National Affairs: Hoover Halfway

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of White House control. President Hoover was begged to use his leadership to get the tariff measure out of the ditch. At first he refused and later his half-hearted attempts were futile. For fumbling with this prime issue Democrats opened a fierce barrage upon him which, right or wrong, impressed the country. Loss of public prestige began with this tariff fight when the President could not make up his mind whether he was for high or low rates. When the bill, mired for a year, finally reached the White House in June 1930, he signed it holding his nose. To a friend immediately thereafter he said despairingly over the telephone: "I wish somebody would give me a good job as a butler."

A storm from another quarter swept over President Hoover and blackened his political sky when the stockmarket crashed in November 1929. Quick to sense its awful import, he set elaborately to work to stave off its full consequences. He summoned industrialists, bankers, railmen, union workers to the White House, got their pledges of cooperation. He established committees and commissions. To the public he recommended "that good old word—work." He cut the income tax to stimulate business. He ordered public construction accelerated to provide more jobs. He announced: "We have re-established confidence" and predicted the "worst will be over in 60 days." Now derided for what he said, he may be given great credit by social and economic history for what he did.

The "worst," however, was not over in 60 days or 60 weeks. Millions became jobless. Industry was almost at a standstill. President Hoover's political prestige was as depressed as the country itself.

Then, as if in some Greek tragedy, Nature followed the mood of human error and smote the President a staggering blow in 1930. Drought, the worst in U. S. history, came like fire to the Mississippi Valley. The President had made a great name for himself as a disaster expert and here was a major catastrophe from above for him to work on. Last August he predicted that the full effects of the Drought would not be felt until this winter, organized another commission, waited to see what would happen. When his prediction came true, he was in the midst of a catch-as-catch-can bout with Congress over Drought relief funds. Belatedly he mobilized the Red Cross, bitterly accused the Senate of "playing politics with human misery," finally compromised on food loans.

President Hoover came into office with all the earmarks of a Dry, after beating the Sidewalks of New York. His original position was that Prohibition was only an item in the larger problem of Crime and Law. To this end he appointed in May 1929, the National Commission on Law Enforcement & Law Observance. Deliberately avoided was all mention of liquor when he put it to work. By the device of this commission he was able to hold Prohibition at arms length from the White House until last January. Then it submitted its final report which showed that a majority of its membership favored a Change. President Hoover virtually swept the report into the wastebasket by a ringing Dry declaration which repudiated the Commission's work and slammed the door on any liberalization of the 18th Amendment. Despite whispered explanations and apologies from his aides, for all practical purposes he cast his political lot with the Drys for 1932.