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The most contentious transition before Trump and Biden: Herbert Hoover and FDR
Last edited Tue Nov 10, 2020, 12:02 AM - Edit history (1)
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The most contentious transition before Trump and Biden: Herbert Hoover and FDR
By Ronald G. Shafer
November 9, 2020 at 7:30 a.m. EST
President Herbert Hoover had just lost the 1932 election by a landslide to Franklin D. Roosevelt. But during a testy transition, Hoover kept trying to pressure the president-elect into fighting the Great Depression by supporting the very policies he had campaigned against. ... Roosevelt, who had promised Americans a “New Deal” to get the country back on its feet, said no deal to endorsing the Hoover program. “It’s not my baby,” the New York governor told reporters.
{snip}
At their first post-election, face-to-face meeting on Nov. 22 in the Red Room of the White House, Hoover was shocked to see the severe disability of Roosevelt, who walked with braces because of polio. Hoover, 58, opened the meeting with an hour-long lecture on international economic issues. ... The president took the 50-year-old Roosevelt’s friendly nods as agreement to his plan that they jointly form a foreign debt commission. Hoover later told an adviser he had been “educating a very ignorant” if “well-meaning young man.” ... To Hoover’s dismay, the next day Roosevelt rejected the president’s plan. Hoover should proceed on his own if he wished, Roosevelt said. Or as humorist Will Rogers put it: “It’s your onion. You peel it until March 4.”
{snip}
Inauguration Day was cool and damp. Hoover and Roosevelt shared a blanket while riding in an open car from the White House to the Capitol. FDR tried to make small talk, but Hoover mostly stared grimly ahead. Roosevelt finally just waved his silk top hat to the crowd lining Pennsylvania Avenue. ... In his inauguration speech before 100,000 people, Roosevelt addressed the Depression with the famous words, “The only thing we have to fear is fear itself.” The next day was a Sunday. On Monday, the new president announced the closing of the nation’s banks for a four-day “bank holiday.”
Meanwhile, the states had ratified the 20th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution — it was known as the “lame duck amendment” — changing Inauguration Day to Jan. 20. Roosevelt died in 1945 during his fourth term in office and never had to go through another presidential transition.
Ronald G. Shafer
Ronald G. Shafer is a former editor at the Wall Street Journal and the author of "The Carnival Campaign: How The Rollicking 1840 Campaign of Tippecanoe and Tyler Too Changed Presidential Elections Forever.” Follow https://twitter.com/ronshafer1
The most contentious transition before Trump and Biden: Herbert Hoover and FDR
By Ronald G. Shafer
November 9, 2020 at 7:30 a.m. EST
President Herbert Hoover had just lost the 1932 election by a landslide to Franklin D. Roosevelt. But during a testy transition, Hoover kept trying to pressure the president-elect into fighting the Great Depression by supporting the very policies he had campaigned against. ... Roosevelt, who had promised Americans a “New Deal” to get the country back on its feet, said no deal to endorsing the Hoover program. “It’s not my baby,” the New York governor told reporters.
{snip}
At their first post-election, face-to-face meeting on Nov. 22 in the Red Room of the White House, Hoover was shocked to see the severe disability of Roosevelt, who walked with braces because of polio. Hoover, 58, opened the meeting with an hour-long lecture on international economic issues. ... The president took the 50-year-old Roosevelt’s friendly nods as agreement to his plan that they jointly form a foreign debt commission. Hoover later told an adviser he had been “educating a very ignorant” if “well-meaning young man.” ... To Hoover’s dismay, the next day Roosevelt rejected the president’s plan. Hoover should proceed on his own if he wished, Roosevelt said. Or as humorist Will Rogers put it: “It’s your onion. You peel it until March 4.”
{snip}
Inauguration Day was cool and damp. Hoover and Roosevelt shared a blanket while riding in an open car from the White House to the Capitol. FDR tried to make small talk, but Hoover mostly stared grimly ahead. Roosevelt finally just waved his silk top hat to the crowd lining Pennsylvania Avenue. ... In his inauguration speech before 100,000 people, Roosevelt addressed the Depression with the famous words, “The only thing we have to fear is fear itself.” The next day was a Sunday. On Monday, the new president announced the closing of the nation’s banks for a four-day “bank holiday.”
Meanwhile, the states had ratified the 20th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution — it was known as the “lame duck amendment” — changing Inauguration Day to Jan. 20. Roosevelt died in 1945 during his fourth term in office and never had to go through another presidential transition.
Ronald G. Shafer
Ronald G. Shafer is a former editor at the Wall Street Journal and the author of "The Carnival Campaign: How The Rollicking 1840 Campaign of Tippecanoe and Tyler Too Changed Presidential Elections Forever.” Follow https://twitter.com/ronshafer1
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