Herbert Hoover

by Glen Jeansonne

  34. Current, Secretary Stimson, 74–90; Wilbur and Hyde, The Hoover Policies, 599–603; William Starr Myers, The Foreign Policies of Herbert Hoover (New York, 1940), 154–57.

  35. Harold Wolfe, Herbert Hoover: Public Servant and Leader of the Loyal Opposition (New York, 1956), 197–202; Hoover, Memoirs, 2:367–73; Stimson and Bundy, On Active Service in Peace and War, 239–44; Joslin, Hoover Off the Record, 176–77; Burner, Hoover: A Public Life, 295–97.

  Chapter 10. Fighting the Depression

  1. E. Francis Bacon, “Mr. Hoover Faces Nation’s Problems,” Current History (January 1932): 575–83; William Starr Myers and Walter H. Newton, The Hoover Administration: A Documented Narrative (New York, 1936), 145–46; Mark Sullivan, “Congress Strife Rouses Third Party Initiatives,” Washington Sunday Times, January 18, 1931, CF, HHPL.

  2. New York Times, December 9, 1931, CF, HHPL.

  3. Martin L. Fausold, The Presidency of Herbert Hoover (Lawrence, KS, 1985), 155–56.

  4. U.S. Daily News, December 9, 1931, CF, HHPL.

  5. Harris Gaylord Warren, Herbert Hoover and the Great Depression (New York, 1967), 148–57; New York Herald Tribune, December 17, 1931, CF, HHPL.

  6. James Stuart Olson, Herbert Hoover and the Reconstruction Finance Corporation, 1931–1933 (Ames, IA, 1977), 34–38; Fausold, The Presidency of Herbert Hoover, 154–55: David Burner, Herbert Hoover: A Public Life (New York, 1979), 272–73; Theodore Joslin Diaries, Box 10, F 4, January 22, 1932, HHPL; Theodore Joslin, Hoover Off the Record (New York, 1971), 165–66; New York Times, January 22, 1932, CF, HHPL; Editorial, New York Times, January 22, 1932, CF, HHPL; New York Evening Post, January 22, 1932, CF, HHPL.

  7. Albert U. Romasco, The Poverty of Abundance: Hoover, the Nation, the Depression (New York, 1964), 190–91; Ray Lyman Wilbur and Arthur Mastick Hyde, The Hoover Policies (New York, 1937), 423–24.

  8. David M. Kennedy, Freedom from Fear: The American People in Depression and War, 1929–1945 (New York, 1999), 75–77; Burner, Hoover: A Public Life, 270.

  9. James H. MacLafferty Diary, Box 1, February 19, 1932, 1–2, HHPL, copyright Stanford University; Theodore G. Joslin Diaries, Box 10, F 7, February 15, 1932, HHPL; New York Times, January 29, 1932, February 12, 1932, CF, HHPL; New York Herald Tribune, February 11, 1932, Editorial, February 17, 1932, February 25, 1932, CF, HHPL.

  10. New York Times, February 17, 1932, CF, HHPL.

  11. The Garner quotes are from Herbert Hoover, The Memoirs of Herbert Hoover, vol. 3, The Great Depression, 1929–1941 (New York, 1952), 101; Kennedy, Freedom from Fear, 61–64; New York Times, December 10, 1931, CF, HHPL.

  12. Myers and Newton, The Hoover Administration, 186–87, 197, 223; Wilbur and Hyde, The Hoover Policies, 450–56; Murray K. Rothbard in Joseph Huthmacher and Warren I. Susman, eds., Herbert Hoover and the Crisis of American Capitalism (Cambridge, MA, 1973), 47; Joslin Diaries, Box 10, F 7, March 26, 1932, HHPL; Romasco, The Poverty of Abundance, 222; Chicago Daily News, March 25, 1932, June 30, 1932, CF, HHPL; New York Times, June 9, 1932, June 30, 1932, CF, HHPL; Taylor-Gates Collection, B-2, A-IV-2, Budget, 1–2, PP, HHPL.

  13. Fausold, The Presidency of Herbert Hoover, 164–65; New York Herald Tribune, January 30, 1932, CF, HHPL; New York Times, February 17, 1932, CF, HHPL.

  14. New York Herald Tribune, June 25, 1932, CF, HHPL.

  15. Hoover, Memoirs, 3:109–10; New York Times, May 29, 1932, CF, HHPL.

  16. Message to House of Representatives, PP, SF, Box 82, 1–4, Bills-Relief, Garner-Wagner-Rainey bills, H.R. 12353, 12445; 1932, Statements and Press Releases, HHPL; Myers and Newton, The Hoover Administration, 225–29; James H. MacLafferty Diary, Box 1, HHPL, copyright Stanford University, July 11, 1932, July 12, 1932.

  17. Olson, Herbert Hoover and the Reconstruction Finance Corporation, 67–73, 89; Hoover, Memoirs, 3:153–54; Jordan A. Schwarz, The Interregnum of Despair: Hoover, Congress, and the Depression (Urbana, IL, 1979), 164.

  18. Myers and Newton, The Hoover Administration, 235; Hoover, Memoirs, 3:160–63; New York Times, July 17, 1932, CF, HHPL; New York Herald Tribune, August 2, 1932, CF, HHPL; James H. MacLafferty Diary, Box 1, July 11, 1932, July 12, 1932, HHPL, copyright Stanford University.

  19. Romasco, The Poverty of Abundance, 102–3.

  20. Ibid., 97–102; Robert Sobel, Herbert Hoover at the Onset of the Great Depression, 1929–1930 (Philadelphia, 1975), 63–64; Burner, Hoover: A Public Life, 238–39; Harold Wolfe, Herbert Hoover: Public Servant and Leader of the Loyal Opposition (New York, 1956), 231–33.

  21. Joslin, Hoover Off the Record, 64–67, 262–66; Wolfe, Hoover: Public Servant, 250–51.

  22. Edward Eyre Hunt, “The Fight on the Depression, Second Phase,” Box 336, Herbert Hoover Presidential Files, Stanford University, 66–71; Wilbur and Hyde, The Hoover Policies, 203–5; Liebovich, Bylines in Despair, 155–56; Washington Evening Star, August 4, 1932, CF, HHPL; Interview with General Douglas MacArthur by the Press at 11 p.m., July 28, 1932, PPP, SF 214, MacArthur, General Douglas, Corres., 1942–46, HHPL.

  23. Alfred Steinberg, Herbert Hoover (New York, 1967), 232–33.

  Chapter 11. Democracy Is a Harsh Employer

  1. Chicago Tribune, February 23, 1932, Clipping File (hereafter cited as CF), Herbert Hoover Presidential Library (hereafter cited as HHPL).

  2. New York Herald Tribune, August 12, 1932, CF, HHPL.

  3. Chicago Daily News, August 13, 1932, CF, HHPL.

  4. New York Herald Tribune, August 13, 1932, CF, HHPL.

  5. Roy V. Peel and Thomas C. Donnally, The 1932 Campaign: An Analysis (New York, 1935), 164–65.

  6. Theodore Joslin, List of Comments, Observations, January 1931–33, 2, HHPL.

  7. George R. Nutter to Hoover, October 4, 1932, Presidential Papers (hereafter cited as PP), Subject File (hereafter cited as SF), Box 352, Republican National Committee, Correspondence—Speech Suggestions, 1932, October, HHPL.

  8. New York Herald Tribune, August 31, 1932, CF, HHPL; Theodore G. Joslin Diaries, Box 10, F7, October 18, 1932, HHPL; Chicago Tribune, August 12, 1932, CF, HHPL; David Burner, Herbert Hoover: A Public Life (New York, 1979), 307–9; Louis W. Liebovich, Bylines in Despair: Herbert Hoover, the Great Depression, and the U.S. News Media (Westport, CT, 1994), 193–94.

  9. New York Herald Tribune, September 14, 1932, CF, HHPL; Theodore Joslin Diaries, Box 10, F7, September 7, 1932, September 11, 1932, HHPL.

  10. Joslin Diaries, Box 10, F 7, October 3, 1932, October 5, 1932, HHPL.

  11. Joslin Diaries, Box 10, F 7, October 5, 1932, October 7, 1932, HHPL; Theodore Joslin, Hoover Off the Record (Garden City, NY, 1934), 299–313; Harold Wolfe, Herbert Hoover: Public Servant and Leader of the Loyal Opposition (New York, 1956), 289–93; Roger Daniels, Franklin D. Roosevelt: Road to the New Deal, 1882–1939 (Urbana, IL, 2015), 108.

  12. Alfred Steinberg, Herbert Hoover (New York, 1967), 229.

  13. John Spargo, The Legend of Hoover Who “Did Nothing,” March 21, 1936, Herbert Hoover Presidential Files, Hoover Archives, Stanford University.

  14. Wolfe, Hoover: Public Servant, 293–94.

  15. Steinberg, Herbert Hoover, 234; Richard Norton Smith, An Uncommon Man: The Triumph of Herbert Hoover (New York, 1984), 28.

  16. Joslin, Hoover Off the Record, 295–96.

  17. New York Herald Tribune, October 1, 1932, CF, HHPL.

  18. New York Times, September 30, 1932, CF, HHPL.

  19. Ibid.; New York Herald Tribune, October 1, 1932, October 12, 1932, October 14, 1932, October 19, 1932, CF, HHPL.

  20. Theodore Joslin Diaries, Box 10, F 7, October 15, 1932, HHPL; New York Times, October 12, 1932, October 15, 1932, CF, HHPL; New York Herald Tribune, October 16, 1932, October 17, 1932; Wilton Eckley, Herbert Hoover (Boston, 1980), 72.

  21. Joslin, Hoover Off the Record, 322.

  22. Timothy Walch and Dwight M. Mi
ller, eds., Herbert Hoover and Franklin D. Roosevelt (Westport, CT, 1998), 56–61.

  23. New York Herald Tribune, October 27, 1932, CF, HHPL; Editorial, Los Angeles Times, October 31, 1932, CF, HHPL.

  24. New York Times, November 1, 1932, CF, HHPL; New York Herald Tribune, November 1, 1932, CF, HHPL.

  25. Wolfe, Hoover: Public Servant, 394–97; Joslin Diaries, Box 10, F 7, October 31, 1932, November 1, 1932, HHPL; New York Herald Tribune, November 1, 1932, Editorial, November 1, 1932, CF, HHPL.

  26. Joslin, Hoover Off the Record, 324–25.

  27. Joslin Diaries, Box 10, F 7, November 5, 1932, HHPL.

  28. Walch and Miller, Hoover and Roosevelt, 64.

  29. Eckley, Herbert Hoover, 73.

  30. Burner, Hoover: A Public Life, 316–17.

  31. Gary Dean Best, The Life of Herbert Hoover: Keeper of the Torch, 1933–1964 (New York, 2013), 4–5.

  32. Kennedy, Freedom from Fear, 104–8; Wolfe, Hoover: Public Servant, 316–18; Walch and Miller, Hoover and Roosevelt, xxi–xvii.

  33. Best, Hoover: Keeper of the Torch, 2; Olson, Herbert Hoover and the Reconstruction Finance Corporation, 1931–1933, 99–100; Lawrence Sullivan, Prelude to Panic: The Story of the Bank Holiday of 1932–1933 (Washington, DC, 1936), 47–54; Mark Sullivan, “Recent Runs on Banks Traced to Publicity of R.F.C. Loans,” New York Herald Tribune, February 7, 1933, CF, HHPL; Daniels, Roosevelt: Road to the New Deal, 125.

  34. Sullivan, Prelude to Panic, 23.

  35. Joslin, Hoover Off the Record, 327; Theodore Joslin to Hoover, February 25, 1933, February 26, 1933, Banking Crisis, Presidential Log and Documents, Box 36, 2, HHPL.

  36. Norman Beasley, Politics Has No Morals (New York, 1949), 100–101, excerpted in White Book 2, HHPL.

  Chapter 12. Challenging the New Deal

  1. Theodore J. Hoover, “Memoranda, Being a Statement of an Engineer,” 1939, Acct. 585, Box 1, 277–80, Herbert Hoover Presidential Library (hereafter cited as HHPL).

  2. Gary Dean Best, The Life of Herbert Hoover: Keeper of the Torch, 1933–1964 (New York, 2013), 3.

  3. Richard Norton Smith, An Uncommon Man: The Triumph of Herbert Hoover (New York, 1984), 169–71; Herbert Hoover, The Crusade Years, 1933–1955: Herbert Hoover’s Lost Memoir of the New Deal Era and Its Aftermath, ed., with an introduction by George H. Nash (Stanford, CA, 2013), 467–68.

  4. Quote from Herbert Hoover, The Memoirs of Herbert Hoover, vol. 3, The Great Depression, 1919–1941 (New York, 1952), 345–46. Also see David Burner, Herbert Hoover: A Public Life (New York, 1979), 327; Harold Wolfe, Herbert Hoover: Public Servant and Leader of the Loyal Opposition (New York, 1956), 359.

  5. Hoover, The Crusade Years, 9, 468–69; Alfred Steinberg, Herbert Hoover (New York, 1967), 235–37; Hoover to Stimson, July 9, 1934, quoted in Timothy Walch and Dwight M. Miller, eds., Herbert Hoover and Franklin D. Roosevelt (Westport, CT, 1998), 158.

  6. Smith, An Uncommon Man, 172–74; Wolfe, Hoover: Public Servant, 360–61; David Hinshaw, Herbert Hoover: American Quaker (New York, 1950), 301–4; Hal Elliott Wert, Hoover: The Fishing President: Portrait of the Private Man and His Life Outdoors (Mechanicsburg, PA, 2005), 230–35, 240–41, 286–87.

  7. Hoover, The Crusade Years, xvii–xix; Wilton Eckley, Herbert Hoover (Boston, 1980), 79–83; Eugene Lyons, Herbert Hoover: A Biography (Garden City, NY, 1964), 342.

  8. Hoover, Memoirs, 3:447.

  9. Hoover, The Crusade Years, xx–xxii. Quote on xx. Also see Eckley, Herbert Hoover, 88–89; Wert, Hoover: The Fishing President, 233; and Joan Hoff, Herbert Hoover: Forgotten Progressive (Boston, 1975), 213.

  10. Hoover to William R. Castle, September 14, 1939, Neutrality and Embargo Bill, 1–2, Post-Presidential Papers (cited hereafter as PPP), Neutrality Legislation, Herbert Hoover Presidential Library; Hoover to John O’Laughlin, September 24, 1939, in Walch and Miller, Hoover and Roosevelt, 175–76.

  11. New York Times, March 24, 1940, White Book 1, HHPL.

  12. The best source for the overview of Hoover’s interpretation of the Depression and his own and Roosevelt’s policies is Hoover, Memoirs, vol. 3.

  13. See the discussion in Hoff, Hoover: Forgotten Progressive, 214. The bulk of the paragraph constitutes ruminations of the author and of Hoover based on postwar developments.

  14. Gary Dean Best, Herbert Hoover: The Postpresidential Years, 1933–1964, vol. 1, 1933–1945 (Stanford, CA, 1983), xiii–xiv.

  15. Ibid., 1:xiv–xv.

  16. Ibid., 1:xvi.

  17. Ibid., 1:1–4.

  18. Ibid., 1:5–9; Best, Hoover: Keeper of the Torch, 8–11; Eckley, Herbert Hoover, 87; Walch and Miller, Hoover and Roosevelt, 157–58.

  19. Best, Hoover: The Postpresidential Years, 1:9–11; Burner, Hoover: A Public Life, 329.

  20. Hoover, Memoirs, 3:455; Best, Hoover: Keeper of the Torch, 28; Burner, Hoover: A Public Life, 330.

  21. Best, Hoover: The Postpresidential Years, 1:9–15; Ray Lyman Wilbur and Arthur Mastick Hyde, The Hoover Policies (New York, 1937), 28–31.

  22. Best, Hoover: The Postpresidential Years, 1:1, 10–17; Burner, Hoover: A Public Life, 328–29.

  23. Best, Hoover: The Postpresidential Years, 1:27.

  24. Best, Hoover: Keeper of the Torch, 28–31; Best, Hoover: The Postpresidential Years, 1:29–31; Hinshaw, Hoover: American Quaker, 299–301.

  25. Lyons, Hoover: A Biography, 348; Best, Hoover: The Postpresidential Years, 1:33–37, 51.

  26. Wilbur and Hyde, The Hoover Policies, 628–32; Hoover, Memoirs, 3:388–89; Hoff, Hoover: Forgotten Progressive, 211–14.

  27. Best, Hoover: The Postpresidential Years, 1:42–43, 53.

  28. Ibid., 1:41.

  29. Best, Hoover: Keeper of the Torch, 25, 36–43; Best, Hoover: The Postpresidential Years, 1:44–46, 52–55. The Review of Reviews is quoted in Clair Everett Nelsen, “The Image of Herbert Hoover as Reflected in the American Press” (PhD diss., Stanford University, 1956).

  30. Best, Hoover: The Postpresidential Years, 1:48–50, 54; Best, Hoover: Keeper of the Torch, 44–47; Wolfe, Hoover: Public Servant, 366–67.

  31. Steinberg, Herbert Hoover, 237.

  32. Ibid., 236–37; Best, Hoover: Keeper of the Torch, 54–55; Smith, An Uncommon Man, 229–30, 235–38; Hoover, The Crusade Years, 94–99, 102–9; Best, Hoover: The Postpresidential Years, 1:74, 75, 76.

  33. Hoover, The Crusade Years, 161–66; Best, Hoover: Keeper of the Torch, 58–60, 61–74; Smith, An Uncommon Man, 245–49; press release, n.d., [1938] Post-Presidential Papers, Box 95, Campaign 1938, Clippings and Printed Matter; Hoover to John Hamilton, April 23, 1937, PPP, Box 270, Republican Mid-Term Conference, Correspondence, 1937–39.

  34. Hoover Meetings with Republicans, 1937, PPP, Box 270, Republican Mid-Term Conference, HHPL; Hoover Calendar, 1937; Meetings and Interviews, Hoover Calendar on Mid-Term Conference, PPP, Box 270, HHPL; Smith, An Uncommon Man, 245, 249.

  35. Hoover, Memoirs, 3:370–74; Lyons, Hoover: A Biography, 355; Smith, An Uncommon Man, 241–43.

  36. Best, Hoover: The Postpresidential Years, 1:99; Best, Hoover: Keeper of the Torch, 75–76, 88.

  37. Best, Hoover: The Postpresidential Years, 1:104–5.

  38. Ibid., 1:107–8.

  39. Ibid., 1:109.

  40. Hoover, The Crusade Years, 197; Best, Hoover: The Postpresidential Years, 1:111–15.

  Chapter 13. Politics and Diplomacy Before the Second Great War

  1. Richard Norton Smith, An Uncommon Man: The Triumph of Herbert Hoover (New York, 1984), 251–57; David Burner, Herbert Hoover: A Public Life (New York, 1979), 332.

  2. Smith, An Uncommon Man, 252–53; Herbert Hoover, The Crusade Years, 1933–1955, ed. George H. Nash (Stanford, CA, 2013), 112, 113, 127.

  3. Smith, An Uncommon Man, 253–54; Gary Dean Best, The Life of Herbert Hoover: Keeper
of the Torch, 1933–1964 (New York, 2013), 80; Eugene Lyons, Herbert Hoover: A Biography (Garden City, NY, 1964), 357; Louis P. Lochner, Herbert Hoover and Germany (New York, 1960), 134–36.

  4. Best, Hoover: Keeper of the Torch, 80–81; Hoover, The Crusade Years, 125–26; Gary Dean Best, Herbert Hoover: The Postpresidential Years, 1933–1964, vol. 2, 1946–1964 (Stanford, CA, 1983), 103; Lochner, Herbert Hoover and Germany, 138.

  5. Hoover, The Crusade Years, 141–45.

  6. Ibid., 136–39.

  7. Smith, An Uncommon Man, 258–59.

  8. Ibid., 259; Hoover, The Crusade Years, 152; Lochner, Herbert Hoover and Germany, 145.

  9. Hoover, The Crusade Years, 149, 152.

  10. Herbert Hoover, Freedom Betrayed: Herbert Hoover’s Secret History of the Second World War and Its Aftermath, ed. George H. Nash (Stanford, CA, 2011), xviii–xx.

  11. Hoover, Freedom Betrayed, xxxii–xxxiii; Best, Hoover: Keeper of the Torch, 112–13.

  12. Best, Hoover: Keeper of the Torch, 159–66; Hoover to William R. Castle, March 1, 1941, quoted in Timothy Walch and Dwight M. Miller, eds., Herbert Hoover and Franklin D. Roosevelt (Westport, CT, 1998), 184–85; Smith, An Uncommon Man, 295–98.

  13. Sketch of Herbert Hoover composed for the Associated Press, 1945, Biographical Sketches of Hoover, Post-Presidential Papers (hereafter cited as PPP), Box 39, 1940–49, 7, Herbert Hoover Presidential Library (hereafter cited as HHPL).

  14. Herbert Hoover, “America and the World Crisis,” New York City, October 26, 1938, in Hoover, America’s Way Forward (New York, 1938), PPP, Box 95, Campaign of 1938, Clippings and Printed Matter, 2; Best, Hoover: Keeper of the Torch, 100.

  15. Timothy Walch and Dwight M. Miller, eds., Herbert Hoover and Franklin D. Roosevelt (Westport, CT, 1998), 166–67.

  16. Best, Hoover: Keeper of the Torch, 150. A good collection of Hoover’s noninterventionist addresses and articles prior to Pearl Harbor can be found in Sketch of Herbert Hoover composed for the Associated Press, Biographical Sketches of Hoover, PPP, Box 39, 1940–49, esp. 6–7, HHPL. The best example of Hoover’s interpretation of why the United States went to war in Europe and in Asia can be found in Hoover, Freedom Betrayed, sec. 10, “The Road to War,” 247–310. See also “A Step-by-Step History of Poland,” 585–607, in Hoover, Freedom Betrayed. The section on Poland includes some redundancy.