Posted on 09/28/2007 12:43:05 PM PDT by Past Your Eyes
Good post, Fiji. I concur. Hoover was a damn good man and the fact that he didn’t have all that wonderful “charisma” didn’t make him any less so. He just never had the chance to make anything work.
My parents came of age in the depression. For them, it was no different than the years before. My father wrote two autobiographical books. I don’t think he ever used the word “Depression” in either of them. But he sure did hate FDR and it’s easy to see why. He graduated from high school in 1937. They got their first automobiles during the depression.
If you haven’t read “Hard Times” by Studs Terkel, you should.
Huh? The 'recession' was well into its third year when Hoover left office. And if you call 25% unemployment, widespread hunger, homelessness, backrupt cities and school systems, and a banking system teetering on the edge of total collapes a 'recession' then either you have never read up on the times or you have no idea what a depression is.
Maybe because one quarter of the country was out of work and those still working still had to eat and put a roof over their head. Maybe in the long run depressing wages may have caused the recovery to move slightly faster, but as one of Roosevelt's advisors told a Congressional Committee, "People don't eat in the long run, Senator. They eat every day." And that took money.
You also forget that Hitler had dictatorial powers and didn't have to worry about a congress or a Supreme Court. Hitler achieved his recovery through a massive rearmament program, something not open to Roosevelt, but also through extensive public works projects and also work creation programs. There was the Labor Service and other government programs. And Jews and women were excluded from the work force as well, don't forget the impact that had on unemployment.
I disagree. When I was in High School back in the 60's, as a project my class spent a year collecting oral histories of the Depression, kind of like they did with the Slave Narratives. We talked to parents and grandparents and great-grandparents, city people and farmers, and in the overwhelming majority of the cases these people described the election of Roosevelt as if someone had opened a shade and let sun in. After 4 years of Hoover, with the depression growing worse week by week, month by month, they were beaten. They were desperate, and wanted someone, anyone to do something different. Almost without exception they were totally contemptuous of Hoover, and remember Roosevelt and his speeches the way people 30 years later would talk about Kennedy. We can speculate 80 years later what Hoover would have done and if he might have been successful, and maybe he would. But it's equally likely that the U.S. may have drifted into a socialist or facist state.
A facist state? Would that be a state preoccupied with saving face or putting its best face forward?
Hoover, who was called the Great Humanitarian or the Napoleon of Mercy, probably saved more lives than anyone else in history, and so it is ironic that his Democratic opponents succeeded in portraying him as not caring about the victims of the Depression.
Dad left home in 1937 at age 18 to find any work he could because while his hometown had always struggled financially, people had managed to get by.
Much to grandma's chagrin, he became a Republican. By 1940, grandma was even more disgusted with FDR than Dad. It had become clear to even the most ardent FDR supporters like her that he wasn't what he was advertised.
FDR got elected in 1932 campaigning against much of Hoover's activism, high taxes and excess spending. Then he proceeded to sell America on the notion that Hoover failed because he had not been bold enough.
Hoover was a thoroughly decent man. He was a self-made multi-millionaire and first came to the public eye by heading up the relief efforts in Europe after World War I. He did the same thing after World War II and probably saved millions from starvation. Yes, his economic policies failed because America had never been faced with an economic downturn of that magnitude, but if any care to check the record, the Depression was much worse after four years of FDR in 1936 by doing more of what Hoover did.
My god: It's like holding a directorship or being in Congress or the Senate now!
Smoot-Hawley, tax increases, wage freezes,price controls... sure, that's nothing (compared to what FDR did). Actually, doing nothing - a la Silent Cal in prior recessions - would have been preferable. But FDR did have the microphone (literally, with the Fireside Chats) and he had the public eating out of his hand.
Wow, how’d you manage to dredge this one up after almost two years? I had forgotten all about it.
I had forgotten all about it and can’t remember who it was who gave it to me in the first place. Thanks for the offer.
I think my grandfather may have?????? I just found this handwritten in my fathers basement. I started to search and found this. Maybe he just copied it but I know he used to write poetry and this reflects his feelings on the WPA.
Interesting. Welcome to FR.
The author of the Poem “Rejected” is Gordon Bennett. I found the poem inside a 1935 copy of Sinclair Lewis’s It Can’t Happen Here. There are also some notes by Mr Bennett in the back of the book.
I think I may have found the original writing. I found a very old piece of hand written paper with editing that is this poem. It is titled “Rejected” and signed by Mouse Smith. Does anyone know who this is?
And this thread comes back to life again. Wow!
I was cleaning out the file cabinet of my uncle who was a Navy pilot during WWII, and I came across this exact same poem - an originally typed and 3 copies - in his belongings. I wonder what this is all about? I don’t know who to ask about this, but it sounds like it made the rounds among the troops back then!
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