READING: Herbert Hoover's View of þe Issues in the Campaign of 1928 (Herbert Hoover vs. Al Smith)

From Hoover's memoirs: The Cabinet & the Presidency

Herbert Hoover published his memoirs in 1952. So perhaps there is some retrospective rightward drift in his recollections of what he thought back in 1928—but only some: he did give the anti-collectivist speech that he quotes at length here.

And yet Al Smith’s pre-Great Depression Democratic Party was not at all a “collectivist” party. As Hoover points out, it was the Bourbon aristocracy of the South combined with the urban machines and with agrarian, consumer, and labor anti-monopolist groups. Labor unions and consumer and farming cooperatives were as far as they went toward “collectivism”. The socialists of the day were Eugene V. Debs—Robert La Follette—Norman Thomas. Not John Dewey.

And I do have to point out that Hoover’s dismissal of the claim that he “was supposed to have robbed a Chinaman” plays fast and loose with the reality. Hoover could never decide whether his line was that Kaiping mine General Manager Chang Yenmao was a thief whom Hoover had rightfully displaced from his position, or whether he, Hoover, had done his best in cooperation with Chang Yenmao and the two of them had then been double-crossed by Hoover’s Belgian-British partners. In any event, the Belgian-British syndicate (and Hoover!) wound up putting no money into the enterprise and yet reaping a 62.5% ownership share, while the previous equity holders who had held 100% before the restructuring wound up with only 32.5%. Nice work I you can get it.

Let me give the mic to Hoover:

---

Under the leadership of William Jennings Bryan, the Democratic party had undertaken to ride the three horses of the extreme conservatism in the Solid South, the radical labor and agrarian groups of the North and the corrupt city machines. Governor Smith inherited this complex and was anxious to retain the support of these Northern groups.

While the Governor conscientiously believed in the American system, he was not philosophically very discriminating. Some assurances had been given to Senator Norris and John Dewey’s socialist group that the government would go into the power business. Also the Governor had submitted to pressures from the radical agricultural group to advocate price-fixing schemes in farm products. There was certainly a large ideological range in Governor Smith’s team of supporters. Aside from the radical groups of the North, and the conservatives of the South, it embraced at the same time such personalities as Pierre DuPont, Senator Norris, and New Jersey boss, Frank Hague.

The United States already was being infected from the revolutionary cauldrons of Europe. This had become so evident that I had written a small book on the subject some six years before.2 In any event, the growing left-wing movement, embracing many of the “intelligentsia,” flocked to Governor Smith’s support.

I was determined that the Republican party should draw the issue of the American system, as opposed to all forms of collectivism.

Our managers thought that the subject was not of much importance or public interest, and that harping on it carried liabilities. However, I felt that this infection was around, and I dealt with it definitely in an address in New York on October 22, 1928. A few paragraphs have some interest in view of later events:

There has been revived in this campaign, however, a series of proposals which, if adopted, would be a long step toward the abandonment of our American system and a surrender to the destructive operation of governmental conduct of commercial business….

You cannot extend the mastery of the government over the daily working life of a people without at the same time making it the master of the people’s souls and thoughts. Every expansion of government in business means that government in order to protect itself from the political consequences of its errors and wrongs is driven irresistibly without peace to greater and greater control of the nation’s press and platform. Free speech does not live many hours after free industry and free commerce die.

It is a false liberalism that interprets itself into the government operation of commercial business. Every step of bureaucratizing of the business of our country poisons the very roots of liberalism—that is, political equality, free speech, free assembly, free press, and equality of opportunity. It is the road not to more liberty, but to less liberty. Liberalism should be found not striving to spread bureaucracy but striving to set bounds to it. True liberalism seeks all legitimate freedom first in the confident belief that without such freedom the pursuit of all other blessings and benefits is vain. That belief is the foundation of all American progress, political as well as economic.

Liberalism is a force truly of the spirit, a force proceeding from the deep realization that economic freedom cannot be sacrificed if political freedom is to be preserved. Even if governmental conduct of business could give us more efficiency instead of less efficiency, the fundamental objection to it would remain unaltered and unabated. It would destroy political equality. It would increase rather than decrease abuse and corruption. It would stifle initiative and invention. It would undermine the development of leadership. It would cramp and cripple the mental and spiritual energies of our people. It would extinguish equality of opportunity. It would dry up the spirit of liberty and progress.

For these reasons primarily it must be resisted. For a hundred and fifty years liberalism has found its true spirit in the American system, not in the European systems.>I do not wish to be misunderstood in this statement. I am defining a general policy. It does not mean that our government is to part with one iota of its national resources without complete protection to the public interest. I have already state that where the government is engaged in public works for purposes of flood control, of navigation, of irrigation, of scientific research or national defense, or in pioneering a new art, it will at times necessarily produce power or commodities as a by-product. But they must be a by-product of the major purpose, not the purpose itself.

Nor do I wish to be misinterpreted as believing that the United States is free-for-all and devil-take-the-hindmost. The very essence of equality of opportunity and of American individualism is that there shall be no domination by any group or combination in this republic, whether it be business or political. On the contrary, it demands economic justice as well as political and social justice. It is no system of _laissez faire_.

I feel deeply on this subject because during, the war I had some practical experience with governmental operation and control. I have witnessed not only at home but abroad the many failures of government in business. I have seen its tyrannies, its injustices, its destructions of self-government, its undermining of the very instincts which carry our people forward to progress. I have witnessed the lack of advance, the lowered standards of living, the depressed spirits of people working under such a system. My objection is based not upon theory or upon a failure to recognize wrong or abuse, but I know the adoption of such methods would strike at the very roots of American life and would destroy the very basis of American progress….

The American people from bitter experience have a rightful fear that great business units might be used to dominate our industrial life and by illegal and unethical practices destroy equality of opportunity.

Years ago the Republican administration established the principle that such evils could be corrected by regulation. It developed methods by which abuses could be prevented while the full value of industrial progress could be retained for the public. It insisted upon the principle that when great public utilities were clothed with the security of partial monopoly, whether it be railways, power plants, telephones, or what not, then there must be the fullest and most complete control of rates, services, and finances by government or local agencies. It declared that these businesses must be conducted with glass pockets….

The Republican party insisted upon the enactment of laws that not only would maintain competition but would destroy conspiracies to destroy the smaller units or dominate and limit the equality of opportunity amongst our people….

Nor am I setting up the contention that our institutions are perfect. No human ideal is ever perfectly attained, since humanity itself is not perfect….

And what have been the results of our American system? Our country has become the land of opportunity to those born without inheritance, not merely because of the wealth of its resources and industry but because of this freedom of initiative and enterprise. Russia has natural resources equal to ours. Her people are equally industrious, but she has not had the blessings of one hundred and fifty years of our form of government and of our social system…

CAMPAIGN DIRT: The lower rank and file of party workers on both sides did not show the elevation of spirit one could desire.

The Democratic underworld made a finished job at these low levels with several favorite libels. Again the litigation in London, wherein I was supposed to have robbed a Chinaman, was exploited. However, that gave rise to a boomerang from an unexpected quarter. The principal Chinese owner of the properties in question was Tong Shao-yi, to whom I have referred in the preceding volume of these memoirs. He had now risen to be Prime Minister of his country. Suddenly Tong appeared in the American press with an indignant statement from China that this story was “dastardly,” that his family were the principal owners, that he had been enormously benefited by my services on that occasion. He otherwise expressed himself warmly…

---