USA in the Time of Herbert Hoover
1929-1933
by Mike Donovan
“Please name a dam after me.”
Herbert Hoover 1932
The Orphan President – The Goat of the Great Depression - VP Charles Curtis – Quaker – Miner – Hoovervilles - Only President From Iowa –Hawley-Smoot Tariff - Fishing for Fun - Stanford University – Bonus March
Back in 1920 the Republican Party definitely wanted Herbert Hoover as their candidate, but he wasn't interested. If he had been he probably would have won. Hoover would have then presided over the Roaring Twenties, instead of the Great Depression. He probably wouldn't have died in 1923, as Harding did, and probably would have been re-elected in 1924. Compared to Harding, Hoover was a great leader and administrator, and compared to Coolidge he was a warm and lovable man. Hoover missed his chance to go down as one of the great American presidents, and maybe the greatest of all Republican heroes. Instead he is one of the goats of all time.
When Herbert Hoover ran for President in 1928 it was only the second time he had ever run for office. The first time was when he was elected class treasurer at Stanford University.
Herbert Hoover = The Great Depression.
The cause of the depression was the normal rise and fall of business cycles compounded to the up-tenth power by excessive speculation in the stock market, and made worse by a protective tariff imposed at a crucial moment when the world's free trade needed to expand, not contract further.
The entire Great Depression was blamed on this poor man Herbert who was just a guy in the wrong place at the wrong time. If Al Smith had won the election of 1924, would his Democratic policies have prevented the Great Depression?
“The crowd only feels. It has no mind of its own. .. The crowd is credulous, it destroys, it consumes, it hates, and it dreams, - but it never builds.”
Herbert Hoover
The chief irony of the Hoover Presidency is that he made it to the top because he was an amazingly efficient bureaucratic and financial administrator. Then this fiscal and managerial wizard failed completely at national economic management and became the goat of the Great Depression.
Hoover was completely incapable of stopping the arrival of the Great Depression, and equally incapable of handling it once it arrived. The only real blame that can perhaps be placed on his administration is its failure to push the panic button when things were first collapsing. Who can blame Hoover for not trying to keep a positive vision? He probably sincerely believed that things would get better. Hoover kept telling the country that “this is only a temporary depression and we'll soon be back on the road to prosperity,” at a time when a glance out the window would clearly indicate that the sky was falling. It wasn't until the sky hit the ground that Herbie held a press conference and said, “All right, it's bad. Real bad.”
Herbie defeated Al Smith of the Dems in 28. A Republican billboard in 1928 promised a continuation of Coolidge prosperity in the form of “A chicken in every pot, and a car in every garage.” Hoover never said it although if you asked a history class who said it, most would answer “Hoover.”
Hoover came into office in the middle of unprecedented prosperity and left in the middle of an economic depression so great that it has come down to us in history in with a capitol D.
Hoover unemployment rose to the fantastic figure of 10 million. Men in suits sold apples for a nickel within a block of the Capitol building. People bought the apples out of pity, not because they were hungry for an apple.
BIO
Herbert Clark Hoover was born on August 10, 1874 in West Branch, Iowa, Cedar County. When he was only two he became so sick with croup (whatever that is) that he was presumed dead. Pennies were placed on his eyes and the parents pulled the sheet over him. But his uncle showed up, a man who just happened to be a doctor and he managed to stir the lifeless body back to life (while looking around the room and shouting “what the hell's the matter with you people!”)
Herbert's father got the real two penny treatment, passing on in 1880. Four years later his mother died leaving poor little Hubert an orphan at the age of 10.
Little Herbie was raised by an uncle in Oregon named John Minthorn.
If Hubert had taken his name, we would have had a President Minthorn, and the shacks of homeless people would be remembered in American history as Minthornville.
He got a job as a teen-ager in a Nevada silver mine and worked his way up through the mining business until he was (later on) a millionaire with operations in places like China, Russia, South Africa, Australia and Central America.
In 1890 Hoover took his life savings and used it to enroll in a brand new university founded by a Mr. Leland Stanford. Stanford University’s first baseball team had a starting shortstop named Herbert Hoover. He was also the business manager of the first Stanford football team
Herb was a member of the first graduating class of Stanford University in 1895. (That’s how to start a school off with a bang, a future president.)
After college he spent a couple of months at a station in life that would later be named after himself. He was out of money and hitting the bricks looking for work to no avail. By 1932 this would be known as being in “Hooverville.”
But his degree in engineering eventually paid off, even if he did have to start on the bottom. He worked in a mine as a laborer at the deepest darkest and coldest level. The other men taught him how to stay warm. Hoover would never be out of work or money again. He was always remarkably wise and frugal with his money.
Back in 1921 Hoover’s Belgian Relief agency had swung east to Russia after the Great War. Hoover’s work was so important that famed Russian writer Maxim Gorky wrote a touching letter of thanks to Hoover predicting incorrectly how history would remember his American friend, “In the past year you have saved from death three and one half million children, five and one half million adults, fifteen thousand students …Your help will be inscribed in history as a unique gigantic accomplishment worthy of the greatest praise.” Wrong, Max. Hoover would go down in history as an insensitive mediocrity who caused the great Depression and then sat back and did nothing to help the starving and homeless because his ideas on government were about 50 years behind the times.
His jeering critics used (and still use) every positive public statement Hoover ever made about the economy as a tool to ridicule him. It’s an easy call for an historian to make. “Prosperity is just around the corner.” Roll the laugh track. “This depression is only temporary.” Haw haw haw. “I’m going to beat FDR like a drum in 32.” Heh heh.
On the eve of the great stock market crash of November, 1929, Hoover was convening an advisory commission at the White House to address the number one problem in America to Herbert Hoover. Crime. This was the era of Al Capone and the good ol’ days of organized crime. Law enforcement was reeling and was often in bed with the criminals. But the Great Depression was a bigger problem and when it came crashing over Herb’s head like a tidal wave he became the number one goat of the Depression.
Popular vote 1928 ----------------Hoover (R) 21,131,000
Smitty (D) 15,160,000
The right wing of America went down with the ship and he was the captain. Hoover was holding the bag when the stock market crashed in the fall of 29, only seven months into his administration, the last of the three Republican presidencies that (allegedly) caused the whole thing.
Herb got Van Burened big time. This one made the Panics of 37 and 93 look like Pikerville.
Hoover’s cabinet
Secretary of State---------Henry L. Stimson---1929
Frank B. Kellogg --1929-1933
Secretary of War-----------James W. Good -----1929
Patrick J. Hurley-----1929-1933
Secretary of the Navy----Charles Frances Adams 1929-33
Secretary of the Treasury--Andrew W. Mellon-1929-1932
Ogden L. Mills -----1932-1933
Attorney General.------------Billy Mitchell ---1929-1933
CABNOTES
War is Good.
No, the AG is not the same Billy Mitchell of whom the false legend has grown that the United States would have been better prepared for WWII if only everyone had heeded his advice and warnings about air power.
CHANGE AND HOPE
Republican inaction and refusal to get government involved in the economy triggered the national tragedy of Depression. But Frank Roosevelt for all his later government programs did nothing to successfully pull the country out of it. In fact, all of the important statistics showed that the Depression was worse in 1937 than it had ever been. It was World War Two that saved the American economy, not the genius of King Franklin. But Hoover still is denounced by historians in general along with his party as the villains of the Great Depression. If Hitler had never invaded Poland, FDR would have been rolled out of the White House at the end of an angry kick and his name might by only slightly less vilified today than Hoovers!
EVENTS
ELECTION OF 1928
STOCK MARKET CRASH
‘TALKIES’
LATERAN TREATY
HOOT SMAWLEY TARIFF
JAPAN INVADES CHINA 1931
MANCHUKUO CREATED 1932
JAPAN LEAVES LEAGUE OF NATIONS
BONUS ARMY OF 1932
RISE OF HITLER
THE GREAT DEPRESSION
ELECTION OF 1928
Both parties had their conventions in June. The Republicans were all set with front-runner Herb Hoover taking it on the first ballot. Hoover was a great name among average Americans in 1928. He was very famous for his work in Belgian relief during the war. It was hard to choose a candidate with higher marks for being positively perceived by all. The Democrats had a slightly tougher time in choosing Smitty.
Hoover was unofficially nominated at a rally at Stanford Football Stadium on August 11. The next morning he went to church and as he entered, the parishioners could not resist calling out to him with words of support and “Good luck Mr. Hoover.” He gave them furious looks. This wasn't the time and place but they had to weigh the social opportunity vs the social faux pas, much like the guys who are at a urinal and realize a celebrity is at the one next to them. They make conversation at a place they usually would not dare.
Prohibition and the Klan were inner party controversies for the Dems. Smith was a ‘wet’. He favored the return of legal alcohol to America. But Hoover was a ‘dry’. Herb was against people smoking herb or drinking booze. He was a square's square, and made no bones about bones and booze. He thought it was all evil. Yet he was open to eventual repeal of the Amendment if it proved to be unworkable. What he strongly objected to was a national trend towards looking the other way and disobeying the no liquor laws, a trend he called “Constitutional Nullification.” Hoover demanded that the Nation give the 18th Amendment a fair trial before considering its repeal. If the law was respected for a decent interval and proved a mistake, then he would become a wet. But until the laws against alcohol were respected, not one could in fairness say that it had failed. That was so fair and honest that even the wets tended to vote for him.
Religion played a major and controversial role in the election of 1928. Herbert Hoover was the first Quaker ever to run for the highest office and people wondered if wide-spread bigotry towards Quakers would cost him a chance for victory. -- I'm kidding. It was the Democrat Al Smith whose Catholic religion became a huge controversy, although it is a fact that Hoover was the first Quaker President. Richard Nixon was also a Quaker.
In fact, Smith's Catholicism wasn't a prominent issue until 'Smitty' brought it up in a major speech in Oklahoma City in September. Al though he would clear the air on that point, and instead he just needlessly stirred up a hornet's nest. In the South, the revised and revived Ku Klux Klan hated Catholics about as much as they hated blacks. The Democratic leadership worried that Smith’s candidacy could cost the Party the ‘solid South.’
Smith was in favor of a limited repeal of prohibition and he earned the nickname ‘Alcohol Smith.’ Hoover took a definite stand in favor of continuing to try and enforce the 18th Amendment. Most voters did not agree with him, but respected Hoover's honesty on this, and other issues.
Tammany Democrat Al Smith was a friendly and talented guy from New York City with a raspy, yet charismatic voice. He was a man of the people in the truest sense, having worked his way up in life from errand boy at the Fulton Fish Market on the lower East Side. Political coaches tried to talk him into curbing his New York accent for the ’28 campaign but he told them, “I'm from Tammany Hoool and dats dat.”
The campaign of 1928 was friendlier than most of today’s nasty contests. The two contenders didn’t even hate each other! How un-American. Hoover was actually proud to call Al Smith his friend before, during and after the election. There were no vicious blurbs from speeches or newspaper articles leaving wounds that never heal. But there was the November drubbing.
The Democrats tried a few dirty tricks when they saw that they were 30 laps behind with time running out. They tried to claim that Hoover, when he lived in England, had registered to vote there and had adopted British citizenship. Shades of Obama was supposedly born in Indonesia. The charge was absurd, especially since if Hoover had tried to do this, he could have been sent to jail for six months for even trying.
There was a group of young men in California who were indebted to Hoover for helping them organize their funds to buy a farm. They named it the Hoover Ranch as tribute. The Democrats found the entrance with the 'Hoover Ranch' sign on it and then painted a big sign underneath that read, “White Workers Need Not Apply.” The implication was that Hoover Ranch was only hiring underpaid Asian workers. They took a picture of the new “improved” sign and distributed it to the newspapers.
The United States was apparently so racist in 1928 that the only way anyone could throw dirt on someone as a racist was to accuse them of discriminating against white people!
1928 - Winner Gets the Great Depression
Mr. Hoover listened to the election returns with a gathering of family and friends and since he was not demonstrative in his happiness, neither was anyone else. He did comment after midnight that “Smitty probably should have conceded three months ago,” but the tone was not conceited, just a stone cold assessment. Style is substance and if a Nixon had said the same thing it would have meant something completely different.
PRESIDENT – ELECT
Hoover's wife spoke pretty good Spanish and so he took her as his interpreter on a tour of the Latin American countries while he was President-Elect. Hoover had a special interest in improving relations between the USA and the nations south of the Rio Grande, and as president he did much to mitigate the negative perception of the “Colossus of the North.”
In Peru he helped negotiate the settlement of a long-standing border dispute between Bolivia and Peru, the Tacna-Arica beef.
In Buenos Aires he and his crew got roughed up by a crowd of protestors and his top Secret Service agent had his “pocketbook” stolen. The word had not been yet reserved for female accoutrements, and Hoover used this word to describe the guy's wallet. Either that or his top Secret Service agent was a cross-dresser.
In Nicaragua HH arrived in time to observe national elections being supervised by the United States Marines. This was part of the Big Stick Diplomacy going back to TR and Wilson and continued by Harding and Coolidge. That policy can be summed up in this way, 'If you guys can't run your countries they way we want you too, then, by jove, we'll go down and run them the way we want you to for you. And don't say no, because it isn't an option. ... Any questions, Jose?'
FDR gets all the credit for repairing the damage done by TR's big stick ego foreign policy in the Latin American countries, and Hoover gets far less credit on that score than he earned. Far more than most presidents, perhaps far more than any, Hoover had already seen the world before he ran for President, and it affected his work in a positive way. He had some noble and progressive ideas for a new approach to US foreign policy, but the Depression and the depressing rise of the militarist totalitarian states of the future 'Axis' ruined those dreams.
DE PRIEST IS IN DE HOUSE 1929
In 1929 Oscar de Priest was seated in the House of representatives, the first African-American to serve in the Congress in the 20th century. He was re-elected several times before losing his post to another black candidate in the late 1930’s.
Oscar was renowned for standing up to an Alabama Senator who tried to tell him he could not eat in the House cafeteria. “You aren’t big enough to stop me from eating here,” he warned the redneck. De Priest tried to get an anti-lynching law passed but the effort failed. He did however, introduce successfully, a bill to outlaw racial discrimination in one of Franklin Roosevelt’s government work programs.
LATERAN TREATIES
Many of us are fascinated, perhaps almost amused by the tiny nation of the Vatican City. An irredentist nation of 102 acres in the middle of Italy and even in the middle of Rome. The VC isn't even a city-state. It is not only a state within a nation, it is a nation within a city.
As a geography buff all my life I just thought it was a funny little thing, but I had never questioned how it came about. The way it came about was the Lateran treaties of 1929. The genuine independence of the Vatican City, which no one questions today, was a gift of a the fascist dictator Benito Mussolini.
Over the previous 50 years or so the Catholic Church had lost all its Italian lands. The Church had been the leading land power in Italy and as the years passed, the state of Italy took the land expense of the Catholic power. As far as the Italian state was concerned the land belonged to whoever had the strength to seize it. It was the era of cold power grabbing all over the globe.
As far as the Catholic Church was concerned, Italy had stolen their land. That was a sin. Italy had offered the Church an annual payment as compensation, but the church turned it down. The Catholics did not want to validate the state title to the land by accepting the compensation.
Relations between Italy and the Church had been openly hostile for decades. Mussolini wanted to be loved by all the people and the Catholic Church was very important in Italy to put it mildly.
In 1929 the parties settled up. Mussolini agreed to pay the Catholic Church a whopping $750 million for the church lands Italy had “absorbed” (stolen). The Church also picked up a billion lire in government bonds. Mussolini also gave the Church a nation. The tiny Vatican City within Rome would be a real nation with membership in the League of Nations, the right to ambassadors to and from every nation of the world and its own flag. It could theoretically even conduct an independent foreign policy. Vatican City is not a puppet state within Italy. It is a real country. This was a heavy price for Italy to pay.
What did the church have to give back? The church agreed to accept the fascist dictator as the ruler of Italy. The church agreed that the fight over the loss of its massive lands across Italy was over and they lost.
STOCK MARKET CRASHES – 10.29
October 24, 1929 was Blue Thursday, the first sign of the impending catastrophe. The New York Stock Exchange was suddenly full of sellers and virtually no buyers. It was easy to see where this would lead. Falling prices in stocks set off more falling prices till the whole thing went off a cliff. By lunchtime the stock market had lost 12 billion dollars in 1929 dollars. OMG!
Then a bunch of millionaires held a mid-day conference and conspired to restore confidence by buying a lot of different stock at more than their normal value at a time when everything was selling suddenly for less. The trick worked and by the end of the day, many important stocks had recovered most of their lost value.
But the recovery was, predictably, only temporary. Confidence deteriorated again overnight, partly because of false stories spreading the country that a dozen bankers had jumped off the roof to their deaths, and that the US Army had been called out to prevent an enraged mob from storming the stock exchange.
Then came Black Tuesday, October 29, 1929. That was the day the Stock Market Crashed. There was amazing amount of trading activity going on, over 16 million shares. Unfortunately, all of it was desperate panic selling. By the end of the day you couldn’t sell ten shares of General Electric to a wino for a quarter! Okay, maybe that one was an exaggeration. But a messenger boy actually bought shares in Singer Sewing machines for one dollar a share, and they had been worth almost fifty dollars a share the week before.
The October crash opened the levees holding back lake downer. It was a relentless flood of negativity. By 1932 the value of the stock market had dropped 178 billion dollars.
The October crash of 1929 plunged the nation into The Great Depression. Hoover was already knocked out of the White House with three years left on his contract.
HOOT SMAWLEY
The high tariff bill sponsored by Senators Hoot and Smawley has been blamed for the Great Depression almost as much as President Hoover. When I was in Bermuda the tour guide gave credit to Hoot Smawley for helping to create the thriving Bermuda tourism industry. Apparently the small but choice agricultural products of Bermuda had sustained in via trade with the United States. But HS squeezed the profits out so much that Bermuda had to find another way to survive and instead made a concerted effort to build up tourism as a major industry, while relegating agriculture to a supplementary role.
THE GREAT DEPRESSION -
Economics is such an inexact science that I have to establish the bottom line right here and now before I try to even begin to write about the great Depression. That foundation, the bottom line, is found in the immortal words of the nation's all time top humorist, Will Rogers who said during a recorded speech to an assembly of bankers,
“Aw heck, I don't know why you're all listening to me anyway.
I don't know any more about this than an economist does, and
Lord knows he don't know anything.”
The rich men audience roared with laughter, in part because it was a well written joke and in part because they knew he was right. Will was not only being insightful and topical, he was poking fun at himself, while forcing the audience to laugh at themselves at the same time. It was the perfect joke.
But the joke also says it all. If economics were an exact science, then there would be no depressions or recessions, because everyone would know exactly what to do. It would just be a matter of having the political will and America certainly has enough of that.
For every financial wizard that writes best sellers and teaches at top universities and says one thing, there is another financial wizard that writes best-sellers, teaches at a top university and says something exactly the opposite. Who is right? What is a president or a Treasury Secretary to do? Pick a team and run with it I guess, I don't know. (replay the Rogers quote.)
There is less debate about the causes of a depression than there is debate on how to solve it, but there is still nevertheless, some disagreement about the causes, and plenty about initial prevention; how it could have been avoided.
The scariest thing about studying the Great Depression is that all of the alleged causes read precisely like what has been going on for the past decade that has lead to the frightening economic downturn that is plaguing the USA as I write in 2011.
GREAT DEPRESSION – CAUSES
The most universally accepted cause of the Great Depression is overextension of credit. In the boom years millions of Americans were buying things with money they did not have, on the confidence that they would make more money tomorrow than they are making today. It didn't seem foolish at the moment since rising wages and golden-egg investment geese seemed to be walking around every corner. The average Joe or Jane did not fear that when the bill came due, the economy would be in a down-spin and they would not be able to pay the rest of the bill.
The three most obvious categories of these problems were, in descending order, housing, the stock market, and big ticket consumer goods. On top of this you can add the rich bankers lending ridiculous sums to foreign investors on the confidence that they would certainly get all their money back plus interest. To quote Ralph Kramden, “Har-har haaardy-har har.”
The entire financial system was so overextended that it was a house of cards just waiting for a gust of wind to take it all down overnight.
Homeowners were buying their digs with small down payments and jobs they trusted were permanent (suckaaas!). Banks were delighted to approve these loans because they too were confident that their customers would keep their jobs, their foreign loans would be payed, and their own diversified investments would pay endless dividends (suckaaas!). University eggheads were not publishing best-selling books warning of the dangers, but for the most part were buying new cars and sinking their college pay checks into the stock markets themselves (suckaaas!). The Hoover Administration was, like the previous two, boasting of the endless prosperity ahead of us, and how this was the beginning of the permanent end of poverty, a money utopia that mankind had dreamed about since the invention of the metal coin (suckaaas!).
Wall Street was lending stock to people who couldn't even put up ten cents on the dollar, knowing full well that these people would make so much money with their handout stock that everyone would keep money hand over fist (suckaaas!).
The only little people who survived the Great Depression fairly well were those who had essential jobs, saved as much of their money as they could in the 1920's, and did not invest with small margin deposits in homes, stocks, or cars. Most of the Great Depression was not marked by wild inflationary rises in prices, so that those who saved their money and didn't gamble with their future were fairly well set for hard times of the 1930's. The dollar was very strong during the Great Depression. The problem was that millions of Americans didn't have any of them.
This is one aspect of the Great Depression that is different from the economic crisis of 2009. Today's dollar is weak, and is not backed by trust-building federal securities. Inflationary paper currency is being printed as fast at the treasury factories can hire new workers to keep the places running all night. It's pretty scary. That was not the same situation in 1930, but the overextension of credit as the main cause of the fall into the abyss is the same.
Another clear cause of the Great Depression was the refusal of industry to cut the prices on their products so they could keep selling them. Sure, they might make less money if they did, but at least they could at least keep going and maintain the jobs that created consumers. But there had been some collusion in most industries for some time. That is, the industry set the highest prices the market could bear and they all agreed informally to maintain that price as an industry standard. If a pack of gum was a nickel for one company, it was the price of a pack of gum for all. And up the ladder the system went from smokes to cars.
That was fine and well enough in good times. But when times got bad the industries should have adjusted prices downwards to keep things going. Instead they held on to the high prices and were forced to cut production. This created mass unemployment and in effect they shot themselves in the foot in the pursuit of profit.
FOREIGN OVERINVESTMENT + HIGH TARIFF = BAD
The United States had a dual economic policy towards Europe and Latin America that was a recipe for disaster. The private sector was lending billions of dollars to foreign investors, while the government was simultaneously passing high tariffs to make sure that foreign investors had nothing they could legally export to the United States in any effective quantity. How were they supposed to pay us back if they had nothing to sell? This contradictory policy was a significant cause of the Great Depression. The Hoot Smawley tariff was only one of the more notable moments in the pattern.
The famous high tariff bill sponsored by Senators Harold P. Hoot and Smokin' Joe Smawley has been blamed for the Great Depression almost as much as President Hoover. The foreign nations one by one began defaulting on their loans just when we needed the foreign dough most. These defaults hurt both sides.
There was an occasional exception that proved the rule. When I was in Bermuda the tour guide actually praised Hoot-Smawley for helping to create the thriving Bermuda tourism industry. For decades, the small but choice agricultural products of Bermuda had sustained the island economy. The United States was by far the main customer for Bermuda oranges, peaches and pomegranates. But the Smally-minded tariff squeezed the juicy profits out so much fruit that Bermuda had to find another way to survive. In place of selective agricultural exports, Bermuda made a concerted effort to build up tourism as it's major industry, while relegating agriculture and the sale of ugly Bermuda shorts to a supplementary role. Tourism boomed in Bermuda and still is booming today.
PERSONAL NOTE
I am hanging in there in the panic of 2010-11 largely because I have had horrible credit ratings for 25 years. In the mid-1980's I defaulted on some credit card debts and my credit was ruined forever. Those stains never go away unless you take major steps to try to re-establish buying on installments, and I never did. Consequently I have never bought anything on margin in 25 years, have no credit card debts, no car payments, and can put my pay check to paying the rent or buying a new phone. I buy whatever car I can afford in one lump sum and that's it. Today I drive a used Buick Park Avenue and it has given me 44,000 trouble-free miles so far. I'm citing myself as an example of the economic principle that marginal buying and overextension of credit is a deadly game. So far (and I've got my fingers crossed) the economic collapse hasn't crushed me, and its partly because I don't have credit card debt, a car payment, or a stock broker I want to shoot in the kneecap.
By the way, knowing you're credit is horrible can pay off in little dividends. At the airport or at big sporting events the credit card barons often have booths set up where you can apply for new credit cards and get a free gift just for filling out the form and allowing them to check you phone number and address to make sure you are who you are. Since I know they will turn me down, and there is no risk of running up irresponsible debt, I never fail to stop and fill one of these out. I now have a room stuffed with free clocks, towels, travel bags, caps, t-shirts, coffee-mugs, pocket calculators, and pen and pencil sets. The companies claim that they are free gifts, but they don't mean it. In my case they really are gifts and I pass these gifts on to nieces and nephews every Christmas. It's like reverse interest on debts I don't have. It's only a matter of time before I get a hand written letter from a CEO saying, “You knew you were stealing when you filled out these forms. How can you live with yourself?”
SMALLER DOLLAR
Not only was the US dollar shrinking in value, it shrank in physical size too. On July 10, 1930 the Treasury Department began circulating a new paper currency that was one third smaller than the old bills. Wallet manufacturers may have been behind the change. Now millions of fashion-conscious businessmen had to update their pocket leather.
EMPIRE STATE BUILDING COMPLETED 5.1.31
When New York's Chrysler building opened in 1930 it was the tallest building in the world and the first skyscraper ever to stand taller than the 986 foot Eiffel Tower of Paris.
The gorgeous Chrysler Building, however, soon lost its title as tallest building in the world when the equally fabulous 1,250 ft Empire State Building opened for business in May of 1931. The Empire State designers added the thin crown at the top just to make sure it was taller than Chrysler.
When these two competing skyscrapers were in the planing stage the economy was booming. When they opened their doors the nation was in an economic free fall from the top floor. The Empire State Building sold less than 25% of its office space sold by the end of the first year in operation. People called it the Empty State Building. (Reminds me of all the super hotels under construction in Las Vegas right now that would have never got off the ground floor if the investors had any inkling of what was coming soon. The super-casinos and condos were planned in America's best local economy. Now the construction crews have to finish them in America's worst local economy. Since Las Vegas is based on disposable income, it has become a disposable town. I say this with no pleasure since I've spent 33 weeks there to date as a comedian and I may lose the gig.
The Empire State Building would remain the tallest until 1973 when the World Trade Center and then the Sears Tower in Chicago surpassed it in height. During World War II in a heavy fog, a B-24 Liberator bomber crashed into the 102 story tower, killing the 3-man aircrew and some civilians inside the building.
I threw a pink Canada Mint candy off the ESB outdoor observatory in 1971 and I still feel bad about it. The tour guide told us how dangerous it was to throw anything off the building, so as soon as his back was turned I amused my friend and threw the mint. Then he threw a quarter. The tour guide turned around and asked us what was so funny? “Nothing,” we said.
When the slightly taller World Trade Center was completed, the Empire State Building was jealous. When the WTC was destroyed, the Empire State Building was seen weeping for the fallen competition like an old boxer visiting a former ring rival in the hospice.
CENTRAL AMERICA
The US had a force of about 5,000 troops in Nicaragua during most of the Hoover years. They were there to prevent political anarchy which could lead to financial instability and to keep an eye on any potential threat to the Panama Canal. These police forces helped to supervise the Nicaraguan national elections in 1930 and in 1932.
In 1931 during the aftermath of a massive earthquake in Managua, the revolutionary forces of Sandino murdered eight American citizens. Hoover then announced that he could no longer guarantee the safety of Americans in Nicaragua. Those who remained would do so at their own risk.
Hoover wished Sandino a very Happy New Year in 1933 by withdrawing the US Marines from Nicaragua on January 1.
Another important gesture of US foreign policy restructuring came in the “Clark Memorandum.” Written in 1929 but not released to the public until 1930, the CM was a downgrading of the truculent Roosevelt Corollary to the Monroe Doctrine. The Roosevelt Corollary had asserted that the US could and would intervene militarily in Central American and the Caribbean if any of the nations of the region did not behave in any way. This included intervention if, for example, Costa Rica refused to pay it’s debts to France.
The Clark memorandum said that while the US may intervene in disputes between the US and its southern neighbors, it would stay out of disputes between these countries and others. It was not the business of the USA to send troops to these countries over their problems with Europe.
The US still maintained the right to intervene on a case by case basis to protect its own interests, but the Roosevelt Corollary was specifically repudiated. If the US did intervene it would be on its initiative at that moment for its own reasons and did not any longer claim the quasi-legal sanction of the Monroe Doctrine or its Roosevelt Corollary.
Uncle Sam was trying to soften his image to the south as the jingo gringo.
ROCKET'S RED GLARE
On March 17, 1931 the Star Spangled Banner was officially made our national anthem. Before that it was Love the Way You Lie.
I liked the Star Spangled Banner the first 300,000 times I heard it, but it's totally stolen from an old English drinking ballad. It's played too much. I was at a celebrity softball game last month. 100 scattered neighborhood people watching a softball game between amateurs, and at the beginning some clown came on a chintzy p.a. system and asked everyone to stand and sing the Star Spangled Banner. There was no flag around so someone in a fourth floor apartment building hauled out a US Flag rug and hung it over the balcony by hand while everyone stared across the street and sang the song. I support the flag by voting for whichever political party wants fewer defense spending cuts, not by singing a tired antiquated song to a rug.
MR YAMMAMOTO GOES TO WASHINGTON 1929
An international naval conference was scheduled to take place in London at the tail end of 1929. The great navy nations were going to discuss adjustments to the 1922 treaty which set the ratios for naval construction tonnage allowed. By the terms of 1922 the US-UK and Japan were allowed to build capital ships at a ration of 10-10-6. In other words for every 10,000 tons of battleships built by the US and UK, Japan was allowed to build 6,000. Japan was hoping this time in 29 to be allowed to build at a ratio of 10-10-7.
On the way to London the Japanese delegation stopped in Washington and dined with President Hoover and his wife. The Japanese delegation included the legendary Admiral Yamamoto, the 'hero-villain' who masterminded and led the attack on Pearl Harbor in 1941.
Yamamoto was quite a charming character and he performed many parlor tricks for his hosts. He built a house out of matchsticks in less than six minutes and, later on, after the wine had flowed, he stood on his head and spun around like a 1990's breakdancer to the applause of all.
It was all for a purpose. Yamamoto wanted Hoover to agree that if he could not technically allow Japan to build at 10-10-7, maybe Herbie would allow Japan to build at 10-10-6.99. In other words a virtual 10-10-7 but without the a United States having to answer for making a major military concession to its home audience and to its British partner.
Hoover agreed to this and even took Moto aside and told him that if Japan built at 10-10-7.3, he personally would see to it that Uncle Sam wouldn't notice. This was more than Japan could have hoped for.
The London naval conference indeed agreed to all of this, officially at 10-10-6.99, and off the record at 10-10-7.3.
But Yamamoto's victory on his DC-London tour did not please the Emperor. Hero Hiro was planning on stirring up Japanese militarist anger at home by announcing that Japan had once again been forced into a position of naval inferiority by the round eyed refusal to adjust the 10-10-6 ratio. Yamamoto was told that the Emperor had done too much open preparation along these lines and to announce otherwise, and give credit to a navy man for what the Emperor could not win for himself would mean a loss of face at the Palace. So the powers in Tokyo decided to ignore both the 10-10-6.9 and the informal 7.3 and just announce that the US and UK had continued with the 10-10-6 raw deal of 1922. That way the Japanese militarists could still stir up the nation to convert its entire economy for a military build-up. In other words Japan won permission for a military build up, but wanted an unlimited military build up and the way to get this was to pretend they had been ripped off in seeking permission for a moderate build-up.
The other real story here is that the United States had no intention of building all the warships it was allowed to build and Japan had every intention of doing so. In effect Japan had won the right to absolute parity in naval power with the United States and the UK. Both would pay the price in the first six months of its war with Japan.
The new limitations of 10-10-6.9 in any case did not apply to the building of destroyers, submarines and aircraft carriers, only battleships. There were few navy men in Japan that still believed in the primacy of the battleship anyway, so the limitations were really a license to build at will. And speaking of will, Will Rogers hit it right on the head when he joked, “The new Naval treaty keeps things balanced between us and Japan. Why do you know that every time Japan builds a new battleship the United States tears up a blueprint! And blueprints are expensive!”
Japan was divided between aggressive factions, and had been for some time. The moderates wanted the Army to rule behind the scenes and to plan for the long-term subjugation of Manchuria followed by the inevitable war with Russia, the big showdown with Communism on land. They were known as the “Strike North” faction.
The other aggressive faction wanted to plan long term for a war of aggression based on naval and air power, a war that could include war with the United States and Great Britain. They were known as the “Strike South” faction. They had to strike south because that's where the raw materials were. The western powers controlled the oil of Indonesia and the rubber of Malaya, to name two items, and there were more. The idea was to win control of all of East Asia by winning the raw material first. If that led to war with America and England, they could win that too because they would have the raw materials to do it with from of the initial strike south. The other part of the strike south idea was that the rest of south Asia would be glad to be part of a large Japanese led empire because they hated the western colonial powers so much. Japanese rule would be a positive joy by comparison, since at least Japan was a fellow Asian brother.
The Strike North people had tradition and the Army on its side, and the chauvinist conservatives in government and industry. The Strike South faction had the Emperor and his cabal on its side. The cabal had the Black Dragon Society on its side. The Dragons had the habit of assassinating politicians who favored the Strike North faction. The Emperor controlled the secret police and so whenever a pro-North politician got killed, the police had a remarkably difficult time finding the perps.
Prime Ministers and members of the rubber stamp Diet had to look over their shoulders when they took a walk on the beach. Moderate Prime Ministers got whacked more than once in these years while the Emperor pretended to be horrified.
The Strike South faction wanted to take Manchuria, just like the Strike North folks, but the Southies wanted to get Manchuria from within through intrigue, sparing resources for the eventual big strike south.
All of this bears heavily on American history because the Strike South won out in the end and masterminded and launched the attack on Pearl Harbor. If the Strike North faction leaders had lived to had their way, the Japanese would have tried to invade Russia and would never have attacked Vietnam, the United States, and Indonesia in that order in 1940 and 1941.
READ MY LIPS, “NO NEW SHIPS!”
Herbie Hoover was the only President ever who never gave to the go ahead to the construction of a single new warship. No new kiels were laid on his watch, not even the ones he was allowed to under treaty terms. Hoover unashamedly believed in the idiotic Kellogg-Briand Pact which outlawed war, which is like a sign in a bank outlawing bank robbery. When British Prime Minister Ramsay McDonald announced that, persuant to the spirit of Kellogg-Briand, Britain was not going to build several new ships it was permitted to build, Hoover publicly invoked the KB Pact of Fools and announced the cancellation of three new battle cruisers that were about to begin construction. FDR took a lot of the blame from conservatives for the poor state of US military preparedness when the Axis power began to move in the mid-thirties, and deservedly so. But Hoover deserves plenty too. It was a bi-partisan blunder. The liberal Dems and the red-neck Republicans both opposed big navies and armies for different reasons. One for liberal utopian reasons, the other for chauvinist isolationist reasons. President Hoover was a quaker pacifist and he set back US military preparedness a great deal. When it came to national defense, Hoover was a Quaker oaf.
JAPAN INVADES MANCHURIA - 9.31
Japan for some time had its imperialistic tentacles deep inside China, particularly since defeating China in a full scale war in 1894-1895. Japan’s troops controlled the Chinese Eastern Railway inside Manchuria. For a few miles on either side of the track, Japanese rules and laws were more powerful than Chinese.
But in September of 1931 Japan upped the ante. On a weak pretext, the Japanese occupied all of Manchuria. They made a quisling Chinese person, the former boy emperor Pu Yi puppet ruler and renamed the area Manchukuo as if it were an independent country, happy to be ruled and operated by the Japanese Army. Manchukuo existed on many maps until 1945.
The Japanese Kwangtung Army in Manchuria tried to occupy Shanghai in 1932 to punish a successful boycott of Japanese goods there but the Chinese put up a fierce resistance and the Japanese cancelled the operation after heavy fighting inside the city. To punish the disobedient city the Japanese army air force deliberately bombed and strafed the crowded and highly combustible heart of downtown Shanghai killing thousands of innocent civilians in what was up to that time one of the worst military atrocities of modern times. There was not even a weak attempt to pretend they were seeking to destroy military targets. It was the complete opposite of what the US is trying to accomplish in the 21st century in a new style of warfare in the Middle East.
Later in 1937 the Japanese would come back and finish the job. I am writing this account from a hotel in Shanghai and it is fascinating to know that most of the elderly people I see on the street actually witnessed or were victimized by these events. (I am playing at a comedy club called Chopschticks, and that is a true story.)
What was Hoover to do over these Japanese aggressions? He was a Quaker pacifist. What was the world to do?
The biggest problem was that the western democracies were mired in the Great Depression. There was no money to start a war with. Also hurting China’s chance for help was the fact that these western nations had been exploiting and occupying Chinese territory for the past 100 plus years. It was hard for them to get fighting indignant because Japan was only doing what the Western powers had done for so long. The only difference was that Japan was doing it to the tenth power. France, Britain, Russia, and Germany, to name six, had extreme imperialist records in China.
Secretary of State Stimson felt strongly that the idealistic United States, a nation with no occupied areas in China and no hypocrisy to answer for, should answer at a minimum with economic sanctions against Japan. Maybe if the USA denied Japan scrap metal and refined fuel, the Nipponese would get up and leave Manchuria just as fast as they had arrived. Stim hoped to enlist the support of the other Versailles powers, but if they refused, Stimson felt that the United States should take a stand and impose sanctions alone. Henry felt, with Jeffersonian misjudgment, that US trade was so powerful that it would compel Japan to rescind its actions.
Hoover argued against the Stimson Dumbargo. The two men never settled it and just agreed to disagree, which means Stimson lost the argument. HH felt that an embargo would definitely lead to war. His feelers to allied European entente nations produced no support for the idea of any collective embargoes against Japan. There was no foreign support whatsoever for going to war against Japan to help the United States take a stand. A scrap metal scrap between Japan and the US was not enough to get people fighting mad in London and Paris.
Hoover finally issued an official statement that “First this is primarily a controversy between China and Japan. The United States has never set out to preserve peace among other nations by force.” Let them eat rice cake.
Wise historians condemn the Allies of World War II for not stopping Japan right away in 1931. But that is history as seen from the future. History must be seen from the past, and in 1931, the world was still pacified, horrified by the memory of World War One. Millions had died in the ugliest war. Entire battle lines of millions of men had remained active but stalemated for years. It wasn’t even glorious, just a 6 year “sausage factory.” Nations did not want to have to go through that ever again, even if they had to swallow some pride now and then over some international incident that a hundred years earlier would have triggered a rousing call to arms. The intellectual current outside of militarist Germany, Japan and Italy was anti-war. It didn’t matter what the issue was, all war was bad and humanity must now learn to stop doing that terrible thing. The hilarious Kellogg-Briand pact had made war out of the question by a documented and solemnly signed proclamation. Meanwhile the university professors had proven through several thick and popular books that arms manufacturers had concocted WWI just to make profits. All were now on guard lest any leaders trick the world into war again just so that big corporations could make more money from death and destruction.
The western world was in a very liberal mood. There was large labor and racial unrest in America and in Europe. To be a socialist was not a stigma in America as it became after 1945. The point being that all in all it would not be a simple matter for Hoover and the British Prime Minister MacDonald (of the newly elected Labor Party) to have a chat on a log by a river and decide on a military counter invasion to throw Japan out of Manchuria the way Bush and Thatcher threw Iraq out of Kuwait in 1991. Even if they thought that was the right thing to do, they wouldn’t have found much backing for it, morally or financially. The western world was in a leftism mood big time.
Mac and Hoover did meet near the end of Hoover’s first year in an office by the river Rapidan. Old MacDonald was Hoover’s guest in Washington and the two agreed on some excellent plans for naval reductions, which were later rejected by the British Parliament. They also decided that they would give Japan a verbal dressing down over this Manchuria business.
Part of the reason for lack of British support was that the the island kingdom did not particularly support the cause of nationalism in the Middle Kingdom. Britian liked a weak China for long-term economic exploitation, and feared that boosting a strong independent China could create an unfriendly and powerful rival rather than a grateful ally. This fear would come true in 1949. Britian also had a history of recent alliance with Japan, and was not certain that a useful renewed alliance could not somehow be reestablished with Japan at some time in the near future. That came true in October 1945 for all the wrong reasons.
Hoover met with his military brains trust and they told him that if the USA went to war with Japan, America would win but it would take four to six years. It would take a lot of time for the US to reorganize industry for war and to construct a winning fleet for the Pacific while safely maintaining naval commitments in other strategic regions. The brass also told the President that the United States could not hold the Philippines. Therefore any help for the free Chinese in Manchuria would be offset by the pain and sufferings of the Philippinos under Japanese rule.
The US never recognized the nation of Manchukuo, nor did any of the other western powers. Big deal. The Japanese Army solidified its hold on the area and in 1937 expanded into China proper.
JAPAN QUITS THE LEAGUE OF NATIONS
The American response to the seizure of Manchuria in 1932 was to join the League of Nation in condemning the Japanese action as a violation of the League charter which Japan had signed. The Japanese response to this criticism came at the end of an angry speech to the League by foreign minister Matsuoka. He wrapped up his ‘to hell with all of you’ speech by wrapping up his papers and storming out of the hall. Matsuoka, and with him Japan, had literally walked out of the League of Nations forever.
This was the first clear major failure of the system of collective security developed and implemented with high hopes at the end of World War I. It was a system that required unanimous great power condemnation of the bad guy in order to work, but if a great power was the bad guy how could unanimity be attained? As it was construed the League could only work against some small miscreant nation that had not joined the League.
The League of Nations was a clipper ship that left port in 1920 without sails or a rudder. It had sturdy oak, plenty of victuals and a good crew, but it was missing two key elements, namely the USA and the USSR. The US had voluntarily declined to join and the USSR had been excluded as a troublemaker. The absence of Russia and America really precluded the LON from being a true world organization. A glance at a globe would confirm that. The two biggest countries in the world were missing from this noble world security club from day one. Gee, what could possibly go wrong?
The League was essentially a European concert closer in tone to a Tallyrand than a Wilson. All power was based around a few old school European powerhouses. The events in Manchukuo in 1932, the defiance of the League by Japan, and the lack of retaliation for that defiance proved that by 1932 it was famously weak in Europe, and had no real power at all in Asia. In Pacific Asia the League was simply not serious. To call the League of Nations a paper tiger in the Far East would be insulting to the paper tiger.
Some general histories tell of Japan being “expelled” from the League of Nations, but Japan quit before the League could fire it.
LINDBERGH KIDNAPPING 3 – 32
On March 1, 1932 the famous aviator Charles Lindbergh kissed his 2 year old son good-night. Charlie Jr. went to sleep not knowing what evil lurked outside his window.
A kidnapper had placed a tall ladder outside the Lindbergh's New Jersey home. In the dead of night he crept up the ladder and stole the little child from its crib. He left a ransom note. He wanted $50,000 for the return of the boy.
The ransom was paid as part of a complex plan that involved placing ads in newspapers agreeing to things in code. No sooner had the ransom been paid, than the boy's corpse was found in a shallow grave only four miles from the Lindbergh home. Charlie Jr. had been dead for some weeks, certainly throughout all the complex ransom negotiations.
It took more than two years to find the person who killed the boy. His name was Bruno Hauptman and he lived in the Bronx.
The ransom had been paid in 'gold certificates' which could be exchanged for cash or merchandise in many places. By tracing the certificates, the FBI eventually found Bruno. Hauptman was convicted of kidnapping and murder in short order. After some delaying appeals, Bruno was executed in 1937.
There was never anything but circumstantial evidence to convict with and Mrs Hauptman campaigned on behalf of her husband's innocence for the rest of her life. She says 'he was with me all that night.' But no one seems to believe her.
Part of the ladder was broken in the middle and it is thought that the boy probably died when the ladder snapped and almost collapsed completely. The photo of the ladder outside the second story window is really scary.
It is slightly possible that Hauptman was innocent. If so, the Lindbergh kidnapping was a sorry case proving that crime does pay.
BOGUS ARMY 1932
In 1932 an army of disgruntled war veterans marched in anger on Washington and staged what was in 60's terms, a “sit in.” The United States Army moved in and tossed them out like they were drunken vagrant loiterers and burned their tents.
Shame on America!
The eviction of the so-called 'Bonus Army' from Washington DC in the summer of 32 is one of the favorite tales of the Americans who hate America. President Hoover and Douglas MacArthur are the bad guys and the 25,000 angry veterans camping out near the White House are the good guys. It's all black and white. The protesters living on government grounds in tents are good. the government, (especially since it is the Republican government) is bad.
It started with the Patman Bonus Bill. J.R. Patman had fought hard as a soldier in World War I and then won election to Congress from Texas in 1921. Jack Patman had an understandable concern for veterans issues. More than once Patman tried to get Bonus Bills passed, programs to give a lot of dough to the veterans of World War I. Some of it was old money promised, some of it was new money pledged.
On June 15 1932 the PBB passed the House 209-176. At this very moment thousands of Veterans and their families were marching on Washington. They had a plan. The estimates of this crowd range from 10,000 to 40,000, depending on the book you read. So let's say that there were 17,126 veterans camped around Washington DC's government buildings. They even had name. They called themselves the BEF, the Bonus Expeditionary Force, a cute call-back to the AEF of WWI.
The Senate then took up the Patman Bill. To the severe disappointment of the BEF, the vote as 62-18 in the no.
One thing the lefties usually omit from their citations is that the Bonus Marchers were demanding to be paid off on Bonus bonds that had not matured yet. Times were real tough so these angry fellows all wanted whatever cash was on those bonds right now, even though an early payout had never been promised by the government. They were supposed to wait until their bonus bonds matured. So demand wasn't as righteous as the history books make it seem.
Many other disparate groups suffered injustice because of a lack of Treasury funds, but they weren’t trying to intimidate the government. Hoover felt that the the physical presence of an army of live-in protesters was a threat to the efficient working order of his government. The Bonus March mass sit-down strike, took over the city.
The sit-down strike in a factory was one thing. But a sit-down was another thing when directed at the Washington government. Hoover was not going to take it.
The President ordered the United States Army to remove the protesters from the city and this was done unceremoniously and with some violence. The Army moved in with bayonets and Bic lighters. At head of the evictors was none other than Douglas MacArthur and at his side was future president Dwight Eisenhower. The heartless forces of authority cleared a path of destruction. They did the General Sherman shuffle through the parks of DC.
The historians generally feel that Hoover’s record was bad enough on the Depression, then you throw in this evil act and you have yourself a supremely bad President.
There are other sins of omission besides the bond maturity issue . The liberal historians also fail to mention that most of the Bonus Army had left town when Hoover ordered military action to remove them. Only a couple of thousand obstinate vets had refused to get out of town. The right makes it seem like 25,126 veterans were stubbornly polluting the atmosphere of the national government.
The liberal historians (basically all historians since about 1967) fail to mention that the military action came only after an incident with Washington DC police. The local police tried to get the Bonus babies to leave after the Senate rejected the Patman Bill. But many resisted violently and the police shot and killed two of them. At that point Hoover feared a general riot out of control in the nation's capitol. It was only then that he ordered the Army to clear the problem.
A few people think the Bonus Army squatters got what was coming to them and that they had some selfish nerve to think that their plight was the number one problem Hoover had to pay up on. It wasn’t the issue that cost them, for they were in the right to be unhappy and were blameless for protesting. But the sit-down strike is passive-aggressive physical violence and hat’s off to Hoover for putting them in their place. He established legal precedent warning for any other self-righteous group that had similar action in mind. Since ’32, the anti this-or anti-that that marchers know they have to have a hotel room or a ride back to someone’s house for the night after they get finished calling the President names all afternoon. Revolutionary groups do not get to sleep on the front lawn of the power in Washington with malicious intent. Sorry.
Douglas MacArthur claims that the Communists were behind most of the Bonus March trouble and at first I rolled my eyes in an 'oh brother,' but Mac backs it up with some damned damning testimonies.
Moscow wanted these riots to get out of control, wanted the government to call out the Army and wanted the Army to kill people. This was going to hopefully spark up a Communist revolution in America. That might be laughable except that several prominent American Communists who quit the party, later testified before the United States Congress that this was exactly the truth! So you can't laugh that one off, lefty.
There are certainly some similarities to the situation in 2011 with the so-called “Occupy Wall Street” movement.
COOLIDGE GOES COOL 1.5.33
Former President Calvin Coolidge died of a heart attack in Northampton on 1.5.33. Wasn't that the day Hitler came to power? He couldn't handle the news.
For the next two months the United States did not have a living ex-president.
WAR CLOUDS OF WWII - SPAIN
World War II in Europe began officially in September of 1939 but the events that created it were well under way in Hoover’s time. Spain was in a particularly volatile situation. Events in Spain led to the Spanish Civil War which led directly to the triumph of fascism in Europe and the conquest of Europe by Hitler. These events were already unfolding in Hoover’s time, although people in the USA were not paying very much attention. If they had known where it was all heading, they might have.
The problem with Spain was that, one - it was a Catholic Church monopoly, and, two - many millions of peasants and workers were fed up with that, and had turned left-wing reactionary. And, as the Spanish Civil War would prove, and I wish everyone knew, the only thing as awful as a right-wing reactionary is a left-wing reactionary. There was no great middle class in Spain to support strong large moderate political parties. People think the left and right in the USA today are polarized. That’s nothing comared to Spain in the 30’s. Nothing. Spain was the extreme left Anarchists and Socialist representing the factory workers and peasants versus the extreme right “Falangists” representing the Army, the Monarchy, the Church and the money power.
The King of Spain was Alfonzo XIII. The right wing liked him ok, but even the right realized that it was time for the monarchy to go. The left and right had opposite ideas on what was to replace Al-13, but both agreed that he and his monarchial anachronism system was toast. The left all hated him, period. The Army thought that he was too weak to protect them from the democratic upstarts on the left, and if there was one thing that the right hated and feared, it was democracy.
But here’s the rub. The left hated democracy too! There were few moderates to be found on either side. The left was comprised of Socialist radicals and Anarchists. The capital A Anarchists were the “Occupy Wall Street clowns taken to their logical conclusion. They wanted and end to all government, per se. They (like the OWS jerks) had no constructive program to offer; only destructive. The Socialists wanted to bring down the government, but they wanted the lower class workers to take over everything and own it, the “means of production.” That not only didn;t leave any room for the church, or the peasants or the army; it left no room for even a Democratic Spanish government. Most of the Socialists were obedient to Mother Moscow, but even the independent Trostskyite wing was against anything democratic, anything moderate, anything reasonable.
I would have to say that the monolithic Catholic Church was the real villain in all of this mess. The Catholic Church was as much of a monopoly in pre-Civil War Spain as the Communist Party was in Moscow. Left and right come full circle and cross the intolerant finish line in parallel worlds. The reactionary left had just reason to hate the Catholic Church. The left hated the way it had used Spain to advance it’s own power as its primary motivation. The charity work of the Spanish Catholic Church did not make up for the bad things it was doing on a galaxial scale
Late in 1930 the left and right petitioned Alfonzo to hold a special election to test the national confidence in the Monarchy. The King did so, knowing that this was probably the end of his reign. Al had little choice. When violent left and right wing mass movements knock on your door and ask you to think about stepping down, you think about stepping down.
The elections of April 14 1931 sent luckless King Al 13 packing to Rome (where 13 is a lucky number.) XXIII stayed for X years and died with World War II going on. The Republicans declared a republic, and the people celebrated the arrival of true democracy in Spain ... for a few weeks, that’s about how long it lasted. A nice leader too over as President and PM, Niceto Alcala Zamora.
But even though it was great to get rid of the rightie King, that didn’t satisfy the rightie army or the lefty Anarchists.
The Anarchists not only resorted to violence, they preached it. That was one of their big differences with the Socialists, who might allow for a little violence here and there, but essentially wanted to seize and change the system, not destroy it in a bonfire, which was what the Anarchists wanted. In other words, the new Republic had a boat-load of violent opposition on the close horizon.
WAR CLOUDS OF WORLD WAR II 1.33
Adolph Hitler became Chancellor of Germany in January of 1933, two months before Hoover left office.
Few experts had predicted that the horrible Hitler could ever go this far. He had never won a majority in an election. Hoover made it out the back door just in time. He wouldn’t have to deal with this lunatic.
It was well known all over the world in these years that the Nazi's were racists who discriminated against and beat up Jews. They hadn't really started killing them yet, not on any large scale, an occasional incident notwithstanding.
Everyone preaches against hate, but the real evil is love. Self-love is a deceptive evil, because is masquerades as love. The Nazis were in racial and national love with themselves. It was too much self-love that bred the hate of others that led to Buchenwald. You have to be conceited to hate, and the Germans were the master race at that. Hitler was in love with himself, his race and his country. The hating others part just fell in naturally with a pattern of self worship. When it coms to the question of which came first, the chicken or the egg, in this case being which came first, hatred of Jews or love of Germans, I say after years of studying World War II that Germany worshipping itself that came first (and it came first in Fascist Italy and Imperial Japan too, for that matter.)
Its like the family man who thinks he is holy because he looks out for his family, but in his business life he does serious and dishonest harm to many people. Loving your kid justifies everything. Love of Germany justified everything too.
In any case, the real target of Nazi hated in Hoover's time was not the Jews , but the Communists. There were other bad guys too. The socialists were very bad, the Social Democrats were fairly bad, the Democrats were fairly bad too. Everyone was bad except those who loved the Nazis and their supporters. They were organized, they were numerous, they were stupid, they were powerful and dangerous. You were either with them or against them. They could not be ignored. They dominated German society even before they took over.
If HH had been elected to four terms like FDR, then it would have been Hoover in the Oval Office on December 7, 1941. And if he had been in office in 1944 who knows if he could not have made it to five terms? He had the health to make six.
THE GOAT
A colobus monkey could have defeated Hoover in the election of 1932. He was the most unpopular sitting president of all time. More than one TV pundit in 2008 has said that George Bush is the most unpopular president in our nation's history. Are you nuts? Compared to Herbert Hoover in 1932?
To give an idea of the state of the nation, more than 5,500 US banks had closed up shop for good in the last three years of his term. Hoover will always be blamed for the Great Depression.
SUPREME COURT
Hoover appointed Charles Evans Hughes to the Supreme Court in 1930. Hughes had been on the court once already but left the position to run for the Presidency in 1916.
AFTER OFFICE
When he left the White House Hoover said that he had been taking it on the chin for four years. Now that he was out he was going to give it right back. He was going to write articles and books, and give partisan speeches to his heart’s content.
Herb moved to New York City in 1940.
The charitable cause that most motivated the former President through his after office years was the Boys Club of America. I was in the Boys Club for a year or two. But there were too many scary kids in there for my taste, you know, future criminals in early stages of development. I didn’t really look forward to going down there. Hoover was biased towards the BC because he was an orphan.
In 1959 Hoover wrote a superb book on the ‘Ordeal of Woodrow Wilson,’. Another book in 1963 was a little less exiting. It was called Fishing for Fun. At the time of his death Hoover was working on a novel about time travel. It was never published.
Herb lived to a ripe old age and died in 1964. What changes he saw after the burden of responsibility was lifted from his big shoulders. When Hoover left the White House, the bomber was a propeller powered biplane and was not even considered a strategic weapon. When he left earth the United States and the USSR were capable of destroying the world with the turning of a few keys.
CONCLUSION
Woodrow Wilson said that Hoover would rather see a project fail than have it succeed if he was not in charge of it. President Coolidge griped that a certain Mr. Hoover was forever giving him bad advice that he never listened to.
His critics aside, Hoover was obviously a decent God-fearing man who did the best he could and never knowingly brought disgrace to the nation, the White House or himself.
Hoover was a dull guy with a lot of integrity who got caught holding the bag when the cops showed up in the form of the Great Depression. The idea that he did not care about all the suffering is an absurd criticism.
Will Rogers was consistently one of his toughest critics, ostensibly in jest. Rogers was no Republican. But one recording I have of a Rogers radio speech during the Depression is very touching. Rogers had recently met with the President and came away not only impressed with Hoover’s sincerity, but full of deep compassion for the man himself and what he was going through as the father of our nation. Will was emphatically trying to tell the listening country that anyone who thinks that Hoover did not care was very mistaken. He had met with Mr. Hoover and he could see and feel the pain in his heart. Hoover was a God-loving Quaker from way back, a man who had earned his name in life by helping the poor overseas after the war. Back then he could do something about the problem. Now he could do nothing, or if he could, he certainly didn’t know what it was. Hoover’s broken heart touched Wills, and Will in a voice filled with sadness and caring passed it on to the people through his speech. I heard it generations later and almost drove off the road I couldn’t see from the tears in my own eyes. For once the Depression wasn’t a text of statistics and writing. When a sunshiny guy like Will has lost his wit, and can only plead for our compassion in low tones, you can comprehend in real terms, not numbers, how bad the Depression was, and how people hurt. The human voice can convey emotions with subtle but powerful strength in ways that writing and numbers often cannot.
Will Rogers was a rich and famous man and even he was hurting. And he was all busted up to see that Hoover was hurting. These two great men shared some time together taking it all on. Will's usually smart-alec voice was bleeding. So how bad were things for the folks in the bread lines?
SOURCES
America and its Peoples, c)2001 (fourth edition), by James Kirby-Martin-Randy Roberts-Steve Mintz-Linda O. McMurray-James Jones – This a highly successful modern college textbook. Its sometimes very liberally biased. But it is consistently helpful with up to date overviews of the historical consensus, rather than writing a one-take swipe at things, liberal or otherwise.
The writing is carefully explanatory in style, highly readable.
The American Pageant, by Thomas A. Bailey of Stanford - c) 21 B.C. - D.C. Heath
Bailey is the cat's pajamas, his violent hatred of the Republican Party notwithstanding.
The Bicentennial Almanac, 1776-1976, editor in chief Calvin D. Linton, George Washington University - c) 1976 obviously enough
A Diplomatic History of the United States, by Sammy Bemis, of Harvard, GWU, Clark and Yale -c) 1934 Henry Holt.
Bemis is slow but great. I'm a fan, even when he's almost putting me to sleep.
The Great Depression, by John Kenneth Galbreath
Why is he writing a book about my freshman year in high school?
The Growth of the American Republic – Vol II 1865-1937, by Samuel Eliot Morison and Henry Steele Commager – c) 1940 Oxford U. Press.
These guys pick Hoover up, spin him around on their shoulders, and toss him five rows deep into the cheering liberal mob. I expected nothing less from these two pompous partisans.
History of a Free People, by Henry W. Bragdon, Phillips Exeter Academy, and Samuel P. McCutchen, NYU -c) 1954 MacMillan
If you're going to illustrate the history text with cartoons, at least make them well-drawn. Jee-pers.
A History of Presidential Elections, by Eugene Roseboom – c) 1957
This book is definitely informative, and I'm better off having read it. However I don't recommend it because of the writing. While having flashes of brilliance, it is on the whole, non-fun. HPE is hard to pick up. After a good read I'm glad I did it, but I never look forward to it like it's a treat. Some paragraphs I read three times and then just put a question mark in the margin and move on.
A History of Soviet Russia, by Georg von Rauch – c) 1057 Praeger
They translated this from the German to publish it in America but they couldn't do anything to clean out the offensive chauvinist pro-German bias of the author. You would think that Germany was always the victim.
The Invisible Scar, by Caroline Bird,
IS is a study of the Great Depression at the personal level. This is a very good. Caroline is the grandmother of Larry Bird.
The March of Democracy: Vol II, From Civil War to World Power, by James Truslow Adams – c) 1933
He actually calls Hoover a “reactionary fool.”
The Memoirs of Herbert Hoover, 1874-1920, Years of Adventure, by Herbert Hoover, c) 1951
In all honesty, Hoover manages in Volume two to turn exiting events into dull ones with his manner of speaking. You can imagine how difficult a time I had reading volume one. It's too bad too, because his life was pretty exiting. He just makes it seem dull by his style.
Yet underneath the dull was a very strong man. Hoover didn't succeed in life through lucky chance. He was like a big wheel that moves very slowly, but try and stop it from turning forward, year, after year, after year.
The Memoirs of Herbert Hoover, 1921-1933, The Cabinet and the Presidency, c)1951 – The prime source.
It's amazing how he completely ignores the Great Depression in his Presidential memoirs. It's hard to comprehend. He's got long chapters on everything but the Great Depression.
I have come to the conclusion that the one really great talent Hoover had was the ability to find waste and correct it. Herbie does not score high on my list of presidents I’d most to want to ride cross-country in a Mazda with. (Ike, JFK, Van Buren, Garfield, and - surprise - Nixon would score high.)
The National Experience – Part Two A History of the United States From 1865 by John M. Blum (YL), Edmund S. Morgan (YL), Willie Lee Rose (JH), Arthur M. Schlesinger (CUNY), Kenny Stampp (UCB), C. Vann Woodward (YL) – c) 1981 Fifth Edition Harcourt Brace Jovanovich
The first edition was 1963. The writing usually feels more like 1963 than 1981.
Oxford History of the American People, by Sammy Morrison – I never expected a polemic from the venerable Morrison but I suppose it made it that much better of a book. Sam is not too fond of Hoover as far as I can tell.
Out of Many, A History of the American People, by John Mack Faragher (Yale); Mary Jo Buhle (Brown), Daniel Czitrom (Mount Holyoke); and Susan Armitage (Washington State), c)1994 – This is PC liberal pseudo-history, but a great read.
The Oxford History of the American People, by Samuel Eliot Morison – c) 1965 Oxford University Press
Harvard man Morison asserts that Coolidge really wanted a third term but was only posturing when he declared that he did not want to run again in 1928. Morison further says that Coolidge was angry and disgusted when Hoover won the Republican nomination.
I haven't seen this point made in any other general histories, but I don't doubt it. Sam Eliot was alive and well while all this was going on and his academic standards are high.
A People's History of the United States, by Howard Zinn – c) 1990 – There is a new edition every three years. The most popularly read history of our country outside and inside of colleges universities today. That is a real tragedy. The book is fine but to have an extreme left radical version of our nations' history take center stage as the book that everyone looks to for the truth, when it is all absolutely polemic, is just a tragedy. There is not even an attempt to tell a story. Its just a non-stop indictment of America as a bad country from cover to cover.
Rise of the American Nation, by Todd and Curti, c)1961 – My US History hardcover from the days at South Boston High School, lower middle class of 1972. How poor were we? One Christmas morning my father went up to the roof, shot off a rifle to the sky, then came back down and told us Santa had committed suicide.
The Spanish Civil War, by Robert Goldston - c) 1966
I read the Hugh Thomas book on the Spanish Civil War, but this short treatment for young adults is far more edifying, for my taste. I have read more of Goldston’s books than any other author. I though I was pretty smart reading eight of this one guy’s history books, and then I found out they were for young adults and I felt stupid.
A Time for Angels, A History of the League of Nations
A really fine work by a guy named Elmer.
A Short History of the American Nation, by John A. Garraty of Columbia – c) 1977 (Revised and abridged from the 1966 first edition) Harper & Row
Garraty is a famous and prolific historian who passed away in 1977. He edited a 24 volume dictionary of American Biography. A young scholar once asked him, “How do you find the time?”
He responded incredulously, saying “If you have priorities you find the time. That has never been an issue for me. Only the dead are out of time.”
Garrity is out of time.
The United States: The History of a Republic, by Richard Hofstadter of Columbia, William Miller, and Daniel Aaron of Smith - c) 1957 Prentice-Hall
Aaron wrote a biography of the city of Cincinnati. I don't know why, but he did.
The United States of America, a History, by Bamford Parks – c) 1967 – Parkes wrote ten books in his time as a transplant historian in the USA from his native UK. He finished his last book while living in Greece on a fellowship. In 1939 he wrote, Marxism, an Autopsy. That may have been a little optimistic at the time.
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