pretty heavy language in those days, but you never got any closer than, boy, hoover was using some colorful language that day. So, well just have to fill in with our imagination. In the midst of these tents and intermable negotiations hoover was boiling over. Price made controversial notes of the encounter and provided the verbatim quote from the embattled president. And now im asked to take the blame, hoover fumed it is miss fault the sellish men have refused to see the folly of their policies until too late . Is its my fault that france, our ally, has stood blindly in the way of settlement and cooperation . Hover was mad at france, but his anger income passed the whole Economic Disaster that compromised his term in office and this was in the negotiations of International Debts and france had thrown a wrench in the works. But his anger encompassed the whole Economic Disaster, quote, over a period of years has president and in the cabinet i have done all i could to avert the terrible situation we are in today but it was not enough, hoover complained to price. The original sin was committed at versailles, hoover said, aggravate bed i stupidity and stubbornness. So, i guess ill continue this a little further just to give you the sense of where things are at. Whatever ted jocelyn was thinking when he set up the encountered appeared to have worked. Price kept this he was and hoover invited hick back repeatedly, all off the record but to vent his anger but 1931 must have been the most emotional. Hoover realized however far he might reach, however hard he might push, in the economic collapse that began was not going to turn or come around like the depressions of the past. He recognized now that john maynard cannes has written, quote, were living in this year in the shadow of one of the greatest economic catastrophes of modern highlights. So hooverrest is realizing thingers are slipping away from him, not just policywise but his standing with the American People, and so he goes a little bit out of character. One thing he always took his own counsel. In this case, he brought somebody in as a special adviser. That person was James Mclafferty. Who was a former member of congress, and after his one term in congress, he had left the government and worked briefly well, had left elected office and worked briefly under hoover at commerce. He then went back to the west coast and was involved in shipping and when hoover was elected president , mclafferty traveled to washington to celebrate the inauguration and then in his James Mclafferty sort of way, when the white house was open for guests, after the inauguration, after the ceremonies, and mccarvely was in mclafferty was in the white house and theyd sure he was by the front tour so when hoover returned from his gnawing aural and entered the white house. The first face he saw was jim mclafferty. Mclafferty shook his hand and told him how proud he was of hoover, and then went on his way. But a year later, seemed that hoover was in so much political trouble mclafferty went to the house and offered his services as an advisor. At hoovers request now, read a at haves request, mclafferty returns to the white house a following week and thus began a continuing collaboration. The who met regularly. Mclafferty slipping in 0 and out of the white house early in morning or late in the day without the knowledge of the press or most of the white house staff. Between visits mclafferty haunted the cafeteria, sound thought sentiments and loyalties of his former colleagues in the legislature. Then he would go back to hoover and report on what he learned serving the president as a conduit, fixer and sometimes simply as a sounding board. To him mclaverly, sort of hanging around washington and then slipping and out of the white house. Its must be people like that operating in washington today but of course we dont know about it. All very secret. Of all the issuesen hoovers agenda heading into the summer of 1930. He first the question of veterans benefits. The American Legion and allies had just pushed through congress a bill extending disability pentagons to veterans of the spanish american war, pensions they would collect whether or not the disability was related to military service. So they were expanding the whole idea of what the compensation that goes to veterans, the way that veterans are honored, there was a time when it was considered that if you fought in the war, you did so because that was your conviction, and you lived with the consequences until you were disabled, and then the government was obliged to help. That began to change and the change came around now. The bill carried a price tag of 11 million but invited a much costliy expansion. Hoover vetoed the bill on may 28th. The first veto of his presidency but hardly showed the movement in congress. Four days later during a break in tariff debates, both houses voted to override. Now in june, the senate was moving to expand that new coverage and the new coverage and benefits to the millions more veterans from world war i. It was a signal moment on issues ranging from the tariffs political patronage, hoovers priorities tenned to get loss but the Balance Sheet seemed to clarify things. When it came to spending he shedded his timidity. To his mind it was protecting the American People, duty he embraced with verve. He muddled through his firstee in office, preaching cooperation but failing to define himself for the public. Now he found his mission. Mclafferty was delighted to see the president in such a combative mood. Like so maybe others he saw hoovers central problems to be one of leadership. He wanted hoover to hit harder, to drive his enemies. Watching hoover vent on stage im sorry watching hoover vent his outrage over the pension bill, mclafferty egged him on. So lawmakers who lined up against him had done so for fear of constituent back larrylash. The answer was to make the politicians fear hoover. Let them know if theyre not now for you, you are not for them, mclaverly told hoover. Make them fear you. Hoover is a guy who for whom cooperation was the buy word. Government into not be coercive it was by enticing people to seek their better interests as the sought to move things forward. The idea of driving his enemies through fear was out of character but sort of set the Pressure Cooker that he was in and hoover adopted this as a strategy. Mclafferty again in 1931, when the democrats floated a new more expensive version of the veterans bonus this all still before the famous veterans bonus showdown in washington. Hoover ruled his people would make no effort to improve the bill. So this is a new bill. Hoovers decision is to let it by well, as he says, as bad as possible, better to assert his planned veto. A cynical strategy that hoover described to clinched teeth. He was very tense, mclafferty observed in his diary. Cutting his words short and his voice never loud, was low itch dont want to compromise, the grimfaced president told his political aides itch want the twill to go to hims so it will arouse the country so it cannot pass over a veto. Mclafferty saw political matters in black and white and encouraged the president s intransigence. My advice is you figuratively kick them in the face, he told the president. Dont show any mercy right now. If you do it will be heralded as weakening on your part. Your enemies comment have it any other way. This public will say you are weakening. Dont give them chance to say it. So this sort of frustration, rage, anger, and disappointment that hoover encounters in the white house. And it was its not what i expect told see from the quaker president. Its not, think, what people generally think of, but i thick its what happens when youre caught in the crossfire the way it happened with hoover. These are observations about character and about the man behind the mask, i guess you could say. But there was also of course hoover and the depression, whoever, the guy who let the depression happen, hoover the guy who didnt know how to handle it. Thats my understanding as i came into this. But following closely, and studying for a couple years and a little more into hoover and the depression and what he did, here again i come away with a different understanding than i started with, and one that i did not expect and that i will share with you. Thats the sense of hoover as man of real vision and insight when it comes when you get a. From the game of politics and into the arena of policy and prescription and the economy. Hoover was a lot smarter, i believe, than he was given credit for and had some very important things to say, things to notice. Ill take it in a couple of stages because as the depression deepens, hoovers response shifts, but right off the bat, with the wall street crash, again, you have the crash on wall street. People dont know, especially when it you dont have the example of the Great Depression in front of you, people dont know automatically where one thing leads to the next or where that might take it. With the depression there was a lot of talk about the fundamentals of the American Economy are fine. In fact hoovers only Public Statement on the arrival of the depression was that the fundamental business of america is in good shape, and were going to get through this. Just a matter of confidence and we americans know how to handle these things. That kind of thing. But hoover again, he was reluctant to bring the government into engagement on the economy where there was in precedent and no indication this crash meant a widespread malaise in the economy. So hoovers first reaction was not to not a governmental one but to call together the leaders of american business, and a series of conferences to cajole, to persuade, to press them to maintain their spending, not to panic, not to slash payroll in the first onset of bad news, which was the pattern up until then. Then when took the stage at a business Conference Since then been laughed at by economists and pundits who say it was just a dog and pony show. I think thats a little done fair itch think he really felt this was an after knew that might work. Anyway, hoover opened the first of these conferences with an appraisal of the wall street crash. It was for more candid and more gloomy than anything he had shared with the public and i might add, with most anything that was being said at the time. And i think this is a case of hoover having and real insight into what was happening. He had called this group together, the president said, only because, quote, he viewed the doing are because he, quote, viewed the crisis more seriously than a mere stock market crash. This was an instink tisch jolt and there war no ways to gauge the damage. And hoover felt confident in warning that, quote, we can expect a long and difficult period at best and there must be much liquidated of inflated values and tetes and prices with heavy penalties for the nation. So, almost alone among his contemporaries, hoover saw what was coming. His point was not continue right fear. There was plenty of that to go around. His goal was instill awareness of the gravity of me motion and a sense of Mission Going forward. There are, quote, immediate duties the businessmen sitting before him was to, quote, consider the human problem of unemployment and distress, unquote. Previous crises had seen immediate lick liquidation of labor with wage cuts and lay youves. Hoover opposed sun steps with every instinct. Labor was not a commodity, quote, an entity prices of human homes. He was never cruised of being eloquent but human homes is a curious way to put that. But you get the idea. It would flag any identify the collapse over the market by the sudden reduction of purchasing power so is quite aware of the whole idea of Consumer Spending driving the American Economy. Wage cuts might prove inevitable he told his aa si blem hi employers but it should be delayed until the cost of ribbon came down, hopefully then the worst hardships might be avoided. And goodbye on the question whether this was just dog and pony show in fact in the first year of the depression, wages stayed up, the point where economists were starring to worry that starting to worry that hes high wages were steveing the economy but when it stifling the economy but when it comes to the human cost of the depression, the wages staying up for years, for more than a year after this initial onset, and hiring hoover execs hurted if they were going to it, cut half shifts, reduce hours before you reduce the number of employees. There were a lot of measures taken like that to try to share the pain to try to keep individuals from taking the whole brunt on their own. Of course, a lot of this eroded as times except getting worse and worse but it was a bona fide effort to try to dampen the effect of the crash and the unemployment, and for a time it worked. Now, theres a couple other examples i think are important, certainly i found to be choice surprising as to hoovers insight. This pronouncements of pros apart were public response to the oncoming depression but not the extent of his Engagement Health cerebral, conscientious and was able to carve from a crowded schedule, he felt deeply on the economic problem and how to answer it. One arena he focused on was housing. Hoover saw the germs of solution by surveying the field of employment and job creation for bottlenecks, obstructions, obstacles that might be cleared away and he found just that in the Credit Structure of the housing industry. Home mortgages at the time were limited to just half the value of a new structure. Aspiring homeowners were expected to cover the other half out of pocket. Mortgage loans ran only three to five years. When they had to be paid off or second and mortgages carried Interest Rates of 20 . Mortgages changed a lot since then but hoover was looking at the whole situation of the American Economy and focused on this really awkward and difficult financing structure of the housing industry. His new focus on home finance and its ramifications for the depression represented an important insight. Studies conducted much later with data unavailable to hoover at the time, showed that Residential Construction was a leading factor in the general collapse. Of 12 sectors broken out for 1971 study, construction showed the sharpest, deepest dive of all. Well before any other voice was raised hoover noted a distinct proportional decrease in the amount of credit available for Home Building and observed, quote, this comes to the front in times of depression when credit available for this purpose almost disappears. End quote. Recognizing the ailment hoover saw an opportunity, building homes would generate substantial new prime minister, new employment, not just from construction but Building Materials and furnishings and at the same time, hoover believed, increasing improvement in Housing Conditions is of the jut most and social importance. The upshot of this was he proposed to the people at the Federal Reserve launching a new system of federal mortgage finance. The people at the Federal Reserve at the time didnt share his concern about credit. They felt there was plenty of credit in the system, that there was Something Else going wrong and it was not to the time to launch a new initiative in home finance. Hoover was frustrated with that it return. And he took it upon himself to circumvent to bypass the people at the fed. He his proposal into legislation for home loan finance board. It stalled in congress for a couple of years but among the final acts of congress under the hoover presidency was to launch the federal home loans finance board. Its an indication how difficult it is to get things done. Never amounted to what hoovers ambitions for the project, but it is an indication of what he saw as the problem, what he saw as a solution, and a certain sophistication i dont think is generally recognized about hoover. And again, as things as the depression pressed on, around the world, countries around the world, people around the world, considered the depression to be really the death nell of capitalism, the sort of the end of cycle that was predicted by karl marx, the capitalism has finally reached its High Water Mark and collapsed. And certainly thats what happen. Fear familiar with the cycle and thats what happened at the time. 0 for a lot of people that meant its time to abandon capitalism. Capital capitalism done work, and so you had the first revolution, the soviet revolution in russian but followed by revolutions all around the world. Particularly in south america a socialist model and then the rise of fascists in italy and germany, people turning away from the idea of a capitalist economy to a planned economy and you had a powerful movement here, especially among big corporate industrialiists saying we need to machine our economy. We need to plan our economy. We need to centralize planning. Thats the future. The sovieted are degree five year plans. We need fiveyear plans and tenyear plans. Hoover rejected all of that and kind of alone at the top of the elite, the world leaders, hoover was saying, this is not the end of capitalism. Capital him, private enterprise remains the engine that drives human progress. Never let go of that. But more than that, rather than a crisis of capitalism, he broke it down and saw crisis of decreed. The problem wasnt that capital limp didnt work but the credit markets had been shut down by asset valuation, by asset inflation and proceedings like that. So hoovers response was a Federal Home Loan Bank for home loan board, federal land lending, monetary easing, lower Interest Rates, big open market purchases, and anticipating the t. A. R. P. Program, 80 years later im sorry an sis pating quantitative easing, a policy we have been pursuing now, as a way to refreight out of this depression. Not inflate. That was always a bugaboo for hoover, but easing credit. Opening the channels of credit. Making sure that the capitalist system was lubricated to work the way it was supposed to. That was his response to the depression. At a time when a lot of people were losing their bearings, were gravitating towards centralized systems that have long since now been thoroughly discredited. It was hoover who saw that was not the way to turn. That this was a crisis of credit, not capital jim, and brought to capitalism and brought to bear whole raft of innovative proposals to responsible to that. I think that was i wont read passages about that. There are day really fill out this book, story of info vagues that hoover pursued itch think he needs to be recognized for the vision, the recognition that what was the feature of the crisis and the way to climb out of it. Ill finish by pursuing that a little farther. If hoover is so darn smart why didnt it work . And i think theres an answer to that, and that is hoovers allegiance to gold. He Gold Standard was the principle of economic sort of framework that people worked in for the 40 years leading up to world war i, which were 40 years of remarkable Global Economic development and integration for which Gold Standard was integral because it did integrate in parallel pricing, the different economies all over the face of the globe, and led to this unprecedented expansion of Economic Activity and wellbeing all through the latter part of the 19th century. Coming into the 20th with world war i and so on, all of that was disrupted. Hoover was trying to after the chaos of world war i, most of the countries of the world returned to the Gold Standard just before the depression hit. So, yo you have hoover trying to hold on to gold at a time when in was disruption all over the world and looked like well, it was chaos. Hoover believed that return of the Gold Standard would stem the chaos. Whether that was true or not well never know. The chaos is what took over and it was sort of competing devaluation that one after another pulled countries out of the depression. Hoover the United States under hoover was one of the last to let go of gold. In fact didnt happen until franklin roost came Franklin Roosevelt came in so the recovery was delayed in u. S. And we were among the last to climb out of the depression. This is large by to be hoover was foolish enough to hold on to gold too long that may be the case but i will venture their say that the jury is still out. If you look at the world from Herbert Hoover to now, the next thing will happen its fdr, and the abandonment of the gold stages which happened by stages and technically didnt completely abandon gold until richard nixon, but in fact thats what we did, is let good of the gold contents of the dollar and let the dollar rise and or sink, inflate, and by and large that made us more competitive against the rest alcohol world but what happens when you let good of gold and start to inflate, is asset values start to inflate, and when you start incurring debt, which is what the u. S. Did and what all the other western economies did, until you basically go from there to today, where under the Gold Standard it was very clear when people if you started going into deficit, people started withdrawing their foreign currency from your country and started selling off started cashing in for gold. Gold was in sort of automatic discipline in the International Monetary system. Without that feature, then asset values can inflate indefinitely, and so can debt until the world is kind of swimming in debt, which so far has been okay. We have been able to when we hit a downturn like we need like we did in 2009, we do the quantitative easing, we do the more inflation, and everything tends to float off the shows shoals a little bit but all the banks around the planet and all the democracies around the globe are deep in debt. Debt that is not clear that is worth the paper its printed on. I dont know if that means a presage to coming up to some kind of waterfall kind of cliff, where all these asset valuations are brought down to earth. But i will say i would say that as far as the idea of letting go of a Firm Standard of value, going ahead with inflating currencies and incurring Massive Public debt, its not clear yet that was the right answer and that hoovers answer is wrong. Thats as far as you can go as raising up Herbert Hoover as an economic visionary but i would go that farren and i would say that was far and i would say that was another real discovery as far as for me in learning about Herbert Hoover in the white house. Thats my talk. Im happy to answer questions, and ill be signing books outside. I dont know if tom can tell me if i overstayed my limit. I dont know, tom. Are we taking questions . Okay, the was this will work if you have a question, raise your hand, and dont start your question until you have a microphone. Are you aware of anything that president hoover wanted to do and failed that president roosevelt picked up and succeeded on . Well, there were a few things, and that is its an interesting question. Its an interesting point that in fact some of the leading advisers to roosevelt said later that almost everything they did under the new deal had been initiated under hoover. And it the kind of claim they can only make if youre a roosevelt acolyte. You get get much mileage saying from the hoover camp saying that everything they tide, we did first. That was their acknowledgment. In particular, for example, the reconstruction finance corp, which hoover deviced devisedo chane funds into the bank. A first step in that direction by the federal government and consequently both the republicans and the democrats in congress, when hoover put forth a program, but a lot of restrictions on it. High Capital Requirements for the loans. A lot of scrutiny and a lot of obstacles in paying the money. When the democrats took over and fdr took over, they were much freer with the funds from the reconstruction finance corp. They had a lot of success floating industry as well as banks, and so they started with what hover had and stand on it and found it to be very important expanded on it and found it to be very important in staving the recovery. Some of hoovers foreign policies as well. The problem in agriculture preceded the depression. In fact there are many theres good basis to believe that it was agriculture problems that precipitated the depression. Hoovers response the farmers strategy they wanted adopted was to have two markets, a domestic market, and then an export market, and when you sold at low prices on the expert market, the government would give you a subsidy to match the high domestic price that they were keeping in the u. S. Markets. A very convoluted twoprice strategy. That hoover and several other republican administrations reject it. Hoover came in his first act of president was to call far percentage session of congress for new agricultural policy. Instituted the federal farm board which now, hoover understood that price supports were a dead end, that trying to keep american prices high against the backdrop of a low Price International market was futile. But the farmers wanted action, and hoover wanted something to happen. They instituted the federal farm board, started buying crops to maintain crop prices, and stockpiling them. They ended up with huge warehouses full of grain that would rot way. Disastrous policy but the Roosevelt Administration pursued many of the same policies and then expand on some of them, paying farmers not to grow crops and that sort of thing. Some of that was pioneered under hoover farm administration. Roosevelt pursued it as well. To try to state was success, theres a vestige now of the price supports we pay now. The ironic situation of paying people not to plant crops. All of that survives, first from the hoover farm board, then from the roosevelt farm administration, all different ways of trying to deal with an intractable agriculture problem we have been dealing now with Something Like 100 years. Those are the principle wants, the rfc, housing board remained under roosevelt expands its operations. The basic thing that people point to is that until hoover the federal government did take its hands off in the face of economic problems and say, thats for the business the Business People and society as a whole to deal with. That nose for government. The ups and downs of the economy is life. Hoover wasnt ready to accept that and i dont know he could sew it would was getting bigger, more urban. When hoover came in, it had just crossed the line from most americans living rural to being urban, city people. And when youre dealing with large numbers of people who dont have access to the land, the sort of basic resources you get from its really hard to starve if youre a farmer but theres a lot of starving that set in, in the urban areas during the depression, that people needed food and there was no they didnt have root cellars they could go to, so the whole idea of the government stepping in, in the face of economic distress, that started under hoover and that is what roosevelt was all about. So in some theres been a debate historically for some time is hoover the end of to hold or the beginning of the new . And i think theres elements of both sides but i think hoover did open the door a lot of roosevelt and what happened after that. Thats my long answer to your short question. You mentioned he was hardcharging executive before hand and then as president he was more ambivalent. Did he get his mojo become after he got out of office and turned back into the guy he was before . No. Thats my short answer. No, he went through a real life change with the presidency. Up until he was president , as somebody put it, hoover never failed at anything. He was successful in a wide range of endeavors from being poor and lacking education, he got to stand for he got educated, he got became very successful and wealthy as a globetrotting geological consultantment he made his first million by the age of 40. That was in a time when a Million Dollars was a Million Dollars. And then he turned his attention to Public Service and he did so during world war i, so he was running massive and very highly regarded aid programs, and as secretary of commerce, he presided over the roaring 20s, in the greatest seven or eight years of Economic Growth america has ever seen. And he was considered to have a lot to do with a lot of that. Then he becomes president and everybody is with what happened, and loses all his prestige, and then having left the white house, he stays silent for a year. He goes into a withdrawal and kind of state with drawn kind of state and then comes back as a critic of fdr, critic of the new deal, and wheres before he had been an affirmative kind of guy, talking about what we need to do and positive in his outlook. After after it was about what were doing wrong and beating up on roosevelt from a position where actually i mean, he wasnt laying a glove on roosevelt. In fact roosevelt spend the next four elections running against hoover all over again, every time the runs put somebody new up he said, its just another hoover, and you dont want that again, too you . And everybody agreed, no we dont, and they voted for roosevelt. His first the first glimmer of sort of being acknowledged as a former president and maybe not completely useless person, was from truman, who extended a hand, and then asked him to review situations in europe or for humanitarian purposes and put him on his old track. Hoover didnt become another didnt go back to the relief business, the aid. He did those things for truman. He then was invited by truman and then again by eisenhower to review the efficiencies of the u. S. Government so there was the hoover commissions and made recommendations and a lot of them were followed. So his he got some applaud its as an administer your but went week in convention hoping for the call that, lets bring hoover back in the republican conventions, and in fact the republicans were treating him like crypto note kryptonite. No, no you stay over there. And hoover had to live with that. As much as he got some of the recognition back as his stature as a former statesman, that was it for him. With president hoover we had a very wealthy person that did a lot of successful things you have already covered. And you get a mindset you get a way of doing things as a result. Traits. I found a somewhat selfmade, very wealthy man running for president. Do you see anything that would be helpful for him to understand aso that we honest into the potholes or mistakes in preparing for this next president ial election . Thats an interesting question. Yes. Just to bring it a little farther, hoover was elected president his first elected office. That will be the if this results in trump being our president , that will be his first so they will have that in common. But where hoover never really had a bond, he had a lot of respect for the American People but hoover hated public appearances. One of his divided character things. He wanted to be a public figure but didnt want to deal with the public. He didnt like public speaking. He didnt like the dog and pony show aspect of being president. Whereas trump seems to enjoy that part of it. Even before hi got there. So, i dont think they share the same assets and debentures sort of thing. Their strong suits are different. However, i do think that one thing that hoover rand into the white house, something that litman talked about, was that theres the process of politics is messy and uncertain and youre constantly being put in a position of making deals with people that maybe you dont want to deal with. Hoover was not very good at that. I wonder how good trump will be at that. He is the whole thing about being a successful private enterprise type executive is making decisions quick, making them stick, sticking to something that maybe doesnt look like the right thing to do but you have some insight and youre going to thats how you make a lot of money is by getting people to buy somethings from you that pay more than theyre worth or you buy things for less than theyre worth, and that requires private acumen. Thats not the same thing as persuading all of congress to go along what if you want to do. I wonder how trump is going to deal with the situation when he says, heres what we got to do, everybody get in line, and everybody just stands there and