Homing Hoover

Snip-snip-snip-snip. Herbert Hoover was cutting up into paragraphs a rough draft of a campaign speech. His scissors made the only sound in the quiet of the Lincoln Study. Over a large table he spread out his cuttings. He picked up a paragraph on balancing the Budget and a paragraph on Democratic extravagance, pinned them together. Likewise joined were paragraphs on New Zealand butter and tariff protection, on Democratic campaign tactics and a newspaper clipping of 50 years ago. Thus the separate paragraphs were being woven together into an oratorical tapestry when an aide knocked on the study door, told the President it was nearly train time. Into a big envelop the loose paragraphs remaining on the table were swept. Out of the study and out of the White House without a backward glance marched the President to start for Palo Alto on his first trip home in four years.

Night before in a speech telephoned to the Pacific Coast and there broadcast, President Hoover had revealed his plans: ''The improved situation in the country affords me the deep satisfaction of coming home to vote, amongst my neighbors and friends. . . . I have never gone so far away nor remained so long, except during the great War and the Presidency, that the homing instinct has not carried me back every year to sink more deeply the roots of my being in the fertile soil of California's spiritual and cultural life. . . . When. sooner or later, the time arrives which permits me to do so, I propose to return to my home at Palo Alto to live with my fellow Cailfornians."

When he arrived at the Union Station to board his B. & O. special the President looked drawn and tired. On his way home in 1928 he had traversed this same route. Then he called it "My Own Main Street.'' Then he talked only of Republican prosperity. Now he was kept busy explaining whither that prosperity had vanished. At Martinsburg he joshed with citizens about some apples they had given him on an earlier excursion. At Garrett, Ind., next morning he marveled to see so many people up so early to greet him. As his train skirted Chicago his boosters turned out with placards: "Hoover or Hell."

At Springfield he laid a wreath on Lincoln's tomb and returned to the Arsenal to sit on the same platform with Len Small, Illinois' unsavory Republican nominee for Governor. The Hoover speech here developed a long and elaborate analogy between the Civil War & 1864 and the economic war & 1932. The President pictured himself standing in Lincoln's shoes when the latter reviewed the retreat of the Union arms. He recalled the Democratic clamor for immediate cessation of hostilities. He continued:

"Lincoln was renominated but the country was profoundly disheartened. . . . Then as now the resources of the nation were mobilized and organized. . . . Then, as now, the strategy of campaigns on many fronts produced their inevitable results. . . . Today our opponents are declaring, in words strangely reminiscent of those used by their predecessors 68 years ago, that the struggle of this Administration against the Depression has been a failure. . . . So again today, as in 1864, in the midst of a great war, they call for a change of leadership at Washington. . . . The nation in 1864 refused to be swerved from its course. It declined emphatically to turn aside to untried policies. The same alternatives are before the people today. . . . The choice that the American people made in 1864 was made on Nov. 8. The choice they are called to make in 1932 will be made on Nov. 8. My fellow citizens, can we doubt what that choice will be?"

St. Louis. In a driving rainstorm the Hoover special rolled into St. Louis 20 minutes late. The President hurried to the Coliseum to speak. He looked thoroughly exhausted. His voice kept running down hill into a mumble. For the first time in his active campaign he mentioned Prohibition, but then only to reiterate without amplification the 75% Wet position he took in his August acceptance speech. Pointing to the Dry South he mocked the Democratic promise of outright Repeal.

Of more importance was his spirited and at times dramatic defense of the $80,000,000 which the R. F. C. made available to Central Republic Bank & Trust Co. of Chicago last June, three weeks after Charles Gates Dawes had quit the R. F. C. presidency to go home and tend his tottering bank. Throughout the Midwest this item of Federal relief had done the G. O. P. heavy damage. President Hoover depicted Federal Reserve directors in their board rooms in Chicago and New York on a Sunday afternoon following a bad Saturday run on Chicago's biggest banks. They were there "to meet a grave emergency." Continued the President:

"The immediate problem was to provide before Monday morning a sufficient sum of money to quiet unreasoning fear. . . . The [Dawes] bank had ample securities which, in normal times, could have paid out its depositors, leaving a large margin. But the securities could not be instantly sold at any price. It developed the bank had 122,000 depositors of whom 105,000 were savings depositors, 17,000 commercial depositors. Among those, 755 were country banks. . . . If this bank should fail many of these country banks must fail. . . .

"Finally three hours after Sunday midnight the task was completed. . . . The Reconstruction Finance Corp. agreed to furnish a sufficient sum to assure that this bank could open without fear. . . .At ten o'clock all these banks opened for business as usual. . . . The crowds melted away--deposits began to return. The situation was saved. "That is the story of the Dawes bank in Chicago. . . . General Dawes resigned from the Reconstruction Corp. three weeks before on the first news that attacks were being made on his bank, to try to save it without call on the Reconstruction Corp. . . . When that Sunday meeting started General Dawes stated that he could not bring himself to ask for assistance from the corporation but it was upon the insistence of the two Democratic members of the R. F. C. board, and of the leading Democratic banker of Chicago [Melvin Alvah Traylor] and upon the insistence in New York City of the leading Democratic banker [Jackson Eli Reynolds] and manufacturer [Owen D. Young] that this was no case of the personal feelings of General Dawes on the effect upon my Administration; that it was solely a case of national necessity and those men then and there jointly offered to take the full responsibility for the action. . . . "The constant misrepresentation of this episode for political purposes by Democratic politicians is a slander upon men of their own party as well as a cruel injustice to General Dawes."

St. Paul. Turning north the President traveled into Illinois and Wisconsin. At Beloit one Henry Vance, Negro, was arrested as he was caught pulling up spikes out of Chicago & Northwestern tracks over which the Hoover special was shortly to pass. Between station and hotel at St. Paul President Hoover was again booed by street crowds. At the St. Paul Auditorium he summed up his whole campaign in a final speech in which he listed 21 points of recovery, flayed Governor Roosevelt and the Democratic House, defended himself, his citizenship and his Administration. Referring to some Democrat who predicted mob rule would follow Republican victory the President exclaimed: "Thank God, we still have a Government at Washington that knows how to deal with a mob!" Review. With one last radio plea on election eve from Elko, Nev. Herbert Hoover closed the most desperate campaign this century by a President seeking reelection. In 1904 Roosevelt did not take the stump at all. In 1912 Taft spent most of his time quietly in the White House. In 1916 Wilson made eight campaign speeches, all east of Omaha. In 1924 Coolidge made his one & only campaign address by radio on election eve. President Hoover's original intention had been to conduct a canvass like his predecessors. In mid-September, however, Republican leaders sensed the fact that Roosevelt was far in the lead, prodded the President out to the stump to speak for himself. His first address was at Des Moines Oct. 4. It had fight and force. Next week at Cleveland, next week at Detroit he took the field twice more. On Oct. 28 Indianapolis heard his best effort. A trend developed in his favor. Republicans wondered if they yet had time to win. Proceeding from Indianapolis to Manhattan, the President lapsed back to political routine. Thereafter the trend to him seemed to stop.

On his travels President Hoover heard a discontented country's growl. He was booed in Detroit, Philadelphia and Salt Lake City. Hostile signs were flaunted before him. Declared an oldtime White House secret service man: "I've been traveling with Presidents since Roosevelt and never before have I seen one actually booed, with men running out into the street to thumb their noses at him. It's not a pretty sight."

The Hoover campaign of 1932 will probably be long remembered for the extremes to which the President, justified or not, went in his effort to keep a grip on the Federal Government. At Des Moines he sent a shudder through the financial world by declaring that the U. S. had been "within two weeks" of going off the gold standard last winter. In New York he seriously predicted that a Democratic victory would "crack the timbers of the Constitution" and cause "grass to grow in the streets'' of many an industrial city. In his West Coast speech last week he pointed proudly to R. F. C. relief to California, Oregon and Washington much as a Congressman points to the "pork" he has obtained for his local district. His reference to the Civil War at Springfield stirred hot resentment among Southerners who supported him four years ago.

In the President's behalf it could be said that he sincerely believes that he is better qualified to conduct the Government at this critical time than his opponent. As a matter of personal pride in his own ability and reward for his honest efforts, no man ever more ardently wanted to be re-elected to office than he, and no hard-working President ever faced a gloomier prospect for such a reward.

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