Presidency of Herbert Hoover

Herbert Hoover's tenure as the 31st president of the United States began on his inauguration on March 4, 1929, and ended on March 4, 1933. Hoover, a Republican, took office after a landslide victory in the 1928 presidential election over Democrat Al Smith of New York. His presidency ended following his defeat in the 1932 presidential election by Democrat Franklin D. Roosevelt.

Hoover was the third straight Republican president, and he retained many of the previous administration's policies and personnel, including Secretary of the Treasury Andrew Mellon. Hoover favored policies in which government, business, and labor worked together to achieve economic prosperity, but he generally opposed a direct role for the federal government in the economy. Seeking to address an ongoing farm crisis, Hoover signed the Agricultural Marketing Act of 1929. Despite growing public resistance to Prohibition, Hoover increased federal enforcement of Prohibition. In foreign affairs, Hoover favored non-interventionism in Latin America and pursued disarmament policies with the London Naval Treaty.

When the Wall Street Crash of 1929 struck less than eight months after he took office, Hoover tried to combat the ensuing Great Depression by reassuring public confidence and working with business leaders and local government. He also approved the Smoot–Hawley Tariff of 1930, which raised tariff rates and reduced international trade. As the depression worsened in 1931 and 1932, Hoover reluctantly gave in to calls for direct federal intervention, establishing the Reconstruction Finance Corporation and signing a major public works bill. At the same time, he signed the Revenue Act of 1932, which sought to maintain a balanced budget by raising taxes. However, the economy did not recover, and as a result, Hoover suffered an overwhelming defeat in the 1932 election. Hoover is usually ranked lower than average among U.S. presidents.

Election of 1928

After President Calvin Coolidge announced in August 1927 that he would not seek a second full term of office in the 1928 presidential election, Hoover emerged as the front-runner for the Republican presidential nomination. While Hoover gained the support of important party constituencies and won several primaries, some party leaders opposed his candidacy. Coolidge viewed Hoover's candidacy with ill-concealed disgust, remarking that "for six years that man has given me unsolicited advice—all of it bad." Hoover's opponents were unable to unite around an alternative candidate, and Hoover won the presidential nomination on the first ballot of the 1928 Republican National Convention. The delegates considered re-nominating Vice President Charles Dawes to be Hoover's running mate, but Coolidge, who hated Dawes, remarked that this would be "a personal affront" to him. The convention instead selected Senator Charles Curtis of Kansas, who had native-American ancestry.

Delegates to the 1928 Democratic National Convention nominated New York Governor Alfred E. Smith, who was described by Smith ally Franklin D. Roosevelt as "the Happy Warrior of the political battlefield." Hoover campaigned for efficiency and the Republican record of prosperity. Smith ran on his record of efficiency earned over four terms as governor. Both candidates were pro-business, and each promised to improve conditions for farmers, reform immigration laws, and maintain America's isolationist foreign policy. They differed on the Volstead Act which outlawed the sale of liquor and beer. Smith was a "wet" who called for its repeal, whereas Hoover gave limited support for Prohibition, calling it an "experiment noble in purpose." While Smith won extra support among Catholics in the big cities, he was the target of intense anti-Catholic rhetoric from the Ku Klux Klan, as well as numerous Protestant preachers in rural areas across the South and West.

In the November election, Republicans won an overwhelming victory. Though Smith carried every large urban area in the country, Hoover received 58 percent of the popular vote and a massive 444 to 87 Electoral College majority. Hoover won 40 states, including Smith's home state; he also succeeded in cracking the "Solid South", winning in five traditionally Democratic states. Historians agree that Hoover's national reputation and the booming economy, combined with deep splits in the Democratic Party over religion and prohibition, were the decisive factors in the 1928 election.

Transition

Before President-elect Hoover would take office, there was a nearly four-month transition period.

In November 1928, President-elect Hoover embarked on a ten-nation goodwill tour of Latin America. He delivered twenty-five speeches, stressing his plans to reduce American political and military interference in Latin American affairs. In sum, he pledged that the United States would act as a "good neighbor." While crossing the Andes from Chile, a plot to bomb Hoover's train as it crossed the vast Argentinian central plain was foiled.

Inauguration

Hoover was inaugurated as the nation's 31st president on March 4, 1929, on the East Portico of the United States Capitol. Chief Justice (and former president) William Howard Taft administered the oath of office. This was the first inaugural ceremony recorded by newsreel cameras. Hoover's inaugural address projected an optimistic tone throughout, even as he spoke about the "disregard and disobedience of law," which he considered "the most malign" problem confronting the nation.

Near the end of the speech he confidently observed:

These words would stand in stark contrast to the sense of desperation that would pervade the nation during much of his presidency.

The morning of the inauguration, the Coolidges had briefly met with the Hoovers in the Blue Room of the White House before departing for the United States Capitol for Hoover's inauguration.

Administration

Cabinet

Hoover's cabinet consisted largely of wealthy, business-oriented conservatives. As the third consecutive Republican president to take office in the 1920s, Hoover retained many of the previous administration's personnel, including Secretary of Labor James J. Davis and Secretary of the Treasury Andrew Mellon. Hoover disliked Mellon, who maintained intense support among the party's Old Guard, and instead relied on Undersecretary of the Treasury Ogden L. Mills. Henry Stimson, the Governor-General of the Philippines and a former Secretary of War, became Hoover's Secretary of State.

After Hoover's old friend, Supreme Court Justice Harlan F. Stone declined to serve as Attorney General, Hoover promoted Solicitor General of the United States William D. Mitchell to the head the Justice Department. Hoover's first choice for Secretary of Agriculture was Charles McNary, author of the controversial McNary-Haugen Farm Relief Bill, which Hoover had strenuously opposed. The position instead went to Arthur Hyde, who was inexperienced regarding agricultural issues. For Secretary of the Navy, Hoover chose Charles Francis Adams III, a scion of the Adams political family who shared Hoover's views on disarmament. Hoover persuaded Ray Lyman Wilbur, the president of Stanford University, to serve as Secretary of the Interior. Businessman Robert P. Lamont became Secretary of Commerce, James William Good was appointed as Secretary of War, and Walter Folger Brown took the position of Postmaster General. Vice President Charles Curtis, who had previously opposed Hoover's nomination, had little influence with Hoover.

Press corps

Hoover held a press conference on his first day in office, promising a "new phase of press relations".Rouse, Robert
"Happy Anniversary to the first scheduled presidential press conference – 93 years young!"
, ''American Chronicle'', March 15, 2006 He asked the group of journalists to elect a committee to recommend improvements to the White House press conference. Hoover declined to use a spokesman, instead asking reporters to directly quote him and giving them handouts with his statements ahead of time. In his first 120 days in office, he held more regular and frequent press conferences than any other president, before or since. However, he changed his press policies after the 1929 stock market crash, screening reporters and greatly reducing his availability.

Judicial appointments

Hoover appointed three justices of the Supreme Court of the United States. He appointed Charles Evans Hughes to succeed Chief Justice William Howard Taft after the latter's death in 1930. A former associate justice, governor, secretary of state, and presidential nominee, Hughes would lead the Hughes Court until 1941. A second vacancy arose in 1930 due to the death of Edward Terry Sanford. Hoover' first nominee, federal appellate judge John J. Parker, was rejected in the Senate due to the opposition of the NAACP and labor groups.

Hoover now nominated Owen Roberts, an attorney who had risen to prominence due to his role in investigating the Teapot Dome scandal. Roberts was confirmed by acclamation. Hughes and Roberts both established centrist reputations on the bench, and they often held the balance between their more conservative and more liberal colleagues during the 1930s. In 1932, 91-year-old Associate Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr. announced his retirement from the Court. George W. Norris, the Chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, insisted that Hoover nominate a progressive judge to succeed Holmes. Hoover nominated Benjamin Cardozo, the highly regarded chief judge of the New York Court of Appeals, and Cardozo was approved by the Senate in a unanimous vote. Cardozo joined with Louis Brandeis and Harlan F. Stone in forming a progressive block of Supreme Court justices known as the "Three Musketeers".

Domestic affairs

Hoover saw the presidency as a vehicle for improving the conditions of all Americans by encouraging public-private cooperation—what he termed "volunteerism". He tended to oppose governmental coercion or intervention, as he thought they infringed on American ideals of individualism and self-reliance. He sought a balance among labor, capital, and the government, and he has been variously labeled a corporatist or associationalist. Hoover made extensive use of commissions to study issues and propose solutions, and many of those commissions were sponsored by private donors rather than by the government. One of the commissions started by Hoover, the Research Committee on Social Trends, was tasked with surveying the entirety of American society.

Agriculture

After taking office, Hoover called Congress into session in an attempt to address the farm crisis that had affected the country throughout much of the 1920s. Since the end of World War I, a glut of agricultural products on the world market had reduced the demand for American exports, resulting in domestic overproduction and a drop in prices. In June 1929, Hoover signed the Agricultural Marketing Act of 1929, which established the Federal Farm Board

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