Herbert Hoover

by Glen Jeansonne

  Two men, two sets of ideas, one anchored in a firm historical foundation, the other filching ideas ad hoc. Roosevelt had the attention and the heart of the nation. Hoover, repudiated, fought patiently, relentlessly, hoping to influence contemporary opinion and legislation, but also arguing before the tribunal of history. The winners of political wars, like the winners of military wars, write the histories. In that sense, Hoover was on the losing side of history. But in the realm of ideas, and the long-run repercussions of policies, Hoover left an abundant and thorough written record of his philosophy.

  Hoover predicted that FDR’s New Deal would not end the Depression, and it did not, though the unemployed waited and waited. Roosevelt nonetheless used the New Deal jobs to entrench himself in office, a tactic Hoover deplored. In the campaign of 1932 FDR had pilloried Hoover for deficit spending, yet the spending of his administration made a mockery of that criticism. During the 1932 campaign, much of Roosevelt’s rhetoric proclaimed that Hoover was a spendthrift president who had gone too far in exploding federal power, although, simultaneously, he accused Hoover of being a do-nothing president. Sadly, much of this has been lost in the jumble of historical legends. The New Deal that began in 1933 and unfolded was not the New Deal promised in 1932, as Hoover clearly pointed out.14

  Some of those who had earlier opposed Hoover now regretted losing him, as the New Deal produced layer upon layer of bureaucracy. The Democratic Baltimore Sun lamented that the New Deal was like Hoover with a second helping. Yet, to some degree, Hoover remained a loner in the Republican Party, in which many professional politicians had always considered him an interloper. They refused to renominate him not simply because his administration had been marred with failure but because they had never wanted him in the first place.15

  Hoover himself was more unpopular than his ideas, which remain relevant. The election of 1932 marked a fork in the road of our political and economic history. The residue of opposition to the prolific spending of government, the growth of entitlements, and the addictive nature of welfare verify Hoover’s critique, which provides a more comprehensive exposition of enlightened, sophisticated, humane conservatism than Ronald Reagan or Barry Goldwater enunciated. Hoover put flesh on the bones of theory. Yet, in subsequent elections, his name was seldom evoked by GOP presidential contenders except as a bogeyman. In foreign policy, only a few insulated scholars have used Hoover as a prophet of the dangers of overreach. Ironically, many of his ideas continue to gain credence, while Hoover himself is overlooked due to the stigma of the Great Depression. Few prophets in American history have been more scorned in their own country.16

  Hoover was titular head of the GOP, but he wondered if he genuinely aspired to leadership of a party that seemed down and out. His friend Mark Sullivan wrote that he believed it would be a mistake to reveal the faintest interest in another term as president. For the moment, many in his party considered him neither a resource nor a leader but a millstone. Still, as an ex-president, Hoover immediately commanded an audience. As more and more Republicans came to see the New Deal as a threat to American institutions, some gravitated to Hoover. His life had been one of leadership. He needed to find new outlets for his energy without asserting himself too overtly in the beginning. He also nourished an ambition for exculpation, possibly in a political sense, but certainly in a historical manner. The ex-president helped organize a group of Republicans, many of whom had served in his administration, called the Republican Federal Associates. They constituted the embryo of opposition to the New Deal and possibly a stepping-stone for Hoover, yet in the short run the organization worked for the election of Republicans in the 1934 congressional elections. Among the most active were former Hoover cabinet members Ogden Mills and Walter F. Brown.17

  When he left office Hoover seemed to have no aspirations for the 1936 GOP nomination, yet his friends urged him to remain in readiness should a call come. He maintained a prudent silence during the early months of the New Deal, though dismayed by the rush to legislate a hodgepodge of measures by a rubber-stamp Congress during the Hundred Days. Roosevelt’s appetite for power might prove insatiable, he predicted. Hoover considered FDR’s unsystematic inflation of the currency ill-advised and questioned his lack of consultation with congressional leaders, who nonetheless followed him. The ex-president did not oppose all aspects of the National Recovery Administration, yet he doubted that mandated scarcity could produce prosperity and warned that the new agency’s monopolistic division of the markets would ruin small business. Hoover found many aspects of the early New Deal needlessly polarizing. Already, he had moral qualms about the New Deal, yet he considered it unseemly to enter the fray. He lamented the element of class war and the dicing of the population into interest groups, which reminded him of the march toward totalitarianism in Europe and the Soviet state. He was growing edgy, but he wanted to give the New Deal a chance and feared some would interpret criticism from him as spite. Hoover felt the flaws in the economy were flaws in individual men, not in the system. He worried not simply about the future of the country under the New Deal, but about the future of the GOP. There was no heir apparent, nor a spokesman grounded in experience. He cautioned prudence, not demagoguery, but he feared some in his party wanted to emulate the New Deal rather than redirect it. Hoover was tempted to speak out, but he resisted and instead tried to influence party policy behind the scenes. Hoover disliked the prospect that Republicans would imitate the New Deal and he did not believe they could win on that basis. Privately, he conceded that elements of the New Deal were salutary, including some taken from his own administration. He had mixed feelings about the state of affairs in both parties but was not optimistic. He would reenter the public sphere, but timing was crucial.18

  Hoover believed that if recovery occurred, it would take place in spite of, not because of, the New Deal, and also that the public would accept a more powerful, intrusive, leviathan state that crushed liberty. Hoover further worried that any recovery might not take place at all. He realized that if he criticized the New Deal and subsequently good times returned, he would be labeled a carping reactionary. So, for a variety of reasons, Hoover pondered his options. He did not race into battle, but he kept his powder dry. Hoover did, however, encourage surrogates to discharge volleys he considered inappropriate for himself. He also quietly began to cultivate Republican policies that might furnish an alternative to the New Deal, which appeared to him a runaway train. Further, he wanted to bind the GOP into a united fulcrum of opposition, because some congressmen were already tilting toward the forbidden apples of the New Deal. Even Republican National Chairman Everett Sanders was inclined to lean in that direction. Hoover’s view, which was consistent throughout his life, was that responsible criticism was the mantra of the opposition party and that the two-party system was vital to American democracy. It was, in fact, the very purpose of freedom of speech. The ex-president pointed with alacrity to nations that lacked healthy opposition parties as they toppled down a rabbit hole into worlds of bizarre ideologies. However, criticism must be prudent and constrained, and it should focus on faulty policies, not indict the opposition as evil individuals. To cross these lines would be to lose credibility and to abuse freedom of speech. He did not believe in “fighting fire with fire.” Moreover, he once admitted to fellow Republican Thomas E. Dewey that he might have signed much of the legislation Roosevelt had signed, though he hardly would have insisted on a rubber-stamp Congress.19

  Hoover knew that he would be watched carefully, and he did not want to ignite prairie fires that would rage out of control. Neither did he believe in the aphorism “Divide and conquer,” even to win elections. He never countenanced unscrupulous tactics to obtain political advantage, though certainly some of his surrogates indulged, and in later battles his wit could be biting. But negativity was never a major weapon in his arsenal, especially nitpicking of a personal nature. He persistently condemned policies, not people. Although he had more common sense than to deny th
e existence of evil in the world, or human imperfection, including his own, his chief villains were not persons but ideas, and his approach remained primarily leery of personal invective. Yet he persistently condemned policies that actually hurt people in the guise of helping them. Collectivism as a genre usually came to power by that route, he emphasized.

  For all his caution, Hoover would have liked to make a political comeback in 1936. He wanted to prove his critics wrong. As the shadows of his life lengthened, he became more partisan as an ex-president than he had ever been as president, which led many to conclude that he had been more conservative as president than he actually was. The impression that Hoover was a hard-core conservative president probably owes a great deal to his crusades after his presidency. Primarily based on situational differences, he was more pragmatic as president. Further, he spent a long purgatory out of power, and if he never became a cynic, he doubtless grew dismayed and, beneath his stoicism, disappointed and impatient. He continued to avoid hyperbole, though he did indulge in wit, and he refused to join the American Liberty League, a group of conservative businessmen including Al Smith and John J. Raskob, Democrats and former opponents of Hoover. Neither did he campaign openly in the congressional elections of 1934.20

  Upon retiring to Palo Alto, Hoover gingerly, and incrementally, reentered the political arena, remaining above partisan politics for about a year while he worked behind the scenes to mold policy and orchestrate criticism of the New Deal. He was disturbed by the lack of enthusiasm of GOP congressmen for defending his administration. As he tiptoed gingerly into the shark-infested waters of partisan politics, Hoover initially declined to criticize specific New Deal policies or to offer a tangible program of his own. Neither did he attack Roosevelt personally. Rather, he condemned the New Deal’s overall philosophy of infringing on American liberties and leading to an aggrandizement of concentrated power designed to perpetuate the party of Jackson in power. Like Andrew Jackson, the contemporary Democrats practiced the spoils system with a vengeance.21

  Some Republicans who believed Hoover was too tainted by the stigma of the Depression to make a viable candidate in 1936 identified the Republican Federal Associates as the seed of an organization to orchestrate his nomination and avoided connections with them. The association never became an important political tool and dissolved late in 1934. Hoover tacked to the winds and helped create a new organization designed to promote the return to sound money. With friends, he plotted a return to more active political involvement, beginning with lectures at universities and a series of articles for the daily press articulating traditional Republican principles.22

  During the summer of 1934 Hoover returned to the bucolic outdoor beauty and male camaraderie of the Bohemian Grove summer encampment. Set amid a cathedral-like stand of redwoods in Northern California within a preserve of 2,800 acres, the site included some 250 camps of from two to twenty old friends and invited guests. Hoover’s Caveman’s Camp included his two sons, Dr. Ray Lyman Wilbur, two writers, and an oilman. In this idyllic setting, the stress and residual resentment of politics drained out of him. He continued the annual pilgrimage until 1962, when he was nearly ninety.23

  Hoover played little role in the 1934 congressional elections, partly because his help was unwanted. Some candidates and party leaders were tilting toward a neutrality pact with the Democratic administration. Governor Alf Landon of Kansas was already planning a 1936 campaign for the nomination that to Hoover resembled a pale imitation of FDR. Nonetheless, Hoover realized the inherent difficulties of campaigning against Roosevelt. While unemployment in the private sector remained virtually stagnant, employment in the public sector was exploding. The jobless were desperate, and much of the population seemed to accept the proposition that gift-wrapped patronage plums came free of cost to anyone, except perhaps the “money changers.” Still, Hoover took no comfort in the election results. The Republicans lost yet more seats, defying the historical trend that the party that controls the White House usually suffers losses during off-year elections.24

  In March 1935 Hoover escalated his criticism of the New Deal in a nationally broadcast speech at Sacramento, although he conceded that Roosevelt had created a Byzantine patronage machine that would make him difficult to dislodge. He continued to inveigh against inflationary policies, which, he explained, punished endowed universities and hospitals, savings accounts, pension plans, and insurance policies. Initially he attempted to phrase his criticism in terms of policies rather than personalities, but the ex-president could hardly conceal his disdain for the president’s political opportunism. Still, he spoke in a calm voice and never shouted or resorted to demagoguery. He made it clear, however, that FDR’s policies would not end the Depression and in time would shipwreck the country economically and strangle human liberty. Hoover now embarked upon the role of leader of the opposition with relish. He vowed to define Republicanism and explain how it differed from the philosophy of his nemesis in Washington.25

  The ex-president attempted to explain that his administration had offered a blueprint for a more effective alternative. The Depression had been stopped by the summer of 1932, he argued, and reinvigorated by the November election, which spiked business fears by the uncertainty of Roosevelt’s policies, while a bank panic during the interregnum nose-dived the progress made to that point. The argument was plausible, and statistically arguable, yet Hoover had been demonized so consistently that the messenger poisoned the message. Journalist William Allen White, a Republican and a close friend of Hoover, feared the Republicans could not win merely by indicting the New Deal; they must be more constructive in describing their own program. There was no point in tearing down the house until the foundation of a new one was poured. Hoover wanted to indict and convict on the charges of unconstitutionality, incompetence, and government featherbedding. But that was insufficient. It exchanged the promise of a hot meal for a balanced budget. And times had been miserable when FDR took over, the Democrats retorted. Hoover wanted to raise the moral tone in politics and eliminate elements of class war and the spoils system that were creeping in. Roosevelt wanted a rubber-stamp Congress and a pliable Supreme Court, as well as an inert opposition party. The New Yorker seemed amoral, as if all that counted to him were material things. Hoover’s core beliefs remained progressive, yet increasingly he represented the conservative wing of the Republican Party. Many in the GOP believed it was unlikely they could win on such principles, and even more unlikely with Hoover as the candidate.26

  By mid-June Hoover believed he was making progress in saving the soul of a lost country and began seriously contemplating seeking the GOP nomination in 1936. However, the Republican Old Guard would have built a wall around the White House to keep Hoover out. The other obstacle was Hoover himself. He wanted his friends to wage the campaign for him without openly seeking the nomination himself, a method that had failed in 1920. There was no central organization, no fund-raising, only speeches, letters to editors, and the cultivation of friends. Efforts were made to compile a mailing list of men who had served Hoover in the CRB, the Food Administration, and the ARA, and to whet their appetites for a new crusade. However, the aspirant eventually dispatched a lieutenant to round up delegate support in the South.27

  Meanwhile, other Republicans sought to spear the nomination, most prominently Alf Landon, a fresh face, less critical of the New Deal than Hoover. Landon was more popular than Hoover among farmers and seemed more inclined to commit early and run hard. Landon’s chief advantages were the lack of a formidable GOP candidate and Hoover’s residual unpopularity. The party’s congressional delegation feared Hoover would drag them down with him. Neither did Hoover’s game of hide-and-seek impress party professionals. William Allen White considered Hoover’s unpopularity cruel and undeserved, yet cemented in place. “It still hangs on,” White wrote. “And everything he says, as well as everything his friends say, is discounted. It is unbelievable.”28 Some Republican leaders warned that Hoover’s
nomination would result in another fusillade of Democratic mudslinging, circa 1932, and the result would be the same. By early 1936 Landon had emerged as the front-runner. In a poll of Nebraska farm voters, Hoover trailed Landon and Idaho senator William E. Borah. Adding momentum, William Randolph Hearst cast the support of his newspaper chain behind Landon. Ironically, the chief qualification of Landon was that he was not Hoover. The ex-president was much better known, had a wealth of experience in public service, and had won a tsunami victory in 1928. But the nomination over which they squabbled would not be worth much unless it was complemented by a strong anti-incumbent sentiment, and that was absent. Meanwhile, Hoover delivered about a speech a month, pounding home his theme of New Deal irresponsibility. He reminded voters of Roosevelt’s 1932 promise to balance the budget, as well as other broken vows. He called for a balanced budget, a sound gold standard, and an end to pork-barrel public works. Unfortunately, there was nothing new in this. However sound these proposals might be in a theoretical sense, they resembled a rerun of the first Hoover administration. In November 1935 Hoover implied that he would not be a candidate in 1936, but he also implied that he would accept a draft. The Review of Reviews wrote that Hoover was the best-qualified candidate judged on any criterion but electability. Yet Hoover held back. He wanted the nomination to seek him, and while his excoriation of Roosevelt was strenuous, his assertion of his own availability was passive. The starter’s gun for the nominating race had been fired, yet Hoover had failed to sprint out of the blocks.29