i pledge myself to a new deal

for the american people. give me your hope. not to win votes alone, but to win enough crusade for us, for america to its own people. and that was governor franklin roosevelt of new york making his 1932 promise to americans during the great depression should they elect him president. well, voters did just that, giving him a landslide victory over republican president herbert hoover, who, for years earlier had won his own overwhelming victory. fdr election in 1932 was the first of four he won, which led to major changes in the country for years to come. thanks for joining us. for our american history tv

series, historic president elections. during this election season, we look at elections from past years. this week, we discuss the election of 1932. our guest is scott martelle, author of the book 1932, fdr, the hoover and the dawn of a new america. mr. martelle, we're going to show some results here. here are the 1932 results. fdr. received 57.4% of the vote for. 172 electoral votes. he won 42 states. he got 22 million votes. herbert hoover not quite 40% of the vote, 59 electoral votes, 60 votes. 15 points. 7 million votes. mr. martelle we can't really talk about the 1932 election without putting into perspective the 1928 election, which herbert hoover won with 58% of the vote, 444 electoral votes, 40 stas,

21 million votes. al smith 41%. 87 electoral votes. eight states and 15 million votes. how do you compare 1928 and 1932 elections? another like back to back shellacking. roughly. but just in different directions. in 1928, hoover was immensely popular. he was sort of seen as the mr. fix-it for the american problems. he had a great reputation. beginning with his appointment in the wilson administration, it was carried over into the harding and coolidge administrations. there he ran the department of commerce. he was immensely popular with the american people. that goes in the long history back in this role of world war one, aiding, starving people in belgium. so so he was like a folk hero. will rogers made a comment, one of his cumns that once the united states gets a call, a sense for for dr. hoover, you know, he's a great guy that dr. hoover was to that effect.

he was immensely popular. and the economy was doing very, very well in 1928. the republicans had been in power for a number of cycles. they took credit for the strength of the economy. and then the floor fell out in 1929, quite famously, and continue to fall even further. so by 1932, the democrats did a very good job of hanging the economic collapse from the next on. the republicans beginning with president hoover. so what happened in 1932? how was the turnout? did people turn on herbert hoover? they turned on herbert hoover in dramatic fashion. i pulled some stats and we're going to be talking about this. the turnout in 1928 was 56.9. turn out 1932 was identical. 56.9. clearly, though, the vast majority of the voters of the middle majority of the voters shifted from the democrats, from the republicans to the democrats, and that that

transition. did herbert hoover ever have a chance in 1932? i don't think so. i'm not sure you'd ever find a historian who really, genuinely thought he did. you know, the american people had lost faith in him and in the republican party. that's why it was such an interesting scramble among the democrats. it was pretty clear by 1930 that whoever the democrats put up was likely going to have to win the white house. well, here's just a little snapshot shot of what america was like in 1932. of course, herbert hoover was just finishing his first and only term. the population was about 125 million. the great depression, which had started 1929, was ongoing. gdp, gross domestic product had fallen by 15%. crop prices were down by 60%. unemployment stood at about 23%. scott martelle what was it? what was it like to live in america at that time? what did it feel like? quite depressing.

the numbers you just rattled off are really interesting, but they don't tell the whole picture of those who continued to work. something most of them lost, like an average of 40% in real wages. so even people who kept their jobs were seeing cuts in wages just to stay on the job. so you had that, you know, one in four employable people not able to find work. and the vast majority of those who had work losing financial standing. so it's pretty desperate times. it's hard to imagine from this vantage point, but there was virtually no social safety net at the time when so many fell into poverty and was starving. they would tend to rely on local community banks, you know, local volunteer support networks, churches, and that kind of thing. so when a crisis as deep end pervase as the depression hit, there was just nothing there to support people up. and on top of that, the agricultural disaster that happened during that period to

correct. yeah. and that actually preceded it that that began at the end of world war one when europe was consumed by war. the american farmers had a bit of a boom because they're exporting a whole lot of material to europe. the war ended. peace came while there were expanding their products. they are also borrowing money, buying land. you know what were you'd expect the company to do? at times like that and small farmers are still companies. so when the war ended, that export demand dropped, prices dropped. farmers were caught with overextended, with loans on everything from property to farm equipment. and that can continue through the twenties, up to the depression. so when the depression hit in 1929 and then in earnest in 1930, the farmers were already in deep trouble and their problems just got much, much worse. well, as our guest, scott martelle, described herbert hoover, he was seen as a mr. fix it. he was born in west branch, iowa, and that's where his

presidential library is today in 1874, went to stanford, got into the mining business, was director of the u.s. food administration under woodrow wilson commerce secretary under warren harding, and elected, of course, in 1928 over whelming lee besides the great depression. were there other issues that were discussed in the 1932 election? yeah, prohibition. the repeal of prohibition was a major issue. and there's a pretty valid argument that that was one of the secondary currents that pushed hoover and the republicans out of the white house. they held firm to maintaining prohibition. the democrats were largely in favor of repeal. roosevelt was sort of a late convert to that. his coern was that making prohibition and part ofhe political campaign, one of the issues for the voters would distract from what he thought was the more salient issue, which was the economics. but it still became an issue

democrats put a repeal in their plank. republicans had a plank in there that kind of made no sense to anybody. so, like, leave it up to the states to do what they want to do. so those sorts of confusion over exactly where the republicans stood, there was very little political polling at the time. there was some marketing polling that was going on. there was a marketer who did a private poll for hoover when he was in the white house and he talked to a bunch of republicans who had voted for hoover in 28. and so they're going to vote for roosevelt in 32 and press them on some different topics. most of them felt that the economy was actually doing pretty well. if half the country was was heading in a positive direction. but they veered sharply from hoover and the republicans over prohibition. so for a core group of republicans who switched from their guy to the democrats, a prohibition seemed to have been the driving force. would it be fair to compare the prohibition issue in 1932 to the abortion issue today?

yes and no. i mean, there's different levels of moral arguments to be made between those two, but they did some of the same forces that you saw fighting lineup up against each other in 1928 and 1932. their descendants are on opposite sides of the abortion issue. you know, christian social conservatives versus liberal urbanites that kind of thing. how did herbert hoover address the great depression in his 1932 campaign? hoover was a very staunch, laissez faire guy. he thought that business failures were a natural cycle of the business cycle. i mean, weeded out the weak and the economy would remain stronger as as that churn sort of happened. and he just took a skill set. he also did not believe that the federal government had a role to play in providing relief to people who were impoverished and hungry. the ones who are really at the bottom rungs during the

depression, he thought that was a local responsibility and just he wouldn't budge on that. was there legislation that was happening in congress during this period? yeah, there was. he did some programs, but none of them really did anything to alleviate the problems. like he spent a lot of money on infrastructure investment, you know, roads and that kind of thing. but he tried to focus on roads that would earn some revenue back for the government, and they weren't new programs. and she was looking, you know, down the pipeline at projects that were expected to get done or in the planning stages and had those move forward so that people could get work in the near term. but, you know, he just he just he did not take the approach that fdr eventually took of, you know, massive jobs programs to put people to work. well, the great depression set the tone for the 1932 election. and for herbert hoover's presidency. here is george nash from the c-span archives.

hoover biographer talking about herbert hoover and the great depression. it seems to be a near consensus among historians that hoover's presidency was a failure, according to one narrative favored by liberal historians and shaped by keynesian economics. hoover fell short because he was too anti statist, too committed to voluntary cooperation, and too devoted to fiscal conservatism and the gold standard in this interpretation. the great depression was a crisis of capitalism. and hoover's failing was that he did too little, too late. a competing narrative favored by many free market economists argues that the great depression was not a crisis of capitalist some, but a failure of government whose interventionist policies profoundly exacerbated the nation's economic woes.

among these policy errors, it has been argued the smoot-hawley tariff, the tax increase of 1932, and the high wage policy that hoover insisted upon. in 1929. in this line of interpretation. hoover's failing was not that he did too little, but that he did too much. both of these schools of scholarship, you will notice, are hoover centric. but there was another prospect, too, on him that i invite you to consider as i close between 1929 and 1933, the supply of money in the united states contracted by nearly one third, a staggering, almost unbelievable decline. why did this happen? in their monument to monetary history of the united states, published in 1963, milton

friedman and anna schwartz placed the blame squarely on the policies, passivity and ineptitude of the federal reserve board, the legal guardian of the nation's monetary system. it is a complicated story, but in the judgment of friedman and schwartz, it was the fed that was mainly responsible for converting what they called a garden variety recession into a major catastrophe. since 1963, friedman and schwartz's indictment of the fed has won considerable acceptance among economists and reinforcement from the fed's principal historian alan meltzer. but as friedman, schwartz, meltzer and their fellow monetary states are substantially correct, what should we now say about herbert hoover and all of american history? no president has been more conscientious and hardworking than he.

for three years and more. he strove without stint to induce the american people to shake off their frozen confidence. repeatedly, he pleaded with banks to resume lending, with depositors to stop hoarding, and for morale building action that would arrest the deepening credit freeze. could it be that his incessant labors were not so much right or wrong or as irrelevant. it reminds me of the greek mythological figure sisyphus, forever condemned to push a heavy boulder up a hill every time he nearly reached the top, the top the rock would roll back down, and six of us would have to start over. from 1929 to 1933. herbert hoover arguably was our modern sisyphus.

every time that he seemed to be on the brink of success and taming the great depression, some do crisis would erupt while the silent killer the contract version of the money supply would grind on each time. like some of us, he would start over, unaware that much of his perpetual motion may have been doomed to fortune, to fertility by the monetary policies of a government agency. beyond his control. so i leave you with this food for thought. perhaps someday his story ends will conclude that hoover's presidency was stymie ed not so much by his political limitations. political philosophy or policies, but by something neither he nor virtually anyone else at the time quite understood. the fatal misjudgments and errors of the federal reserve board.

and you're watching our special series on american history tv, historic presidential elections. we're talking about the election of 1932. our guest is scott martelle, author of 1932 fdr, hoover and the dawn of a new america. mr. martelle, in that video we just saw with george nash, he said that the policy of the federal reserve played a major role in the great depression. were there other factors as well? there were. and in my book i didn't delve too deeply into the myriad factors. i mean, to this day, historian and economists can't agree on what exactly caused the great depression. simply, the federal reserve had a role. some were blaming european banks, overextend in from the boom times in the twenties. that was all that all exacerbated banking crises in the u.s. so there's just it's a stew pot of things that led to the crisis. well, herbert hoover's opponent

in the 1932 election, of course, was franklin roosevelt, who was governor of new york at the time. he was born in 1882 in hyde park, new york, attended harvard. he was a cousin of president theodore roosevelt. he had served in the new york senate. he was assistant navy secretary under woodrow wilson and elected new york governor in 1928. mr. martelle, did fdr and hoover know each other prior to 1932? yes, they did. they had both served, as you noted, in the wilson administration, and they lived near each other in washington, and they and their wives would get together occasionally for dinner. i imagine it'd be kind of a fun thing to recreate what those dinner conversations might have been about during the wilson administration. but they knew each other. they were professional friends. they had a lot of respect for each other. there are some letters back and forth, kind of a mutual admiration society kind of thing. and fdr was among several democrats who tried to persuade hoover to run for president as a democrat in 1920.

but hoover demurred. how did fdr, in his 1932 campaign approach to economic matters if he didn't really have a plan from the early going, his his whole strategy was that the country was in complete shambles. the economy was in the tank. the republicans were responsible for. so he had his brains trust, which being sort of brain trust over the course of the campaign. and they were charged with coming up with policies and proposals, but there weren't a whole lot of detailed suggestions that he was making on the campaign trail. in fact, he got a lot of flak from journalists and from republicans for essentially just, you know, promising clouds. you know, he had nothing specific he was going to do just, you know, a good feeling vote for me, you know, i'll i'll make things better. but more broadly, his approach was, you know, try anything you can think of and see what works. and then pursue that, which is a whole different approach from hoover, who was very much, you

know, very analytical, very sure of his own expertise, his and his own mental capabilities in figuring out what a problem is and how to resolve the problem. what about on prohibition? what did fdr have to say on the campaign trail? oh, he was all for it at that point. i mean, he saw which way the wind was blowing. and most of the salem he also apparently enjoyed a cocktail himself. so, you know, it was in keeping with his own personal lifestyle, but he relentlessly tried to push the economic issue because he thought that's where where the path to victory lie. let's go back a little bit. did fdr and herbert hoover have primary challenges during the 32 election? who will take hoover first? he had one guy, the governor, marilyn, whose name was escaping me at the moment. and france. he was a former governor, i believe, or senator from maryland. and he thought that hoover was botching up the whole approach to the depression. so he sort of ran as an

alternative candidate. hoover faced really. he won a few states, got some votes in a few states. he ran in the maryland primary. and that was the first one that hoover really paid attention to, me in late and just, you know, steamrolled the guy, his intent being at that point to embarrass france in his own state. so that sort of knocked him out of the running for the for the nomination. and after that, it was smooth sailing and even that wasn't it was just a little pothole. it was nothing not a serious challenge. why was it that herbert hoover did not face a serious challenge in the primaries, given the condition of the country at the time? well, we kind of saw that play out recently with the efforts to persuade president biden not to run. you know, parties when they have an incumbent in the white house tend to line up behind the incumbent. even the republicans were afraid that they were going back in hoover. the hoover's our candidate was going to be a losing proposition. they didn't really have the wherewithal to openly challenge

him and and throw him out. walk us through the republican convention in 1932. it's pretty boring. all the contemporary accounts talk about how it's kind of this maudlin affair. there was no drama. vice president curtis was under fire. people were afraid that he was too old to actually go out on the campaign trail and lend much to the campaign. so there was some chatter about maybe dumping him in favor of dodds, who had served as vice president under coolidge. i believe, and that went away. when does that categorically he wasn't interested in joining the ticket. so it was just a sell through. that was in chicago. in that era, nominees tended not to be at the convention. so hoover waited in washington for the official word. it was weeks later, i believe, before he finally delivered his acceptance speech, and that was at a facility there in washington, d.c. and what about the democratic convention? that was a bit more fun and

exciting. primaries are a fairly modern invention. i think they were like 16 democratic primaries that year. most of the states pick the delegates through conventions or there were sort of, you know, hand-picked by the political elites, party elites, whoever. i'm sorry. roosevelt as the governor of new york, was in the driver's seat at that time. new york was the largest state in the country in population. whoever was governor of that state, you know, the spotlight was on him. that's how al smith, roosevelt, 1928 contender. one of the reasons for so roosevelt had won. so mysterious opponent al smith who initially said he wasn't going to run. he had built such enmity towards fdr over 1920, 1930. that's all backroom politics kind of stuff. does not apply to this. but he decided that he didn't want fdr to be the nominee, so he made it clear that he would

be available to run if he was drafted at the convention. and hearst, the publisher, hated smith, disliked fdr. so he put forth john nance garner, the speaker of the house, and a congressman from texas. garner wasn't interested, but he didn't final say. he wasn't going to accept the nomination if it fell to him. so when it came to the start of the democratic convention, fdr remained in albany but was watching. he had a boiler room set up with telephones and his main apparatus checks were filling about and everything that happened. roosevelt had a majority of the delegates on the first ballot, but not the super majority that was required under the convention. rules went to a second ballot, then a third ballot, and nothing really. but he kept his delegates. smith kept his delegates. garner kept his delegates. things finally shifted when there was some back room phone calls. joseph kennedy called hurst in california. the senator soon to be senator

mcadoo, was working behind the scenes, altering to figure out how they could ship these things up, what with a candidate that was only a couple of seconds before that, the democrats went to 100. the third ballot in their convention, which was a complete fiasco, and nobody wanted a repeat of that. so they were anxious to get higher resolution. and what finally broke it was fdr folks persuaded garner to turn his delegates over to fdr. mcadoo in california learned of this and shifted the california delegates to fdr. so on the fourth ballot, fdr had the majority. he needed a. usually when a candidate wins the nomination like that, the convention goes back and does another quick vote. and becomes an unanimous endorsement. but the feelings were so bitter between fdr and smith at this time. the smith, who had already left the convention at this point, didn't release those delegates. so it remained you know, there was a sliver of delegates that did not fall to fdr. but at that point, you know, he was off and running.

so who did fdr pick as his running mate? part of the deal for fdr was garner. garner became the vice presidential nominee, and mr. garner is known for a very famous quote, isn't he, that the vice presidency, is it worth a warm bucket of spit? a bucket of warm spit. right. i'm sure with a warm goes. but yeah, he had he had low opinions of it. and he initially didn't want to get involved in the executive branch because he had fought long and hard to become speaker of the house and had his own legislative agenda that he wanted to get through. but he wound up getting talked into becoming the vice president. well, franklin roosevelt did go to chicago to give an acceptance speech, and we're going to show you that now, a portion of that. and we're also going to let you listen to audio from herbert hoover accepting his nomination about a month later after his convention. i appreciate your willingness after these six arduous days to remain here, but i know well the

sleepless, hard with you and i have had. i have thought it out on the tasks that lie ahead by breaking the absurd tradition that the candidate should remain in professed ignorance of what would happen for a week until he is firmly notified of that event many weeks later. you have nominated me and i know it and i am here to thank you for the honor. let it also be symbolic that in so doing i broke tradition.

let it be from now on the past of our party will break hollywood tradition. we will break polish tradition and leave it to the republican leadership skill in that up to break promises convention love for a pail. your candidate once for a failed. and i am confident that the united states of america wants to repeal. i say to you now that from this date on the 18th amendment is

doomed. i pledge myself to a new deal for the american people. give me your hope not to win votes alone, but to win and profane, to refer america to return people. to courses were open to us. we might have done nothing that would have been on our road. instead, we met the situation with proposals to private business and to the congress of the most gigantic program of economic defense and counterattack ever involved, ever involved in the history of the republic.

we put that program in action. our measures have repelled these attacks of fear and panic. we have maintained the financial integrity of the government. we have cooperated to restore and stabilize the situation abroad as a nation, we have paid every dollar demanded of us. we have used the. we have used the credit of the government to aid and protect our institutions, both public and private. we have provided methods and assurances, and there shall none suffer from hunger or cold

amongst our people. we have instituted measures to assist our farmers and our homeowners. we have created vast agencies for employment and above all, we have maintained the sanctity of the principles upon which this republic has grown great. in a large sense, the test of the success of our program is simple. our people will suffering. great hardships have been and will be cared in the long view. our institutions and sustained intact and are now functioning

within increasing confidence for the future. as a nation, we are undefeated and unafraid. and again, above all, government by the people has not been defined. and we're talking about the election of 1932 with scott martelle, the author of this book, 1932, fdr, hoover and the dawn of a new america. mr. martelle, what was it like? was fdr the first candidate to appear at the convention? yes, he was. one intensely wanted to break the mold of everything that had come before. he was pushing for a bold new vision. he had a broad sense of a much larger, more engaged federal government. and he knew he is a natural

politician. and he seemed to feel at a skeletal level that he didn't need to get the democratic party behind him as much as he needed to get the american people behind it. and he thought by going to albany, delivering that speech in person, showing that despite his suffering from disabilities, from polio, that he had a a a significant level of vigor and that he was strong enough to carry through this campaign. so he was trying to send messages at multiple levels at that point. did the fact that fdr had disabilities, was that exploited at all by the republicans during the campaign? not to any great extent. there were kind of, you know, whisper campaigns and that kind of thing, but nothing really major. and there was a lot of collusion by newspaper reporters and photographers, particularly, to not draw attention to fdr issues. so the media had a pretty outsized role in this campaign. well, they always do. right. and i'm a retired journalist, so i have to take that credit.

yeah, it did. but but i think an even bigger role was the role of radio, which was sort of the new and upcoming medium. hoover was a very stilted speaker, did not exude much warmth. fdr was a natural at it. later in his presidencies, he was known for the fireside chats, but he did a lot of direct appeals to voters over the radio. and these everybody liked him. even republicans were sort of warming up to him. well, so far in our series we've looked at past president elections. mr. martelle, in 1932 were fdr and hoover making personal appearances on the campaign trail? yes, they were in a few previous cycles, presidential candidates and incumbent presidents did occasional forays. but it was it was very uncommon. fdr loved the campaign trail. he loved retail politics. some of his top handlers tried to get him to less of it.their 2

election was fdr was to when it was just for the taking, unless he said something stupid. campaign gaffe. but something. so they wanted to sort of, you know, close them down a little bit. but he just loved being out in public. he made three or four very long running train tours of the country, or he'd stop multiple times a day at small towns and get out of the back porch of the last of the train, give speeches. sometimes it was a little more than, you know. thank you, mayor, for having me in this town introducing some local dignitaries, that kind of thing. but that all got him a ton of free publicity every time he went to, you know, those things were covered. he also brought local political figures on board the train for a couple of stops where, you know, when the train is running, he's in meetings with these folks and he's, you know, sort of pressing them to continue to support, you know, get them the flavor for like if he's in iowa, you know, what's happening in iowa. it was a give information disseminating thing and an information gathering thing.

and he was really good at it. hoover, on the other hand, initially didn't plan to go out on the stump at all. he thought it was beneath the dignity of the office and still has some of his advisers persuaded him that, you know, it wasn't so undignified to do it. so he did his own train. tours are more limited, gave a es of major policy speeches in different cities around the country. most of the policy speeches, though, focused on defending his administration, and there wasn't whole lot there that was defensible. so they didn't go over to all of the press and, you know, routinely derided for some of the claims he was making. so it didn't really help his position that much. he drew big crowds. it didn't seem to affect the control the race at all. well, here are herbert hoover and franklin roosevelt out on the campaign trail in 1932. the president began this campaign with the same attitude with which he has approached so many of serious problems of the

past three years. he said, create the impression that there was no campaign, a term just as he had sought to create for the impression that all was well with the united states and that there was no depression. the present leadership in washington stands convicted not it did not have the means to plan, but fundamentally because it did not have the will to do. and that is why next week, the american people will register their firm conviction that this administration has utterly and entirely failed failed to meet the great emergency of modern

time. what our people need is the restoration of their normal jobs, their recovery of agricultural prices and ability. we need. we need help in the mean time to tide them over until these things can be accomplished and that they may not go hungry and or lose their farms and their home. all while the battle must be continued. we have yet to go along ways and to capture many positions to restore agriculture and employment but it can be made plain that if the strategy which we have established is maintain and the battle not caused by change in the midst of action shall win.

in conclusion, i desire again declare again that it is the high purpose of my administration. it is the historic determination of the republican party to preserve this nation for our citizens with its american system of liberty intact, its american great opportunity. its american free opportunity, and its equal opportunity. still open, moving ever forward in accord with the principle it's american government forever in the hands of men who believe that our public building will win for 150 years. a strong, good brain and brawn to make this the greatest land that ever free men have love. and you're watching american history tv series historic presidential elections.

our guest is scott martelle, author of the book 1932 fdr hoover and the dawn of a new america, where prominent americans are lining up on each side with these two candidates. mr. martelle. yeah, there seem to be, but mostly, you know, political movers and shakers. we don't have, you know, kind of a celebrity endorsement culture that we do now. one thing that was really intriguing about it, in 1928, when the democrats got shellacked. up until then, the major political parties would open up a office for the campaign, and usually just a few months, maybe a year before the election itself. and when 1928 election ended, john jacob racicot, who was a very rich guy, backer, main player in general motors, part of the dupont industries, who's a good friend of al smith. he decided it realized that it made little sense to just go dark for three years. so he, in over $1,000,000 of his

own money to set up a permanent democratic national office. and one of the first things they did was hire a guy named charlie michaelson, who was a seasoned political reporter in washington, and he spent the next three plus years issuing, you know, a blizzard of press releases and ghostwritten statements for democratic politicians and that kind of thing, just completely battering the republicans and battering hoover, really pushing the mockery tent colonies were called hoovervilles. images of men holding their pockets empty were called hoover. flags. newspapers that people would sleep under for warmth in the streets were called hoover blankets. so this was all going on because of that, that sort of new professionalism of the democratic national committee. and we're seeing the results of that here almost 100 years later. how quickly were the results known on election night?

very quickly. three time zones, obviously, as there is today. hoover was in california at his house in palo alto. he got the results there. and when he realized that all was lost, he sent a telegram of congratulations to fdr, who was following the results in manhattan. and then fdr had gone to bed. it was pretty clear early on from the east coast returns that there was just a tidal wave of support for fdr. so now that they're really waiting on those, exactly how big the gap was going to be. and here again are the election results from 1932. fdr. 57.4% of the vote, 472 electoral votes, 42 states, 22 million votes. herbert hoover. about 40% of the vote. 59 electoral votes. six states and only. 15.7 million votes. what was the domestic and international reaction to fdr as

election domestically? had kind of a general sense of anticipated relief. i mean, nobody thought hoover was going to prevail. so was a sense this is all this is gleaned from newspaper coverage. there was no polling really. that point seem to be, okay, this is over now. we're going to go on to a new future. but we also entered into a period of stasis here. we had an election in november and not a change in the presidency until march. so there's this long fallow period. the economy had sort of begun to recover leading up to the election day. not in a great way, but things kind of stabilized and that all began to fall off a cliff. shortly after the election, there was a run on banks, a bunch of bank foreclosures. there was another crisis in europe. so everything just sort of going into freefall. so it was very strange and unsettling times. were fdr and hoover coordinating during this transition period? no. and that's one of my favorite little dramas of this is hoover

was desperately trying to get fdr to sign on to some of his policies, especially dealing with loans or running into default in europe. and fdr is position was he's just sort of, you know, nod and say, i'll take over march 1st, march 3rd. the world doesn't want to see the nation doesn't want to see two presidents at the same time. this is this is your thing. but that was primarily just a rejection of what hoover stood for. fdr didn't think it made much sense for him to sign on to policies that he had won the presidency by opposing. well, from march 1933. here's a portion of franklin roosevelt's first inaugural address. well, first of all, let me assert my firm belief that the only thing we have to fear is tell nameless unreason and unjustified terror, which paralyzes needed effort, will convert retreat into advanced

endeavor, dark all of our national life leadership, uprightness, and a bigger and that's met with that understanding and support of the people themselves which is essential to a victory. and i am convinced that you will again give that for leadership in these critical days, in such a threat on my part and on your we face our common difficulties their concern. thank god only material thing. values the front the fantastic level. taxes of wisdom. our ability to pass fallen government of our. times based by serious curtailment of income. the means of exchange of firm, the currents of great, the way that lives are and does fail. enterprise lie on every side. farmers find no market for their

produce and the savings of many years and thousands of are gone. more important, a host of unemployed, citizen based but grim problem of a system and unequal. a great number toil where the letter of return only a foolish optimist can deny the dark realities of the moment. this is a day of national consecration. and i am certain that on this day, my fellow american expect that on my induction into the presidency, i will address them with candor and a decision which the present situation of our people impelled. this is preeminently the time to speak the truth and boldly no need. we shrink from honestly facing

conditions in our country today. this great nation will endure as it has endured. will five and will prosper under my constant personal duty to recommend the measures that african nation, in the midst of a second world may require. these measures author such other measure as the congress may build out of its experience and wisdom. i shall speak within my constitutional authority to help bring the speeded up. but in the event that the congress shall fail to take one of these to pass it, in the event that the national emergency is still of critical, i shall not obey the clear path of duty that will then confront me. i shall ask the congo for the one remaining instrument to meet the crisis.

one executive power to wage war against the emergency. as great as the power that would be given to me if we were in fact, in fated by a foreign foe. this nation is asking for action and action now. in this dedication of a nation. we humbly ask the blessing of the may he protect each and every. one of me. guide me in the days to. and we're talking with author scott martelle, author of the book 1932, fdr, hoover and the

dawn of a new america after fdr took office. how quickly did things start moving legislatively? i didn't go into this much in my book, but i know from ancillary research, you know, everybody knows about 100 days. so the came out of the blocks in a full sprint recommending all sorts of programs and legislation. there was when roosevelt won the white house. the democrats also completely swept the senate and the house. so he had a hugely cooperative congress behind him to try to enact these things. do you think, mr. martelle, that history has treated herbert hoover fairly and think over the arc of time? it has. initially, i think he took more of a pummeling than he really deserved. but there have been more recent biographies that look at him in a less jaundiced from less viewpoint. i think he was the wrong guy for

the job at that time, primarily because he was so doctrinaire. i mean, that that crisis called for somebody that was quick on his feet, creative, willing to try new things. and he was just, you know, steady as it goes kind of thing. so. so clearly, the nation just needed a different personality, a different worldview to climb of that crisis. people have biographies by someone named white, i believe, did a really good job of going back in sort of putting more subtlety and more nuance into the steps that hoover was trying to take and what sort of going on behind the scenes of the white house and how he was acting? well, from the archives, here is history. and george nash, who is also a hoover biographer, talking about the legacy of herbert hoover in 1933. hoover left office a political pariah. but this was not the end of the story. rising from the ashes of his

political immolation he waged until his death in 1960. for what he called a crusade against collective vision and became franklin roosevelt's most formidable critic, the right hoover perceived in the new deal. not a pragmatic response to economic distress, but something more sinister, a form of collectivism that, if unchecked, would destroy the very foundations of american life. identify him and identify himself with what he now called historic liberalism. he relentlessly assailed what he termed the false liberal ism and totalitarian tendencies of the new deal. on one occasion, he declared the new deal having corrupt did liberalism for collectivism, coercion and constant creation of political power. it seems historic liberalism

must be conservative to some. in contrast, and thus in the final phase of his long political journey, hoover became a man of the right. during his four years as president. hoover, in certain ways, foreshadowed the new deal, but in the larger sweep of the 20th century, hoover as a former president, contributed mightily to containing the new deal and to reinvigorating the political philosophy that he had expounded in the white house in the process, he forged a critique of ever aggrandizing status that has become integral to modern american conservatism. it was among the most enduring of his legacy. and we are back with our guest, scott martelle, author of the book 1932 fdr hoover and the dawn of a new america. mr. martelle, what do you think the legacy of the election of

1932 is? most of how we view the federal government today? i mean, before 1932, the nation seemed to want a small l relatively uninvolved federal government. after the depression made it clear that it needed a more washington with more robust response than was possible under the way things have been, the american people sort of began turning more and more to the federal government in the thirties came social security, the wagner act, which established union organization rights. so a lot of the things that that sort of founded modern america began back then. we saw a beginning of a rollback of a lot of those things under the reagan administration. and left and right have been fighting over that ever since. but but it was it was a it sort of set the stage for the modern america that we know now. and thanks for joining us for historic president elections on american history tv.

our guest has been scott martelle. mr. martelle, th