.. .. not only did he say that proposed program was impractical he said it would

be destructive of american civilization. the new deal would bring destructive changes. upon which this government is founded. it would break down the savings, the wages the equality of opportunity among the people i would break down our form of government. free speech does not live many hours after free commerce dies. the new deal with the same fumes of apparition -- brush in the courtroom. spread over the whole of europe. if roosevelt were elected. they would grow in the streets of a hundred cities. a thousand towns. it's always good for a few quotations. indeed it leads to some of my

favorite moments of amusement which i did put in the book the have of the women's division were marked during the inaugural parade the inaugural parade included a series of men with lawnmowers coming through the streets. contrary to myth the 1932 election was happily contested. it was very clear which candidate was promising what with the new deal and who was opposing it as a form of communism. there was no confusion on this point in the mind of the american elector. it will not surprise you to know that of course the opponents in the years of his first term of the new deal was

all news to them. this was a surprise. and therefore it marked up a a betrayal of the american electorate one book of 1935 said that roosevelt had entirely ignored the campaign of 1932. the claim that he did not campaign and the new deal was a claim that the new deal lacked legitimacy. i said it is a shrewd kind of thing to say about roosevelt's administration because that's exactly what he thought it was the most important thing that they could do. was to assure people that american politics and democratic democratic politics had legitimacy and could do for them what he had promised. and that's why the moments after the election were so critical.

americans have been in despair at they lacked in the evidence. now there was hope and he knew he must not preside over more disappointments disappointed hope rather than despair creates revolution. with the chancellery. as he told the french ambassador in these months and weeks in february. that it is at stake. we can see that for roosevelt was a moment of great crisis for the u.s. and for the world because roosevelt had promised as sweeping and specific new deal to restore prosperity in a time when there was

neither. it's because we know why it was important to roosevelt that he go forward and fulfill his campaign promises that it's all the more interesting that i explain very briefly while it was very important to hoover that he not do that. hoover is a reaction to the near-death experience is in a way just as revealing to anything else. he also thought civilization was at stake in these moments but for very different reasons than roosevelt. he thought them curiously radical. they have no desire to dominate any but their own race. you can insert the irony font here. he thought that the great threat to facing american democracy was the new deal and he spent the last months trying to ensure that roosevelt could not fulfill

those promises that they have made during the campaign. hoover blocked the lame duck congress from an acting at program that would've closely resembled the act. they couldn't do it now. to try to block kinds of actions and he tried to get roosevelt to promise not to enact the new deal. he tried to get him to pledge that he would adopt his own policies for dealing with the depression. he demanded that the president-elect, promised to stay on the gold standard to balance a budget into swear off any large public works programs. this is the only way like to

reverse the banking panic. if roosevelt did these things it would mean abandonment of 90% of the new deal. he launched the biggest bid to do that right after the assassination attempt. hoover wrote a very carefully drafted. he have delivered personally. the nine page letter one sentence.

roosevelts could only do it because roosevelt was that. roosevelt was the only man who have the power to do anything. hoover was helpless. what he meant was he have to promise to be as helpless as herbert hoover. hoover was not asking for the cooperation he was asking for

capitulation. it's a time when both roosevelt and hoover understood that the united states in the world faced a pivotal crisis in acted accordingly and they fought bitterly over this a very short time. in the near-term roosevelt prevailed he did not give into the demands. he survived the assassination attempt. he did indeed engineer a rapid recovery that one won over the people that had voted for him. he became the leading influence in the united states for the adoption of an anti- nazi foreign policy into the

american economy became the factory engine of the victory in the second world war. it's also worth pointing out in the longer term hoover also one the version of republicanism he defined in the 1932 campaign and in these months afterwards became the mainstream of the republican party. this idea that the new deal is the great threat to american institutions became the abiding principle and what they called the ark of the covenant for the republican party and although hoover wanted of course to be president again he never was. he have a profound influence on many people who did. he later praised for exposing

the new deal as the author of a stream of treason that has existed in our government since 1933. they also inspired barry goldwater. the former president. hoover lived a very long time. he died at 1964 on the cusp of goldwater's transformative defeat. it became the foundation moment for the modern republican party. he said i outlived the baskets they also worked mightily to shake away his own history told and the narrative of the critical months. which i think he correctly understood it provided that ground zero not only for the presidency but for the american politics as we know them now.

i will stop there in hopes that you will now want to read the book. [applause]. and we are doing q&a. if q and a. if anyone has a queue. if you would be so good to do so. one thing that you were aware of. gabriel over the white house. and it was made during this pivotal time. in response to the view that the crisis needed a dictator. and walter houston started out as a harding type president. just rubberstamping the republican party. someone that took charge and dismissed congress.

see mike i do know about gabriel over the white house. i do have a long section on it in the book. it was a hearst project. a lot of what they q's and character said as there he's been hit on the head. you can trace it back. this is a very intriguing text particularly for understanding what they first thought the new deal should be. see mike. >> this is a terrible movie. it removes some of the more inflammatory stuff.

i think people had exaggerated the extent. at this point they really want to influence roosevelt. didn't quite grasp the extent and i cover in some detail the awkward negotiations as one would with the man. that have a radio stations and gave personal radio broadcasting. his vision of the new deal was can be a bit more interactional list. very politely try to say this. you can see this in the letter

it's very interesting. they use the word interesting quite a lot. it has been exaggerated. with the dictatorship might be. is a very interesting historical text. it helps us to understand is not just hearst. they became one of the great establishment figures try on

the fastest thing. cut it out. the subtext of this remark is by my book. they're very nervous about that. with good reason. >> i actually had that your at the museum. >> is a great evening out for those of us that like 1933. >> i think you for your presentation. in all of the reading that i have done over the years about fdr and the new deal. i don't recall reading anything about any contact between fdr and president

hoover during the 12 years that fdr was president. i inferred from that. was there any relationship. it led to a shortening those are excellent questions. it's always dangerous to exert -- assert a negative. certainly the relationships were strained. i go a bit into this in the book. if i'm not mistaking. but privately i think there was no love lost i think it is

the biggest thing you can point to there. hoover not only was not bothered by the 1930s. he was adamantly opposed to american involvement in the second world war he blamed that on the prodding there. he was an isolationist. close enough in the substance of his youth. like a lot of people they wanted to prove the worth by being involved in the war effort. it did not involve him in the war effort or give him any position with the conflicts.

they really wanted to provide aid to them. they thought that that would be an agent to the nazis. it wasn't until truman became president. they rehabilitated hoover. in trying to put him in the government of the world bank to your second question i think your answer is no. have anything to do with shortening that time. i have already been proposed. the interesting point there is that that meant because the

next inauguration would be on january 20, 1937 that roosevelt could end up having a short-term in the presidency. there is no actual relationship there. >> i would like it very much if the election was a serious debate over the new deal. but how important do you think it is. it really depends who you ask. by 1932 even hoover who was a pretty ardent dry have backed off and qualified his position on prohibition because the sentiments have turned largely against it. he was trying to present himself as a not as prohibitionist as he used to be and he wanted it to be

repealed at a national level. i'm not sure how substantial that would be. i am sure it was symbolically important that unlike al smith roosevelt had many cultural markers. he was an upstate protestant. he didn't excite the president -- the prejudices. the actual substance is it that he was clearly on the way out. during that time.

>> i am in fine arts. but you pushed on many buttons i thought your talk was excellent. i exist because my father met roosevelt and jimmy walker and to speak easy. and then worked for him while he was a governor. and then later he didn't want to go with the mafia. roosevelt got him a position at the fair hotel. hotel. and gave him his citizenship. that's one button. elizabeth warren seems to be the only one putting out programs and they may much relate to roosevelt.

this is a thing and it has that has echoes in our modern politics. a number of contenders are trying to lay claim too. they are proposing other things for the future. for so long and have been out of favor and the democratic party let alone in american politics. >> it have seemed old-fashioned by the time of the 1970s whereas now it seems to have happy days here again. i do think it is worth noting that the idea of some kind of new deal does seem to be very

important to many americans right now. >> about a decade ago i read a book by an nyu professor called invisible hands about the fact the bigness in the community and the community was so rattled by his inability to write the economy that some of them actually got on the bandwagon later a short. of time after he set up the new deal than that no longer happens. they begin to destroy the new deal. luckily they were so happy ended.

i think the coke brothers have learned some lessons from that time. but i'm wondering about the roots of the new deal if you could see them indirectly. you mentioned the dupont brothers. who opposed roosevelt in the 1936 election. it was a nonpartisan organization. jim farley roosevelt secretary 's secretary of the democratic national committee said that it is like cellophane you can see right through it.

the question about whether you can see that at that moment. is very interesting. i think you can but you have to know what you're looking for. essentially roosevelt is very important because of what it does for the future of the democratic party. have been historically split organization between large roles of the south which were committed after reconstruction. in the segregation. and much more populist and immigrant and catholic neighborhoods in northern and western cities pity. at least through some of the 20s. and in the south tended to be less so. those are broad generalizations.

roosevelt tried to push forward with a more progressive form of a democratic party. and that becomes really clear during some of these times. during the campaign roosevelt had quite shrewdly assembled an advisory committee with many conservative corporate democrats so that they could get their advice and ignore it. you can find them talking specifically about this in his diary. one of the jobs is to get together. those guys were brought along with the idea that they might have an important voice in the administration by about december of 1932. it's clear that they're not going to. bruit doesn't get in.

norman thomas doesn't get in. these are the whites -- the wise old guys. that turns out to be run. that begins to happen around december or january 1933. we have a lot of importance. that's when he begins to kind of pull away from those elements. >> this is really brief. i don't know if it was someone from the hoover institution. they wrote a glowing biography of calvin coolidge.

the policy reflects by the coolidge policy. hoover did not get along with coolidge. it was quite worth pointing out. it seems like hoover minutes to alienate a lot of people. those guys remained with intensity. they did things for him even after his death. everybody have a hard time just getting in. you could look at hoover and you could say here is somebody who has a different kind of republican. a session because of his

appointment as flood relief look at him the great manager. i think they presided in that the exception to that. you can play out. then, they push the reconstruction finance program. but hoover is a pretty conservative president if not actually a calvin coolidge president.

we can say that the harding kool-aid coolidge years. we tend to think that they were. this is the nature of history. everything is connected to everything else. one of the things that they point to about the 1920s as there was a severe recession. and then people say look, and then they didn't do anything. and the economy bounced back. the post-world war i recession. the administration actually have a massive interventionist response. using the leftover left over world war i monies. there was a massive interventionist.

a massive increase in federal involvement. it's called prohibition. they seem to miss this. i think there's probably not as stark of difference. i am canadian. if my question is really stupid you will forgive me. he described first as owning the media. i was wondering about the impact that the media have on the elections and what and how they behaved during that time did they change sides,. >> this is a great question. there is a canadian connection.

my wife who is a distinguished historian is doing work on that newspaper the newspaper publishers of the 1930s one of the things we don't appreciate now about the newspapers is that they required that you command a supply chain that stretches all the way back to the mighty forest of canada. who was can have is can have that cheaper paper supplies. he was probably one of the great titans and certainly had his fingers and a number of media pies as we know. in major newspapers.

they all ran very similar kinds of materials in this media landscape. the economy have gotten worse on a month by month day by day basis. the unemployment you would estimate now in the neighborhood of 25 percent.

among many other wise conservative newspaper publishers were we should try something. there was a spectrum of roosevelt's expect -- acceptance in the press in 1932. have he run a more conservative campaign. once an office they would influence him to do the kinds of things that they wanted. hearst who is very much in favor of cutting taxes for example expected roosevelt to do that. indeed that became a future sense.

he tried to institute the national sales tax. it was hard to be they were trying to influence roosevelt rather than outright oppose him. and especially when it became clear that roosevelt was going to britain and spite of the nazis. >> there will be a book signing. thank you very much everyone.

>> reagan is an intellectual. he is comfortable with ideas. he understands the power of ideas. and with that kind of foundation and in the intellectual foundation political leader can do all kinds of marvelous things. mr. f words is evans words is the author of just right. let's join our line conversations. from noon to 2:00 p.m. eastern. with a national book festival on saturday august 31.