. >> lou and herbert hoover came to the white house as trained geologists. and experience world travelers who were successful in both the private and public sectors. months into hoover's term, the market crashed. first lady lou hoover used her office to advocate charity, but there one term and it among rate public frustration. good evening. tonight is the story of lou henry hoover. light --nteresting like she had. here to tells about her years before the white house is a net dunlap. and, author, scholar at the hoover institution and working on a biography of lou henry hoover. tot interested you enough spend several years of your life at this woman? >> when i first started looking at lou, i realize this was the woman whose story has not been completely told. there has been a legacy she has left, for women even today, that i would like to see people know about. let's start with her growing up years. she was born in waterloo, iowa. her father really wanted a boy. >> so they say and so the name lou, which is not short for louise or any other type of genuinely fem

herbert hoover is a beneficiary of a divide that happens on the democratic side. al smith is opposed from within because of his catholicism and concerns about prohibition. hoover escapes an internal battle. it shows in the polls. >> it is important to note that he came in with a republican congress. >> he did. >> one would think there was lots of support for his programs. >> one would think. [laughter] >> how involved was lou hoover in the campaign? >> she worked on all the campaign appearances and was very visible. part of the press that was out at the time was in conduction with al smith being the nominee. his wife was from the lower east side of new york. there was this comparison of this woman who is not knowledgeable and sophisticated against lou hoover. she was a very sophisticated woman. she had gained national prominence from her other activities. >> michael is watching us in san antonio. >> hello. yes. i want to comment on mrs. hoover. she seemed very unorthodox for the late 1920s and early 1930s. she seemed way ahead of her time. i think she was eclipsed

that response initially actually came from former president herbert hoover. lots of people debate how conservative hoover was as a president and as the secretary of commerce in the 1920s. i am happy to talk about that issue today feed like that we are looking at him in the 1930s when he was shocked really by the excesses of the new deal. the 1930s the new deal was really the height of regressiveism and we argue in this book that just as edmund burke the english political philosopher began modern conservatism as a response to the french revolution, we think there is a distinctive rand of modern american conservatism and in effect the new deal was our french revolution. the deal change politics, change governance and so responding to our own french revolution herbert hoover starts weeping to stake out the case for modern american conservatism. if you think about it in our view we are still operating under the new deal paradigm. time today. we argue that politics, american economic policy today are essentially just a continuation of the new deal. this debate that

european totalitarianism in fact if you look at the cartoon icons of the 1930's if he will come herbert hoover liked to talk about the rugged individual come and i'm sorry, franklin roosevelt said know it is about the forgotten man. these are great cartoon icons of the 1930's. hoover argued america is about equality of opportunity and it's about individuals having the freedom to decide how they want to live their lives and how to pursue that. so america is about the equality of opportunity. franklin roosevelt said, and this is shocking to me, she said the quality of opportunity is dead in america. you can't get it anymore. so what we have to be about is the quality of outcomes. we have to design public policy are around the forgotten man or sometimes he sitter around every man, not individual freedom. this i think is precisely the debate today when people talk about income inequality and how we need to raise taxes on the wealthy and we need to raise the minimum wage what they are arguing for is this an equality of outcome is kind of society. so this is the way that is continuing today. so we g

the guy everybody admired herbert hoover. nobody thinks of him as being a progressive. yet he was the ideal progressive of his time. and it was a culture story. it was a political story. it was a story about friendship. they argued with each other. they chased each other's wives. they smoked an awful lot. and ended up creating the united nations among other things. >> how did they assist each other in their careers? >> a., by getting jobs for each other. the ones who were in the media, like walter wrote editorials, criticizing each other. they fought with each other, they broke up, they got angry. they would come back around. it was a family relationship. you're not really sure you really like this person, but he's a relative so you've got to. >> what drew you to angle? how did you discover the group and decide to write about them as a group? >> i found them by mistake. i was working on a biography of alan, the cia director. and i wanted to know where he began. he began in dupont circle. his grandfather lived there. he and foster went to gw law school here. everybody th

reacting to what he called the "earthquake in europe," president herbert hoover proclaimed america'sadfastness to the gold standard. but despite official pronouncements, many europeans feared that america would be next to devalue its currency. international investors rushed to redeem their dollars for gold. boatloads of american gold reserves were shipped overseas. to protect the american banking system, to preserve confidence in the dollar based on the gold standard, herbert hoover directed the federal reserve system to make changes, changes that would "keep the american dollar ringing true in every city in america and in the world." the fed responded by raising its discount rate, foing erananksusup rate of ints the fed responded bypaid to their depositors.e, the result -- foreign investors earned more interest and were enticed to leave their money in u.s. banks. the strategy worked. confidence in the dollar was restored and the gold drain was plugged. but there were other, more serious ramifications. dr. edward bernstein, formerly principal economist, u.s. treasury department. brit

neighborhood and golden gate association and west portal association, west portal school and herbert hoover school along with the supervisor's office. in general community feedback has been very positive to this proposal. not unanimously so, obviously. it's a very large project area, but we have received much positive feedback and i know you have seen many letters coming to you and in total i have counted 17 letters of support, including the endorsement of the forest hills homeowners' association. as i mentioned before, prior to and during this process, we received 15 resident requests for traffic-calming. some of those that were concurrent with our planning process we were able to fold right into the planning process and address their concerns on the run, so to speak. i have received five letters or emails in opposition to this project. several are in opposition to traffic calming in general, stating that we just need to fix the arterials, leave the arterials alone and remove bike lanes and things of that nature, recent changes to laguna honda boulevard and if we did those thing we wouldn'

months into herbert hoover', the markets crashed

secretary of commerce herbert hoover called the flood the greatest peacetime calamity in the historye country. the disaster was predictable. the mississippi had flooded before. local authorities attempted to pvide flood control, but with uneven efforts. the levee system is oy as strong as its weakest link. the building of dams could have prevented the flood. some legislators wanted to use federal funds. but they faced tough opposition on capitol hill. dams not only control floods, but they can be used to generate hydroelectric power. that presented a threat of competition to the private utilities. to justify the expenditure required to build these dams, electricity had to be sold. that would be produced by these hydroelectric units which were to be installed in the dams. that feature disturbed people who opposed tva. they thought that was a function the government ought not to engage in. the private utilities were successful in their opposition until 1933, when a newdministration with an activistiew of government's role came into power. franklin delano roosevelt created e tennesseell

government opens again and all of the institutions are back, you can go to west branch and visit the herbert hoover presidential library there. so the question for both of you, since they were a couple that approached public life together, what should their legacy be? >> i think it is -- as the first lady, her legacy is the way in which she tried to ute lietz her role as first lady to make a call to action to the public issues that she believed in but also that dove tailed with the kind of approach and philosophy of government that her husband had. so they had a legacy in terms of presidential couples for how to -- the delicate balance between the sort of political side of what first ladies are supposed to do. >> marlin? > hello? >> your question, sir? >> i was doing the campaign of hoover and al smith. the biggest thing was repealing the 18th amendment. i grew up in a community and all of them conservative, very religious. everybody voted for hoover. also, the market crash in '29, the banks busted at the same time. i was 7 years old then and i wanted to go down and collect my money when the banks

of course the easiest thing to do is to blow up the economy i mean just look at republican herbert hoover hoover was actually a fairly thoughtful president who did or tried to do a lot of things for his nation by the standard as they say is politics even though he's a republican you might call him a moderate democrat he was a strong supporter of regulations he supported tariffs on imports he helped create america's national park system and many of america's of our nation's v.a. hospitals hoover also proposed a national pension plan an early version of social security which was rejected by congress and he tried to give low income americans a tax cut also shot down by a republican controlled congress but despite his list of accomplishments and is fairly rational policies at least in some areas hoover will be forever remembered by history as the guy who was in the white house when the stock market crash in one nine hundred twenty nine. right now america is really really vulnerable because of thirty two years of reaganomics because of phil graham's massive deregulation of the banks toure's of

little ambition associated with it it was mostly incremental change let's keep doing what her herbert hoover has been doing but once he got into the white house you he had an occupy movement that was spread literally the you know the bonus army from the front door of the white house down the potomac river he had a third of the country. you know the whole thing and and the times pushed him to become what he became i'm curious your thoughts on those two narratives of how history happens and how political change or is it just. one of the school that f.d.r. was a good listener as well if you read arthur slush and you're in the history of f.d.r. when the progressive community came to him in his first term and said what they needed it was f.d.r. who challenged progressive community and said go out make me do it and if you compare his first state of the union address to his last one his fourth address you see far before he moved whether it be so security and social safety net that begin to i am of the school that it's the people that make the president whether what time it is wherever we find ourse

the last major effort which was successful was chaired by herbert hoover. we should streamline the administrative structure creating easier ways for talented people to enter government and creating the right incentives so government bureaucracies can work effectively and efficiently. there are those who worry that if government works too well, we'll want more of it who simply want to starve the beast. but so much of what government is doing badly cannot be outsourced, privatized or abolished. national and homeland security after all are core provinces of the federal government. if you add in all of the private contractors doing government work, there are currently about 15 million people who execute the laws, mandates under a functions of the federal government. surely urgent and important task is to make sure that they are all working as effectively and efficiently as they possibly can. for more, go to cnn.com/fareed and read my "washington post" column and let's get started. >>> this thanksgiving week in american history seems different. seems the parties

he served as director of the gerald ford presidential library of museum, the herbert hoover presidential library, the ronald reagan presidential library. and lincoln. let's not forget springfield. host: he is here to answer questions. margaret is up next. caller: hello. happy new year to everyone. the lack of majority in congress senate for a second-term presidency, does that have anything to do with the polls , and the less effective the president has become? guest: that is a great question. there is something called the six-year curse. that affects great presidents, insignificant presidents, across the board. that is in the sixth year of a yearidency, the off- elections tend to go very badly against the party in the white house. it happened to dwight eisenhower . it happens to franklin roosevelt in 1930 a. 1938. in recent years, george bush experienced it in 2006. 1998, inton did not in large part because it was a perception that there was a backlash against the impeachment attempt. by and large, the sixth year is a year that the party in power dreads. right now i have no doubt the dem

so what is everyone, herbert hoover. nobody thinks of herbert hoover being a progressive.was the ideal progressive of his time. but cultural story, the political story about friendships. they argued with each other. they chased each other's lives. they smoked in ocelot and they ended up creating the united nations among other things. >> how do they exist each other in their careers? >> for getting jobs for each other. the ones who were in the media like walter litman, criticize each other. they fought with each other. they broke up, got angry, wouldn't talk for years. so it was a family relationship where you are not really sure if you really like this person. but you've got to. >> were true to this tangle of history? how did you discover the group and decide to write about them as they are with? >> i was working on a biography of allen dulles, cia director. i wanted to know where he began. he began in dupont circle. i thought that odd. his grandfather lived there. he emphatically to gw law school. so roosevelt of course went on to serve president eisenhower and kennedy. s

he's the only living president at the time that could have submitted a photo may have been herbert hoovertulations to today's winner. send your suggestions to dailyrundown@msnbc.com. we'll be right back with my budget negotiation takeaway. [ male announcer ] here's a question for you: where does the united states get most of its energy? is it africa? the middle east? canada? or the u.s.? the answer is... the u.s. ♪ most of america's energy comes from right here at home. take the energy quiz. energy lives here. yep. got all the cozies. [ grandma ] with new fedex one rate, i could fill a box and ship it for one flat rate. so i knit until it was full. you'd be crazy not to. is that nana? [ male announcer ] fedex one rate. simple, flat rate shipping with the reliability of fedex. to share with family. [ woman 2 ] to carry on traditions. [ woman 3 ] to come together even when we're apart. [ male announcer ] in stuffing, mashed potatoes, gravy and more, swanson makes holiday dishes delicious. so i got the windows nokia tablet. it's, well, impressive. it's got the brightest hd screen, super-fast

in an instant almost everyone has forgotten that herbert hoover came near to death as president-elect traveling in south america, revolutionary group tried to blow up this train. franklin roosevelt as president-elect within inches. he was saved by inches. harry truman, as i mentioned. so you have for presidents just prior to kennedy, yet if you were asked the secret service on november 201st 1963, they would have said, we have a perfect record, which they did. they started guarding presidents after mckinley was assassinated. on air force one right after the assassination, a secret service agent who had been guarding kennedy was pounding on the wall inside the plane saying, we have never lost a president before. how could this happen. we never lost a president before. it was really the belief that it could not happen that encourage it to happen. >> host: have you ever taken a crystal ball prognostication and applied it to the 1960 campaign and forecast what the outcome would have been? >> guest: we actually cover the campaign at great length because i do. >> host: the question in illin

came into office, if president obama came into office a year later, and we had three years of herbert hoover doing nothing and the economy just melting down, austerity, the name of the game, 1929 #-1931, balanced budgets, and roosevelt ran on balancing the budget. he ignoredded that in office, thank god, but, you know, we had three years where we saw what a disaster it was. as a consequence of that, people were ready for fdr. it was just in a few months, there was not the popular will. it was a shame he didn't come into office a year later. he only had 1 weeks until scott brown came in and filibusteredded. they opposed structural changes, were not able to get through. pelosi pass the great legislation in the house, filibustered in the senate, so the structural stuff, reagan stopping the enforcement of the appty trust agent, you remember this, strip malls and shopping centers were havens of small locally owned businesses. you remember that the downtown of every town was local family owned businesses, some for generations, and not that way anymore. reagan stopped enforcing, and if we were to s

each one of your takes on it is that republicans aren't dummies they noticed what happened when herbert hoover was president and the great depression happened other than a two year period one hundred forty six forty seven republicans did not gain control of the house of representatives from one hundred twenty nine until one nine hundred eighty six it was two generations before the republicans had power again and if these guys can crash the economy while president obama is president they are convinced the democrats will not hold power for two generations this is all about political power is it not anybody yeah i'm whole it clearly is about political power i mean it's funny how this bill has been passed has passed congress eleven times since two thousand and eight this bill to you know continue the unemployment benefits and with as with bipartisan support and now all of a thetan as we are approaching the midterm elections now all of the third and there's republicans who have voted for this bill in the path all of a sudden have a change of heart and thought oh no this is really bad for the americ

german took this as this major project and wrote a term paper on a press herbert hoover spent probably a lot to three minutes and read just a very cursory note. kennedy jumped into this project . he loved it, and he presided over a group of very distinguished senators who were part of the kennedy committee. mike mansfield became a legendary senate majority leader on the committee. richard russell, in legendary senator, a german by the name of styles bridges from new hampshire who was one of these quiet forces in the senate and 1950's to be no one really knew very much about him, but he was a real powerhouse. then his son ahmad and ahmad john brinker. five of them got together and negotiated fee. as the talks unfolded, they quickly came to agreement on three of the five. these are three senators who are very prominent before the american civil war. john callahan, in reply. so they agree quickly on the street, the great triumvirate, but then there were not certain about the other two senators. and they decided to choose a leading progressive from the 20th-century and a leading conservati

little ambition associated with it it was mostly incremental change let's keep doing what her herbert hoover has been doing but once he got into the white house you he had occupy a movement that was spread literally the you know the bonus army from the front door of the white house down to the potomac river he had a third of the country. you know the whole thing and and the times pushed him to become what he became i'm curious your thoughts on those two narratives of how history happens and how political change or is it just. one of the school that f.d.r. was a good listener as well if you read arthur slush and you're in the history of f.d.r. when the progressive community can do in his first term and said what they needed it was f.d.r. who challenged progressive community and said go out make me do it and if you compare his first state of the union address to his last one his fourth address you see far out for he move whether it be so security and social safety net that begin to i am of the school that it's the people that make the president whether what time it is wherever we find ourselve

german took this as this major project and wrote a term paper on a press herbert hoover spent probably a lot to three minutes and read just a very cursory note. kennedy jumped into this project . he loved it, and he presided over a group of very distinguished senators who were part of the kennedy committee. mike mansfield became a legendary senate majority leader on the committee. richard russell, in legendary senator, a german by the name of styles bridges from new hampshire who was one of these quiet forces in the senate and 1950's to be no one really knew very much about him, but he was a real powerhouse. then his son ahmad and ahmad john brinker. five of them got together and negotiated fee. as the talks unfolded, they quickly came to agreement on three of the five. these are three senators who are very prominent before the american civil war. john callahan, in reply. so they agree quickly on the street, the great triumvirate, but then there were not certain about the other two senators. and they decided to choose a leading progressive from the 20th-century and a leading conservati

it is not herbert hoover, it is barack obama. >> it is a 30 year trend.ange this, they have a way to change it. they could do this. there are on a bunch of other things. don't say it is corporate greed, it is inability of political leadership to get anything done. >> it's a 30 year trend. you can't say government is going to make companies pay people more. that's a dictatorship. >> all right. >> they make rich companies pay people more. >> not because the conversation ended, but because i am being yelled at. we have a commercial break to get in. we have to pick this up another time, another place, thank you so much. appreciate it. >> have a good week. >> you, too. >>> millions are being impacted by winter like weather. among them, a country singer talking about conditions in one of the hardest-hit areas. ♪ nothing says, "you're my #1 copilot," like a milk-bone biscuit. ♪ say it with milk-bone. ♪ (train horn) vo: wherever our trains go, the economy comes to life. norfolk southern. one line, infinite possibilities. so ally bank has a that won't trap me in a

so too was the star of the era herbert hoover. no one thinks of him as being a progressive, but he was the ideal progressive at the time. it is story about friendship as well. they argued with each other. chased each's wives. they smoked an awfully lot and created the united nations among other things. >> how did they assist each other in their careers? >> by getting jobs for each other, a. the ones in the media wrote editorials praising and criticizing each other. they fought with each other. they broke up. they got angry and wouldn't talk for years and then came back around. it was like a family relationship. where you are nut sure you like the person but he is a relative. >> what drew you to this angry of history? how did you discover the group and decide to write about them? >> i was working on a book about the cia director and wanted to know where he began. and he began on dupont circle and i thought that is odd. his grandfather lived there. and he and foster went to law school there. everybody thinks they are harvard. but no