Herbert Hoover
Page 19
As an internationalist in a nation inclined toward isolation, Hoover played an extensive role in foreign affairs during the 1920s. With Harding’s blessing he advocated for U.S. entry into the World Court, a modest step up onto the international stage, yet the Senate balked at ratifying the treaty. Hoover also served on the presidentially appointed Dawes Committee—named after its chair, Chicago banker Charles G. Dawes—whose task became to reevaluate war debts owed to the United States by its former allies, which were linked to reparations paid to the Allies by the defeated former Central Powers, assessed as blame for initiating the war. America’s loans had been made from money appropriated by Congress, and thus only Congress could annul them. Yet this was a political impossibility. The loans had been financed by bonds purchased by American citizens. If the debtor nations did not pay them, the bondholders would have to be repaid by the American government by raising taxes; in essence, Americans would have had to pay themselves for bonds they had already purchased. Realizing the principal was inviolable, Hoover advocated reducing the amount by lowering the annual interest rate and stretching out the payment period. He wanted to couple this concession to an agreement by the Europeans to partially disarm, which would reduce their financial burden. Additionally, he proposed dealing with countries individually and linking debt obligations to a nation’s ability to pay. The central framework of Hoover’s ideas was adopted by all three Republican administrations during the 1920s and codified in the Dawes Plan of 1924 and the Young Plan of 1929. As president, Hoover promulgated the debt moratorium of 1931 as the only feasible alternative to imminent default. Although Hoover’s lenient terms were economically feasible, they were politically impractical in Europe, where the war debt was unpopular and reparations aroused hostility among Germans.15
Throughout the 1920s, Hoover also wrestled with the issue of American private loans made to foreign nations, primarily in Germany and South America, at unrealistically high interest rates. American bankers were tempted because the returns were far greater than any investments they could obtain in America. Frequently, American bankers used the money deposited by their clients to make the loans. Not only did this drain capital needed for American expansion; it was highly improbable that the exorbitant interest plus the principal could ever be repaid. The tantalizing quick profits were an exercise in wishful thinking. Many bond issues floated by municipal or regional governments abroad constituted sums larger than the total value of all public and private assets within their jurisdiction. Unable to meet the interest payments when they fell due, the foreign borrowers issued short-term notes at still higher rates, pyramiding their loans to postpone the day of judgment. Hoover warned that the debtors were already virtually bankrupt, with little or no security. Further, some money was spent recklessly to fuel an arms race and to support extravagant social programs without imposing higher taxes. The commerce secretary advised repeatedly that the loans were speculative. Nonetheless, American bankers considered any federal intervention meddling in their affairs. Ultimately, as Hoover had predicted, the foreign bankers defaulted en masse, dragging down American banks with them and contributing to the Great Depression. By that time, Hoover was president and was roundly blamed for the very catastrophe he had been one of the few sufficiently prescient to foresee.16
On July 20, 1923, President Harding embarked on a transcontinental railroad tour that he hoped would provide relief from the stress of Washington and help him assess his prospects in the West for reelection in 1924. He invited Hoover, who was fishing with his family in the Sierras, to join the party at Tacoma. From there, they boarded a ship for Alaska, where Hoover inspected fisheries and Harding delivered goodwill speeches. Harding’s mood grew increasingly morose as the trip progressed. The chief executive played bridge incessantly to forget his worries and coaxed Hoover into joining the games. Later, the agitated president invited Hoover to his cabin and confided that he had learned of scandals within his administration, including one involving his friend Jesse Smith, in the Justice Department. After Harding had informed Smith that he would be arrested, Smith had burned his papers and committed suicide. “If you knew of a great scandal in our administration,” the president asked Hoover, “would you for the good of the country and the party expose it or would you bury it?” Hoover advised him to reveal the details and avoid a cover-up. He pressed for details, but the president became withdrawn. “In all the history of this government,” Harding confessed, “there have been only three cabinet officers who betrayed their chiefs, and two of them are in my administration.” The reference was to Attorney General Harry Daugherty and Interior Secretary Albert Fall, both parties to the Teapot Dome oil swindle. The sordid details that would emerge after Harding’s sudden death were to bring his reputation crashing down. During the return voyage, the president’s vessel had a minor collision with an accompanying destroyer. Belowdecks, the depressed Harding blurted out that he wished his ship would sink. If this was a death wish, it was destined to be fulfilled.17
Back on the mainland, the president was drained by an endless succession of speeches and glad-handing receptions. During a major speech in Seattle Harding became disoriented, clutched the podium, and nearly collapsed. Hoover picked up the president’s fallen papers, arranged them in proper order, and, gamely, the chief executive completed the address, but his health worried his associates, who canceled the remainder of his itinerary and rushed him directly to San Francisco, where he could receive rest and serious medical attention. The president’s personal physician, a marginally competent Ohio crony, Dr. Charles E. Sawyer, diagnosed the problem as exhaustion complicated by eating tainted crabmeat. Two days of bed rest would suffice for total recovery. As Harding’s train sped southward to his final destination, the president was indeed overly stressed and increasingly irritable, although the problem was not food poisoning. Dr. Joel E. Boone, a navy physician, told Hoover that Harding’s condition was serious. Upon receiving Boone’s advice, the commerce secretary cabled his Stanford friend and physician, Dr. Ray Lyman Wilbur, to assemble a group of heart specialists to meet the party at San Francisco. Wilbur and other physicians correctly diagnosed a heart attack and, over Sawyer’s objections, prescribed two months of absolute bed rest. Harding temporarily rallied and his spirits brightened at San Francisco’s Palace Hotel, where Hoover had taken an adjoining room. On the evening of August 2, Harding’s wife, seated by his bedside, read him an article about himself from The Saturday Evening Post, as the chief executive seemingly gained strength. Suddenly, the president became bathed in sweat, and the Duchess, as she was known, rushed from the room, screaming for doctors. By the time they arrived, the president was dead. Wilbur signed the death certificate, attributing his demise to heart failure.18
Hoover promptly telephoned Secretary of State Charles Evans Hughes, the senior cabinet member, and asked him to contact Vice President Calvin Coolidge, then visiting his father in Vermont, and request that Coolidge have himself sworn in as president. Harding’s body was borne across the country by train as mourners lined the tracks and loudspeakers broadcast the deceased’s favorite hymn, “My Redeemer Liveth,” as a dirge. Unknown to the public were the scandals rumbling like a volcano within Harding’s administration, which would destroy his reputation following the interment of his body in his hometown, Marion, Ohio. Hoover disapproved of Harding’s associates and the president’s laxity in restraining them and had considered resigning, but he believed he could add integrity to the administration. Moreover, Hoover knew that Harding was shocked and betrayed when he learned of the Ohio Gang’s corruption. “People do not die from a broken heart,” Hoover said, “but people with a bad heart may reach the end much sooner from great worries.”
Across the continent in Vermont, Vice President Calvin Coolidge, a tight-lipped man popularly called “Silent Cal,” was sworn in as Harding’s successor. No sooner had his term begun than scandals lingering from Harding’s reign descended upon the White House. They included kickbacks in
return for the leasing of government oil properties at Teapot Dome, Wyoming, and Elk Hills, California; thefts from the Veterans’ Bureau; and malfeasance in the Justice Department by the custodian of alien property, who filched assets seized by the government from enemy aliens during the war. Many of those implicated were Harding’s friends, such as Attorney General Daugherty, who had managed Harding’s presidential campaign. On January 27, 1924, President Coolidge announced that he planned to bring to justice those guilty of wrongdoing in the Teapot Dome and other oil lease scandals during the Harding administration. He said he was appointing independent counsels, men of high reputations, drawn from both parties, and that anyone found guilty would be punished. The law would be enforced, illegal contracts would be voided, and the public interest would be protected. Coolidge appointed special prosecutors promptly and, after some delay, fired Daugherty, who escaped incarceration because of two hung juries. Interior Secretary Albert Fall was not so lucky; he was convicted of accepting bribes. Several Harding associates and poker buddies averted prison by suicide. The new president appointed Harlan F. Stone, subsequently chief justice of the Supreme Court, as Daugherty’s successor. When Stone asked Hoover in 1924 to recommend an honest man to clean up Washington corruption, Hoover suggested J. Edgar Hoover (no relation). Other seamy aspects of the Harding administration trickled and then gushed out. Harding had apparently fathered a child by his mistress, Nan Britton, and reputedly had had other affairs. Though he was so well liked by the public during his presidency, Harding’s reputation plummeted. Today his name is synonymous with presidential scandal.19
Cantankerous, archconservative in politics and lifestyle, and quaintly reclusive, Calvin Coolidge took a minimalist approach to government. He espoused common sense, emphasized thrift, advocated low taxes, and was penurious with money, both his own and the public’s. Feeling that it was prudent for government to leave well enough alone, Coolidge avoided precipitous action. “If you see ten troubles coming down the road, you can be sure that nine will run into the ditch before they reach you and you will only have to deal with one of them,” he predicted, ironically for a man who had succeeded Harding. Coolidge was a thoroughgoing conservative in religion, in the economic and social order, and in fishing; he fished with worms, much to Hoover’s consternation.20
Although he was far less gregarious than Harding, the new president’s serious nature and rectitude provided a welcome contrast to the crass crudity and outright larceny of Harding’s companions. A man with few social intimates in Washington, he had warmed to Hoover while still serving as vice president. Coolidge admired Hoover’s mind and the breadth of his knowledge and respected his sound judgment and common sense. Both were men of few words in public, yet they each had a puckish sense of humor and enjoyed each other’s company. Both were eminently practical men. While Coolidge displayed a folksy style and common touch that were astutely glamorized by his press agents, he recognized that behind the scenes Hoover possessed savvy political judgment, and the commerce secretary soon became the president’s chief adviser on patronage in California and the West. Coolidge was far more provincial than Hoover. He did not know the country, much less the world, nor was he intellectually curious.
Coolidge often invited Hoover to come alone to the White House for an evening of “chatter.” Grace Coolidge was her husband’s opposite in temperament, vivacious and chatty, and she and Lou became close friends, remaining so for the rest of their lives. For the most part, the Coolidge-Hoover team functioned smoothly. Hoover gave the chief executive his complete loyalty. The president referred many problems outside of Commerce to Hoover and asked him to write executive orders, which he signed, and speeches, which the chief executive delivered without editing. In 1924 Hoover was one of the key strategists in mapping out Coolidge’s campaign.21
Despite their predominantly sound relationship, Coolidge at times worried that his commerce secretary might become a rival for the 1924 GOP presidential nomination. Hoover sometimes overwhelmed him with ideas, and he constantly prodded the penny-pinching Coolidge for greater appropriations for the Commerce Department. The inscrutable chief executive once said of Hoover, “That man has offered me unsolicited advice for six years, all of it bad.” As Martin Fausold, a Hoover presidential biographer, observes, “The remark, of course, was outrageous. In fact, the opposite was true.” If Coolidge felt irritated at times by Hoover, it might have been because he felt overly dependent on his younger cabinet member. Yet Coolidge badly needed Hoover, whose boundless energy helped compensate for the lethargy of the president. Coolidge was not lazy, but he suffered from unsteady health. His chronic indigestion required naps after lunch, and he battled depression aggravated by the death of Calvin Jr., who died from an infected blister developed while he was playing tennis at the White House. The president’s health and melancholy factored into his decision not to run for reelection in 1928. Personal traumas aside, Coolidge badly needed a man of Hoover’s probity and versatility. Further, Hoover did not seek political power and allowed Coolidge to bathe in credit whenever he could persuade the press to praise his boss.22
Although occasionally uncomfortable with Hoover, Coolidge would have been much more uncomfortable without him. Unlike that of Harding, an experienced politician on the national level who brought to office a circle of cronies he could lean on, Coolidge’s ascendency was sudden and unexpected, and he lacked Washington connections. Coolidge had not run for president and had been propelled into prominence chiefly by the timeliness of the Boston police strike and his vigorous response to it. Coolidge and Hoover were alike in important ways. Both were simple, direct, and unpretentious, had sprung from rural roots, and were socially inhibited. Yet, privately, they enjoyed intimate conversations, especially with each other. They and their wives melded well as a group. Despite gossip, rumor, and speculation, there was never any serious possibility that Coolidge would dismiss Hoover from the cabinet. There was an element in their relationship that was symbiotic. On one occasion, when he believed he had hurt Hoover by stating that he would not appoint him secretary of state, should the position become open, the president publicly made amends. For his part, Hoover was aware of the president’s sensitivity, and Hoover was properly deferential. He deliberately remained in the background despite attempts by the press to glamorize him, and rarely, if ever, disagreed with Coolidge directly, much less publicly. Coolidge gave full latitude for free expression at cabinet meetings, but he made final decisions, and once an issue was determined, he expected the cabinet to present a united front. He doubtless would have dismissed any official who openly defied him. In this respect, Coolidge was not a weak president.23
As commerce secretary, Hoover dealt with virtually every new form of technology that appeared during the 1920s. Perhaps the most glamorous was radio. The Great War had accelerated the development of radio communication between ships at sea and armies in battle. After the war, broadcasting soon outgrew a military monopoly and stations proliferated, with virtually no government regulations. Amateurs (among them Herbert Jr.) and commercial and political broadcasts created a cacophony of noise as they overlapped frequencies. When Hoover asked a sixteen-year-old amateur broadcaster how he and his friends protected their frequencies, the teenager reluctantly conceded that they beat up the offenders. Within the government, turf wars raged between the Navy, Post Office, and Commerce departments over which would be assigned responsibility, and Coolidge decided that it was most appropriate for Commerce. He convened voluntary meetings of industry representatives and assigned frequencies for each station, although he had no legal authority to enforce them. More powerful stations were free to drown out weaker ones. Still, Hoover persisted, holding a series of these conferences every year from 1921 through 1927, until Congress finally created a Federal Radio Commission, which included members representing different sections of the country appointed by the government. Hoover predicted an exciting future for radio if it could be properly coordinated, avoiding monopol
y and furnishing safeguards against unscrupulous demagogues. He had hoped that radio would focus on education and news, and he wanted to ban advertising, though that proved futile.24
Enforcement of the 1927 bill was vested in the Commerce Department, and Hoover dispatched an undermanned staff of inspectors throughout the country to ensure that broadcasters remained within their assigned frequencies. The flamboyant evangelist Aimee Semple McPherson broadcast from her powerful Los Angeles station, disregarding her designated wavelength, and her sermons meandered over the airwaves. After requesting several times that McPherson confine herself to her assigned wavelength, the commerce secretary shut down the station. She fired back a telegram. “Please order your minions of Satan to leave my stations alone. You cannot expect the Almighty to abide by your wave length nonsense,” she wrote. “When I offer my prayers to Him, I must fit in with His wave reception. Open this station at once.” Later, McPherson relented. Subsequently, a small religious sect in southern Illinois traveled to Washington to obtain a wavelength, gaining an audience with Hoover and the administrator of the radio division. The group informed the commerce officials that they had sold all their property and received $200,000. They were planning to construct a gigantic broadcasting station to inform Americans that the world was doomed to end within a few weeks. Hoover suggested that rather than building a new station they could reach more people promptly, an important imperative, by using their money to purchase blocks of airtime on existing stations. After all, their station would be worthless once the world came to an end.25