"Undefeated and Unafraid"

To accept his first nomination for the Presidency four years ago, Herbert Clark Hoover crossed the continent to his Palo Alto home, addressed 70,000 persons, mostly women, in the Stanford Stadium. It was a day bright with sunshine and political good fortune. Nominee Hoover expatiated statistically upon the country's prosperity, pointed to the vanishing poorhouse, promised, with God's help, to "banish poverty from this nation." His listeners went home with the feeling that only by his election could the country attain its full economic destiny. Mr. Hoover felt the same way. Last week it was a leaner, graver man of 58 who accepted his second nomination a few blocks from the White House. Almost all his hair was grey now. In his shoulders was a perceptible droop of fatigue. Plain were the marks of three of the worst years any peacetime President has had to endure. Lawn Party. Before accepting the nomination, President Hoover gave a lawn party to 500 important G. O. Partisans at the White House. Guest of honor was 71-year-old Mrs. Theodore Roosevelt Sr. who had had "a perfectly wonderful trip down" by air that morning from her Long Island home. Dressed in all white, she was a sentimental centre of attraction, whose presence gave notice to any one in the nation who was still confused, that there was no connection save a distant cousinship between her late great husband and the Democratic nominee. Beneath striped awnings on the South grounds were tables piled with a buffet luncheon--potato and chicken salad, cold cuts, sandwiches, iced tea and lemonade, six kinds of ice cream. President Hoover moved informally among his guests, eating a little here, a little there. Six Negroes, including Perry Howard and Mrs. Mary Booze, G. O. Politicians from Mississippi, strolled easily through the white throng. 4,000 Friends. After a quiet family dinner at the White House the President, clad in blue serge coat and white flannels, went to the D. A. R.'s Constitution Hall to deliver a speech opening his campaign for reelection. Some 4,000 admiring friends sat before him; countless millions listened over the largest political radio hook-up ever attempted (160 stations). When the Widow Roosevelt entered, the audience stood and cheered. She responded with a wide gesture of embrace. The President had a bunch of red roses handed to her. "Simply and Plainly." President Hoover was given a nine-minute ovation by his enthusiastic followers. Thereafter their applause constantly interrupted his speech. Sometimes it was real and spontaneous after he had worked up to a major point. More often it was ill-timed and artificial, a burst of irrational sound after a minor sentence. Leaders of the platform claque were observed to be National Chairman Sanders, Senator Moses, Representative Snell. Their insistent clapping and cheering gave a jerky, disconnected effect to the 7,000-word speech over which President Hoover had worked for weeks. "In accepting the great honor you have brought me." the President began in his plodding, somewhat mournful voice, "I desire to speak so simply and so plainly that every man and woman who may hear or read my words cannot misunderstand (Real applause). Hurricane. "The past three years have been a time of unparallelled economic calamity. . . . Before the storm broke we were steadily gaining in prosperity. . . . Being prosperous, we became optimistic. From optimism some of us went to overexpansion and from overexpansion to reckless speculation. . . . Then came retribution. . . . New blows rained upon us. ... The world-wide storm rapidly grew to hurricane force. . . . Most Gigantic Program. "We met the situation with the most gigantic program of economic defense and counterattack ever evolved in the history of the Republic. . . . Our measures have repelled these attacks of fear and panic. We have maintained the financial integrity of our government. ... As a nation we have paid every dollar demanded of us. ... We have provided methods and assurances that there shall be none to suffer from hunger and cold (Artificial applause). . . . We have created vast agencies for employment. We have maintained the sanctity of the principles upon which this Republic has grown great. ... As a nation we are undefeated and unafraid (Real applause). . . . Democracy & Demagogs. "Our interest now is in the future. . . . We still have much to do. ... The solution of our many problems is not to be found in haphazard experimentation.* ... It does not follow . . . that we must turn to a State controlled or State-directed system to cure our troubles. That is not liberalism; that is tyranny. . . . Ofttimes the tendency of democracy in the presence of national danger is to strike blindly, to listen to demagogs and to slogans. . . . We have refused to be stampeded into such courses. . . . Relief Record. "We prevented the wholesale failure of banks, insurance companies, building & loan associations, railroads. This was not done to save a few stockholders (Artificial applause) but to save 25 millions of American families, every one of whose savings and employment might have been wiped out. ... I shall propose such other measures as may be necessary to speed economic recovery. That recovery may be slow, but we will succeed (Real applause). . . . Tariff. "I am squarely for the protective tariff. I am against the proposal of a 'competitive tariff for revenue' as advocated by our opponents. . . .

War Debts. "My views in opposition to cancellation of War Debts are a matter of record. ... I am hopeful of such drastic reduction of world armament as will save the taxpayers in debtor countries a large part of the cost of their payment to us and if for any particular annual payment we were offered some other tangible form of compensation, such as the expansion of markets for American agriculture and labor and the restoration and maintenance of our prosperity, then I am sure our citizens would consider such a proposal.* . . . But these debts must not be cancelled or these burdens transferred to the back of the American people. . . . Power. "I have repeatedly recommended the Federal regulation of inter state power. I have opposed the Federal Government undertaking the operation of the power business, and I shall continue in that opposition (Real applause). . . . Budget; Taxes; Raids. "I have insisted upon a balanced Budget. . . . Recent in creases in revenues, while temporary, should be again examined and if they tend to sap the vitality of industry and retard employment they should be revised. . . . The opposition leadership in the House in the past four months secured passage by the House of $3,000,000,000 in raids upon the Federal Treasury. They have been stopped. I shall continue to oppose such raids (Real applause). . . .

Agriculture. "We still have vast problems to solve. ... No power on earth can restore prices except by general recovery (Artificial applause). . . . The departure of the Farm Board from its original purpose by making loans to preserve prices from panic served an emergency, but such an action in normal times is absolutely destructive to the farmers' interests. . . .

Foreign Relations. ". . . Peace. . . We inaugurated the London Naval Treaty. . . . We have made concrete proposals at Geneva to reduce the armaments of the world by one-third. ... I have recommended joining the World Court. ... I have projected a new doctrine into international affairs, the doctrine that we do not and never will recognize title to possession of territory gained in violation of the peace pacts signed with us (Real applause). . . ."

18th Amendment. An unwonted ring of decision was in the President's voice as he said: "I have always sympathized with the high purpose of the 18th Amendment and I have used every power at my command to make it effective. ... I have hoped it was the final solution of the evils of the liquor traffic. ... It has succeeded ... in ... many communities. . . . But in other and increasing number of communities there is a majority sentiment unfavorable to it. ...

"Our opponents pledge their party to destroy every vestige of constitutional and effective Federal control of the traffic. That means ... the return of the saloon system. . . . The 18th Amendment smashed that regime as by a stroke of lightning. I cannot consent to the return of that system. . . .

"There is in large sections an increasing illegal traffic in liquor. . . . There has been in those areas a spread of disrespect not only for this law but for all laws, grave dangers of practical nullification of the Constitution. ... I cannot consent to the continuation of this regime.

"I refuse to accept either of these destinies, on the one hand to return to the old saloon with its political and social corruption, or on the other to endure the bootlegger and the speakeasy with their abuses and crime. Either is intolerable. . . . Our objective must be a sane solution, not a blind leap back to old evils. . . .

"The Republican platform recommends submission of the question to the States . . . but insists that this submission shall propose a constructive and not a destructive change. . . .

"The Constitution gives the President no power or authority with respect to changes in the Constitution itself; nevertheless my countrymen have a right to know my conclusions upon this matter. ... A change is necessary. . . . That change must avoid the return of the saloon.

"It is my conviction that the nature of this change ... is that each State shall be given the right to deal with the problem as it may determine, but subject to absolute guaranties in the Constitution of the United States to protect each State from interference and invasion by its neighbors, and that in no part of the United States shall there be a return of the saloon system. . . . Sufferings. "Today millions of our fellow-countrymen are out of work. . . . Many millions more ... are haunted by fears for the future. No man with a spark of humanity can sit in my place without suffering from the picture of their anxieties and hardships before him day and night. ... I have understood their sufferings and have worked to the limits of my strength to help them. . . . G. O. P. v. Radicalism, "Herein is the fundamental issue: A representative democracy, progressive and unafraid to meet its problems, but meeting them upon the foundations of experience (Artificial applause), and not upon the wave of emotion or the insensate demands of a radicalism which grasps at every opportunity to exploit the sufferings of a people. . . . One Desire. "I have but one desire--to see my country again on the road to prosperity. ... I rest the case of the Republican party on the intelligence and the just discernment of the American people. Should my countrymen again place upon me the responsibilities of this high office, I shall carry forward the work of reconstruction. . . . This is my pledge to the nation and my pledge to the Almighty God (Real applause)."

*Governor Roosevelt called for "experimentation" in his Georgia speech in May (TIME, May 30).

*Senator Borah importantly put forth a similar idea fortnight ago at Minneapolis. Last April Alfred Emanuel Smith proposed: "Let us say to the nations of Europe who owe us money that we will forget all about it for 20 years and will write off as paid each year 25% of the gross value of American products which they buy from us.''

This file is automatically generated by a robot program, so reader's discretion is required.