Professional Documents
Culture Documents
The Politics of
Boom and Bust
ﱛﱞﱛ
1920–1932
We in America today are nearer to the final
triumph over poverty than ever before in the
history of any land. We have not yet reached
the goal—but . . . we shall soon, with the help
of God, be in sight of the day when poverty will
be banished from this nation.
HERBERT HOOVER, 1928
746
The Harding Administration 747
minds” of the party. Charles Evans Hughes—masterful, This new Old Guard hoped to improve on the old
imperious, incisive, brilliant—brought to the position of business doctrine of laissez-faire. Their plea was not
secretary of state a dominating if somewhat conserva- simply for government to keep its hands off business,
tive leadership. The new secretary of the Treasury was a but for government to help guide business along the
lean and elderly Pittsburgh aluminum king, Andrew W. path to profits. They subtly and effectively achieved
Mellon, multimillionaire collector of the paintings that their ends by putting the courts and the administrative
are now displayed in Washington as his gift to the bureaus into the safekeeping of fellow stand-patters for
nation. Chubby-faced Herbert Hoover, famed feeder of the duration of the decade.
the Belgians and wartime food administrator, became The Supreme Court was a striking example of this
secretary of commerce. An energetic businessman and trend. Harding lived less than three years as president,
engineer, he raised his second-rate cabinet post to first- but he appointed four of the nine justices. Several of his
rate importance, especially in drumming up foreign choices were or became deep-dyed reactionaries, and
trade for U.S. manufacturers. they buttressed the dike against popular currents for
But the “best minds” of the cabinet were largely nearly two decades. Harding’s fortunate choice for chief
offset by two of the worst. Senator Albert B. Fall of New justice was ex-president Taft, who not only performed
Mexico, a scheming anticonservationist, was appointed his duties ably but surprisingly was more liberal than
secretary of the interior. As guardian of the nation’s some of his cautious associates.
natural resources, he resembled the wolf hired to In the first years of the 1920s, the Supreme Court
protect the sheep. Harry M. Daugherty, a small-town axed progressive legislation. It killed a federal child-
lawyer but a big-time crook in the “Ohio Gang,” was labor law, stripped away many of labor’s hard-won
supposed to prosecute wrongdoers as attorney general. gains, and rigidly restricted government intervention
in the economy. In the landmark case of Adkins v.
Children’s Hospital (1923), the Court reversed its own
reasoning in Muller v. Oregon (see pp. 662–663), which
had declared women to be deserving of special pro-
GOP Reaction at the Throttle
tection in the workplace, and invalidated a minimum-
Well intentioned but weak-willed, Harding was a perfect wage law for women. Its strained ruling was that
“front” for enterprising industrialists. A McKinley-style because women now had the vote (Nineteenth
old order settled back into place with a heavy thud at Amendment), they were the legal equals of men and
war’s end, crushing the reform seedlings that had could no longer be protected by special legislation.
sprouted in the progressive era. A nest-feathering crowd The contradictory premises of the Muller and Adkins
moved into Washington and proceeded to hoodwink cases framed a debate over gender differences that
Harding, whom many regarded as an “amiable boob.” would continue for the rest of the century: were
748 CHAPTER 32 The Politics of Boom and Bust, 1920–1932
1921 the slippery secretary of the interior, Albert B. Fall, acquitted while the bribe taker was convicted, although
induced his careless colleague, the secretary of the navy, Sinclair served several months in jail for having “shad-
to transfer these valuable properties to the Interior owed” jurors and for refusing to testify before a Senate
Department. Harding indiscreetly signed the secret committee.
order. Fall then quietly leased the lands to oilmen Harry The oily smudge from Teapot Dome polluted the
F. Sinclair and Edward L. Doheny, but not until he had prestige of the Washington government. Right-thinking
received a bribe (“loan”) of $100,000 from Doheny and citizens wondered what was going on when public
about three times that amount in all from Sinclair. officials could sell out the nation’s vital resources,
Teapot Dome, no tempest in a teapot, finally came especially those reserved for the U.S. Navy. The acquittal
to a whistling boil. Details of the crooked transaction of Sinclair and Doheny undermined faith in the courts,
gradually began to leak out in March 1923, two years while giving further currency to the cynical sayings, “You
after Harding took office. Fall, Sinclair, and Doheny were can’t put a million dollars in jail” and “In America every-
indicted the next year, but the case dragged through one is assumed guilty until proven rich.”
the courts until 1929. Finally Fall was found guilty of Still more scandals erupted. Persistent reports as to
taking a bribe and was sentenced to one year in jail. By the underhanded doings of Attorney General Daugherty
a curious quirk of justice, the two bribe givers were prompted a Senate investigation in 1924 of the illegal
Mechanizing Agriculture
Just as the automobile replaced
the horse on city streets, so did
the gas-engine tractor replace
horses and mules on the nation’s
farms in the 1920s. American
farmers owned ten times more
tractors in 1930 than they had in
1920. The smoke-belching tractors
bolstered productivity but also
increased the farmers’ debt
burden, as the Great Depression
made tragically clear.
Farmers and Reformers 755
many of the cultural tensions of the decade, the party was La Follette turned in a respectable showing,
hopelessly split between “wets” and “drys,” urbanites and polling nearly 5 million votes. But “Cautious Cal” and
farmers, Fundamentalists and Modernists, northern the oil-smeared Republicans slipped easily back into
liberals and southern stand-patters, immigrants and office, overwhelming Davis, 15,718,211 to 8,385,283.
old-stock Americans. In one symptomatic spasm of The electoral count stood at 382 for Coolidge, 136 for
discord, the conventioneers failed by just one vote to Davis, and 13 for La Follette, all from his home state
pass a resolution condemning the Ku Klux Klan. of Wisconsin (see the map below). As the so-called
Deadlocked for an unprecedented 102 ballots, the conscience of the callous 1920s, La Follette injected a
convention at last turned wearily, sweatily, and unen- badly needed liberal tonic into a decade drugged on
thusiastically to John W. Davis. A wealthy corporation prosperity. But times were too good for too many for
lawyer connected with the Wall Street banking house of his reforming message to carry the day.
J. P. Morgan and Company, the polished nominee was
no less conservative than cautious Calvin Coolidge.
The field was now wide open for a liberal candidate.
See
The white-pompadoured Senator (“Fighting Bob”) La
DBQ 10 Foreign-Policy
Follette from Wisconsin, perennial aspirant to the presi-
dency and now sixty-nine years of age, sprang forward Flounderings
to lead a new Progressive grouping. He gained the Isolation continued to reign in the Coolidge era. Despite
endorsement of the American Federation of Labor presidential proddings, the Senate proved unwilling
and enjoyed the support of the shrinking Socialist party, to allow America to adhere to the World Court—the
but his major constituency was made up of the price- judicial arm of the still-suspect League of Nations.
pinched farmers. La Follette’s new Progressive party, Coolidge only halfheartedly — and unsuccessfully —
fielding only a presidential ticket, with no candidates pursued further naval disarmament after the loudly
for local office, was a head without a body. It proved trumpeted agreements worked out at the Washington
to be only a shadow of the robust Progressive coalition Conference in 1922.
of prewar days. Its platform called for government A glaring exception to the United States’ inward-
ownership of railroads and relief for farmers, lashed out looking indifference to the outside world was the armed
at monopoly and antilabor injunctions, and urged a interventionism in the Caribbean and Central America.
constitutional amendment to limit the Supreme Court’s American troops were withdrawn (after an eight-year
power to invalidate laws passed by Congress. stay) from the Dominican Republic in 1924, but they
WALL Private
U.S. INVESTORS STREET GERMANY
BANKERS $ loans
WASH. ME.
7 6
MONTANA N.D. VT.
4 5 MINN. 4 N.H.
12 4 MASS.
ORE. N.Y. 18
5 IDAHO S.D. WISC. 45
4 5 13 MICH. R.I. 5 Presidential Election of 1928
WYO. PA.
3 IOWA
15
38
CONN. 7
N.J. 14
(with electoral vote by state)
NEBR. 13
IND.
OHIO
DEL. 3 Smith, despite his defeat, managed
NEV. 8 ILL. 24
3 UTAH 29 5 W. VA.
VA.
MD. 8 to poll almost as many votes as the
5 COLO. 8
CALIF. 8 KANSAS MO. KY. 12 victorious Coolidge had in 1924. By
10 18 13
13 N.C. attracting to the party an immense
TENN. 12 12
OKLA. S.C.
urban or “sidewalk” vote, the breezy
ARIZ. 10 ARK.
3 N.M. 9 ALA. 9 New Yorker foreshadowed Roosevelt’s
3 MISS. 12 GA.
10 14 New Deal victory in 1932, when the
TEXAS LA. Democrats patched together the
20 10
FLA.
solid South and the urban North.
6 A cruel joke had Smith cabling
Hoover—Republican
the Pope a single word after the
Smith—Democratic election: “Unpack.”
Hoover triumphed in a landslide. He bagged In 1930 the Farm Board itself created both the Grain
21,391,993 popular votes to 15,016,169 for his embit- Stabilization Corporation and the Cotton Stabilization
tered opponent, while rolling up an electoral count of Corporation. The prime goal was to bolster sagging
444 to 87. A huge Republican majority was returned to prices by buying up surpluses. But the two agencies
the House of Representatives. Tens of thousands of dry were soon suffocated by an avalanche of farm produce,
southern Democrats—“Hoovercrats”—rebelled against as wheat dropped to fifty-seven cents a bushel and
Al Smith, and Hoover proved to be the first Republican cotton to five cents a pound.
candidate in fifty-two years, except for Harding’s Farmers had meanwhile clutched at the tariff as
Tennessee victory in 1920, to carry a state that had a possible straw to help keep their heads above the
seceded. He swept five states of the former Confederacy, waters of financial ruin. During the recent presidential
as well as all the Border States. campaign, Hoover, an amateur in politics, had been
stampeded into a politically unwise pledge. He had
promised to call Congress into special session to
consider agricultural relief and, specifically, to bring
about “limited” changes in the tariff. These hope-giving
President Hoover’s First Moves
assurances no doubt won many votes for Hoover in
Prosperity in the late 1920s smiled broadly as the the midwestern farm belt.
Hoover years began. Soaring stocks on the bull market The Hawley-Smoot Tariff of 1930 followed the well-
continued to defy the laws of financial gravitation. But worn pattern of Washington horse trading. It started
two immense groups of citizens were not getting their out in the House as a fairly reasonable protective
share of the riches flowing from the national cornu- measure, designed to assist the farmers. But by
copia: the unorganized wage earners and especially the the time the high-pressure lobbyists had pushed it
disorganized farmers. through the Senate, it had acquired about a thousand
Hoover’s administration, in line with its philosophy amendments. It thus turned out to be the highest
of promoting self-help, responded to the outcry of protective tariff in the nation’s peacetime history. The
the wounded farmers with legislative aspirin. The average duty on nonfree goods was raised from 38.5
Agricultural Marketing Act, passed by Congress in June percent, as established by the Fordney-McCumber
1929, was designed to help the farmers help themselves, Act of 1922, to nearly 60 percent.
largely through producers’ cooperatives. It set up the To angered foreigners, the Hawley-Smoot Tariff was
Federal Farm Board, with a revolving fund of half a a blow below the trade belt. It seemed like a declaration
billion dollars at its disposal. Money was lent generously of economic warfare on the entire outside world. It
to farm organizations seeking to buy, sell, and store reversed a promising worldwide trend toward reason-
agricultural surpluses. able tariffs and widened the yawning trade gaps. It
760 CHAPTER 32 The Politics of Boom and Bust, 1920–1932
plunged both America and other nations deeper into the with the painful exception of the debt-blanketed farm
terrible depression that had already begun. It increased belt. America’s productive colossus—stimulated by the
international financial chaos and forced the United automobile, radio, movie, and other new industries—was
States further into the bog of economic isolationism. roaring along at a dizzy speed that suggested a permanent
And economic isolationism, both at home and abroad, plateau of prosperity. Few people sensed that it might
was playing directly into the hands of a hate-filled smother its own fires by pouring out too much.
German demagogue, Adolf Hitler. The speculative bubble was actually near the burst-
ing point. Prices on the stock exchange continued to
spiral upward and create a fool’s paradise of paper
profits, despite Hoover’s early but fruitless efforts to
curb speculation through the Federal Reserve Board. A
The Great Crash Ends the
few prophets of disaster were bold enough to sound
Golden Twenties warnings but were drowned out by the mad chatter of
When Herbert Hoover confidently took the presidential the ticker-tape machine.
oath on March 4, 1929, there were few black clouds on A catastrophic crash came in October 1929. It was
the economic horizon. The “long boom” seemed endless, partially triggered by the British, who raised their interest
Pride Goes Before a Fall The Great Crash of 1929 humbled many a high-flying
investor. The desperate curbside seller of this brand-new Chrysler Model 75 had
paid $1550 for it just months earlier.
The Depression Descends 761
200
180
160
140
120
100
NEW DEAL RECOVERY
80
FDR'S ELECTION
60
BULL MARKET
DEPRESSION
40
CRASH
20
nursed fewer babies, as hard times reached even into many consumers to dive in beyond their depth. Normal
the nation’s bedrooms, precipitating a decade-long technological unemployment, resulting from new labor-
dearth of births. As cash registers gathered cobwebs, the saving machines, also added its burden to the abnormal
song “My God, How the Money Rolls In” was replaced unemployment of the “threadbare thirties.”
with “Brother, Can You Spare a Dime?” This already bleak picture was further darkened by
economic anemia abroad. Britain and the Continent
had never fully recovered from the upheaval of World
War I. Depression in America was given a further
downward push by a chain-reaction financial collapse
Hooked on the Horn of Plenty
in Europe, following the failure in 1931 of a prominent
What caused the Great Depression? One basic expla- Vienna banking house. A drying up of international
nation was overproduction by both farm and factory. trade, moreover, had been hastened by the short-
Ironically, the depression of the 1930s was one of sighted Hawley-Smoot Tariff of 1930. European uncer-
abundance, not want. It was the “great glut” or the tainties over reparations, war debts, and defaults on
“plague of plenty.” loans owed to America caused tensions that reacted
The nation’s ability to produce goods had clearly unfavorably on the United States. Many of these
outrun its capacity to consume or pay for them. Too conditions had been created or worsened by Uncle
much money was going into the hands of a few wealthy Sam’s own narrow-visioned policies, but it was now
people, who in turn invested it in factories and other too late to unscramble the omelet.
agencies of production. Not enough was going into As if man-made disasters were not enough, a terri-
salaries and wages, where revitalizing purchasing power ble drought scorched the Mississippi Valley in 1930.
could be more quickly felt. Thousands of farms were sold at auction for taxes,
Other maladies were at work. Overexpansion of though in some cases kind neighbors would intimidate
credit through installment-plan buying overstimulated prospective buyers, bid one cent, and return the prop-
production. Paying on so-called easy terms caused erty to its original owner. Farm tenancy or rental—a
Hoover and the Depression 763
species of peonage—was spreading at an alarming rate prosperity-drenched Coolidge years, when he had
among both whites and blacks. foreseen the abolition of poverty and poor-houses. But
By 1930 the depression had become a national damming the Great Depression proved to be a task
calamity. Through no fault of their own, a host of beyond his engineering talents.
industrious citizens had lost everything. They wanted The perplexed president was impaled on the horns
to work—but there was no work. The insidious effect of of a cruel dilemma. As a deservedly famed humanitar-
all this dazed despair on the nation’s spirit was incal- ian, he was profoundly distressed by the widespread
culable and long-lasting. America’s “uniqueness” no misery about him. Yet as a “rugged individualist,” deeply
longer seemed so unique or its Manifest Destiny so rooted in an earlier era of free enterprise, he shrank
manifest. Hitherto the people had grappled with
storms, trees, stones, and other physical obstacles. But
the depression was a baffling wraith they could not
grasp. Initiative and self-respect were stifled, as pan- Herbert Hoover (1874–1964) spoke
handlers begged for food or “charity soup.” In extreme approvingly in a campaign speech in
cases “ragged individualists” slept under “Hoover 1928 of “the American system of Rugged
blankets” (old newspapers), fought over the contents Individualism.” In 1930 he referred to
of garbage cans, or cooked their findings in old oil Cleveland’s 1887 veto of a bill to appropriate
drums in tin-and-paper shantytowns cynically named seed grain for the drought-stricken farmers
“Hoovervilles.” The very foundations of America’s of Texas:
social and political structure trembled.
“I do not believe that the power and
duty of the General Government
ought to be extended to the relief of
individual suffering. . . . The lesson
Rugged Times for should be constantly enforced that
Rugged Individualists though the people support the
Government the Government
Hoover’s exalted reputation as a wonder-worker and
should not support the people.”
efficiency engineer crashed about as dismally as the
stock market. He doubtless would have shone in the
764 CHAPTER 32 The Politics of Boom and Bust, 1920–1932
from the heresy of government handouts. Convinced As the depression nightmare steadily worsened,
that industry, thrift, and self-reliance were the virtues relief by local government agencies broke down. Hoover
that had made America great, President Hoover feared was finally forced to turn reluctantly from his doctrine of
that a government doling out doles would weaken, log-cabin individualism and accept the proposition that
perhaps destroy, the national fiber. the welfare of the people in a nationwide catastrophe is
a direct concern of the national government.
The president at last worked out a compromise
between the old hands-off philosophy and the “soul-
Wall Streeter Martin Devries, observing destroying” direct dole then being used in England. He
President Herbert Hoover’s struggle to keep would assist the hard-pressed railroads, banks, and rural
his footing as the tidal wave of the Great credit corporations, in the hope that if financial health
Depression washed over him, decided he were restored at the top of the economic pyramid,
was a good man stuck in the wrong place, unemployment would be relieved at the bottom on a
at the wrong time: trickle-down basis.
Partisan critics sneered at the “Great Humanitarian”—
“Hoover happened to be in a bad spot.
he who had fed the faraway Belgians but would not
The Depression came on, and there he
use federal funds to feed needy Americans. Hostile
was. If Jesus Christ had been there,
commentators remarked that he was willing to lend
he’d have had the same problem. It’s
government money to the big bankers, who allegedly
too bad for poor old Herbie that he
had plunged the country into the mess. He would like-
happened to be there. This was a
wise lend money to agricultural organizations to feed
world-wide Depression. It wasn’t
pigs—but not people. Pigs, the cynics of the time noted,
Hoover’s fault. In 1932, . . . a monkey
had no character to undermine.
could have been elected against him,
Much of this criticism was unfair. Although contin-
no question about it.”
ued suffering seemed to mock the effectiveness of
Hoover’s measures, his efforts probably prevented a
Examining the Evidence 765
Lampooning Hoover, 1932 The pages of The homes, but he also cleverly insinuates that Hoover’s
American Pageant are filled with political cartoons banking reform was motivated by electoral oppor-
that provide pungent commentary on historical tunism. Surely Hoover sought to win public support in
events. With one image rather than many words, a car- return for his new banking program as he battled for
toonist can convey a point of view much the way an reelection, but the Home Loan Bank Bill also reflected
editorial writer does. This cartoon appeared in the Hoover’s growing recognition that the federal govern-
Washington Daily News on July 25, 1932, three and a ment had to take direct action to remedy flaws that
half months before Republican president Hoover lost had precipitated the crisis of the Great Depression. As
the presidential election to his Democratic challenger, Hoover later recorded in his memoirs, “All this seems
Franklin D. Roosevelt. The cartoonist foretells Hoover’s dull economics, but the poignant American drama
defeat in November and departure from the White revolving around the loss of the old homestead had
House the following March (not January, as at present), a million repetitions straight from life, not because
and expresses his support for the Home Loan Bank of the designing villain but because of a fault in our
Bill. With this proposal, Hoover sought to come to the financial system.” How does the cartoonist use carica-
aid of home mortgage lenders in order to forestall ture to make his point? What accounts for the political
them from foreclosing on homeowners. The cartoonist cartoon’s special power? Are there limitations to this
jokes that Hoover supported this bill because he genre? Find another cartoon in this book and subject
identified with homeowners about to lose their it to similar analysis.
766 CHAPTER 32 The Politics of Boom and Bust, 1920–1932
more serious collapse than did occur. And his expen- tance that the RFC was dubbed—rather unfairly—“the
ditures for relief, revolutionary for that day, paved the millionaires’ dole.” The irony is that the thrifty and
path for the enormous federal outlays of his New Deal individualistic Hoover had sponsored the project,
successor, Franklin Roosevelt. Hoover proved that the though with initial reluctance. It actually had a strong
old bootstrap-pulling techniques would no longer work New Dealish flavor.
in a crisis of this magnitude, especially when people Hoover’s administration also provided some indi-
lacked boots. rect benefits for labor. After stormy debate, Congress
passed the Norris–La Guardia Anti-Injunction Act in
1932, and Hoover signed it. The measure outlawed
“yellow-dog” (antiunion) contracts and forbade the
federal courts to issue injunctions to restrain strikes,
Hoover Battles
boycotts, and peaceful picketing.
the Great Depression The truth is that Herbert Hoover, despite criticism of
President Hoover, in line with his “trickle-down” phi- his “heartlessness,” did inaugurate a significant new
losophy, at last recommended that Congress vote policy. In previous panics the masses had been forced to
immense sums for useful public works. Though at “sweat it out.” Slow though Hoover was to abandon this
heart an antispender, he secured from Congress nineteenth-century bias, by the end of his term he had
appropriations totaling $2.25 billion for such projects. started down the road toward government assistance for
Most imposing of the public enterprises was the needy citizens—a road that Franklin Roosevelt would
gigantic Hoover Dam on the Colorado River. Voted by travel much farther.
Congress in the days of Coolidge, it was begun in 1930 Hoover’s woes were increased by a hostile Congress.
under Hoover and completed in 1936 under Roosevelt. At critical times during his first two years, the Repub-
It succeeded in creating a huge man-made lake for lican majority proved highly uncooperative. Friction
purposes of irrigation, flood control, and electric worsened during his last two years. A depression-cursed
power. electorate, rebelling in the congressional elections of 1930,
But Hoover sternly fought all schemes that he so reduced the Republican majority that Democrats
regarded as “socialistic.” Conspicuous among them was controlled the new House and almost controlled the
the Muscle Shoals Bill, designed to dam the Tennessee Senate. Insurgent Republicans could—and did—com-
River and ultimately embraced by Franklin Roosevelt’s bine with opposition Democrats to harass Hoover. Some
Tennessee Valley Authority. Hoover emphatically vetoed of the president’s troubles were deliberately manufac-
this measure, primarily because he opposed the govern- tured by Congress, which, in his words, “played politics
ment’s selling electricity in competition with its own with human misery.”
citizens in private companies.
Early in 1932 Congress, responding to Hoover’s
belated appeal, established the Reconstruction Finance
Corporation (RFC). With an initial working capital of Routing the Bonus Army
half a billion dollars, this agency became a government
in Washington
lending bank. It was designed to provide indirect relief
by assisting insurance companies, banks, agricultural Many veterans of World War I were numbered among
organizations, railroads, and even hard-pressed state the hard-hit victims of the depression. Industry had
and local governments. But to preserve individualism secured a “bonus”—though a dubious one—in the
and character, there would be no loans to individuals Hawley-Smoot Tariff. So the thoughts of the former sol-
from this “billion-dollar soup kitchen.” diers naturally turned to what the government owed
“Pump-priming” loans by the RFC were no doubt them for their services in 1917–1918, when they had
of widespread benefit, though the organization was “saved” democracy. A drive developed for the premature
established many months too late for maximum payment of the deferred bonus voted by Congress in
usefulness. Projects that it supported were largely self- 1924 and payable in 1945.
liquidating, and the government as a banker actually Thousands of impoverished veterans, both of war
profited to the tune of many millions of dollars. Giant and of unemployment, were now prepared to move on
corporations so obviously benefited from this assis- Washington, there to demand of Congress the immedi-
Troubles Abroad 767
ate payment of their entire bonus. The “Bonus Expedi- rapidly overran the coveted Chinese province and
tionary Force” (BEF), which mustered about twenty proceeded to bolt shut the Open Door in the con-
thousand souls, converged on the capital in the summer quered area.
of 1932. These supplicants promptly set up unsanitary America had a strong sentimental stake in China but
public camps and erected shacks on vacant lots—a few significant economic interests. In fact, American
gigantic “Hooverville.” They thus created a menace to commercial ties with Japan far outweighed those with
the public health, while attempting to intimidate Con- China. Yet most Americans were stunned by this act of
gress by their presence in force. After the pending bonus naked aggression. It flagrantly violated the League of
bill had failed in Congress by a narrow margin, Hoover Nations covenant, as well as various other international
arranged to pay the return fare of about six thousand agreements solemnly signed by Tokyo, not to mention
bonus marchers. The rest refused to decamp, though the American sense of fair play. Indignant Americans,
ordered to do so. though by no means a majority, urged strong measures
Following riots that cost two lives, Hoover re- ranging from boycotts to blockades. Possibly a tight
sponded to the demands of the Washington authorities blockade by the League, backed by the United States,
by ordering the army to evacuate the unwanted guests. would have brought Japan sharply to book.
Although Hoover charged that the “Bonus Army” was But the League was handicapped in taking two-fisted
led by riffraff and reds, in fact only a sprinkling of them action by the nonmembership of the United States.
were former convicts and communist agitators. The Washington flatly rebuffed initial attempts in 1931 to
eviction was carried out by General Douglas MacArthur secure American cooperation in applying economic
with bayonets and tear gas, and with far more severity pressure on Japan. Washington and Secretary of State
than Hoover had planned. A few of the former soldiers Henry L. Stimson in the end decided to fire only paper
were injured as the torch was put to their pathetic bullets at the Japanese aggressors. The so-called Stimson
shanties in the inglorious “Battle of Anacostia Flats.” An doctrine, proclaimed in 1932, declared that the United
eleven-month-old “bonus baby” allegedly died from States would not recognize any territorial acquisitions
exposure to tear gas. achieved by force. Righteous indignation—or a preach-
This brutal episode brought down additional abuse and-run policy—would substitute for solid initiatives.
on the once-popular Hoover, who by now was the most This verbal slap on the wrist from America did not
loudly booed man in the country. The Democrats, not deter the march of the Japanese militarists. Smarting
content with Hoover’s vulnerable record, employed under a Chinese boycott, they bombed Shanghai in 1932,
professional “smear” artists to drive him from office. with shocking losses to civilians. Outraged Americans
Cynics sneered that the “Great Engineer” had in a few launched informal boycotts of Japanese goods, chiefly
months “ditched, drained, and damned the country.”
The existing panic was unfairly branded “the Hoover
depression.” In truth, Hoover had been oversold as a
wizard, and the public grumbled when his magician’s
wand failed to produce rabbits. The time was ripening Hoover later wrote of his differences with
for the Democratic party—and Franklin D. Roosevelt— Secretary of State Stimson over economic
to cash in on Hoover’s calamities. boycotts,
“I was soon to realize that my able
Secretary was at times more of a
warrior than a diplomat. To him the
Japanese Militarists phrase ‘economic sanctions’ was
Attack China the magic wand of force by which all
peace could be summoned from the
The Great Depression, which brewed enough distress
vasty deep. . . . Ever since Versailles
at home, added immensely to difficulties abroad.
I had held that ‘economic sanctions’
Militaristic Japan stole the Far Eastern spotlight. In
meant war when applied to any
September 1931 the Japanese imperialists, noting that
large nation.”
the Western world was badly mired in a depression,
lunged into Manchuria. Alleging provocation, they
768 CHAPTER 32 The Politics of Boom and Bust, 1920–1932
Japanese Aggression in
Manchuria This American
cartoon lambastes Japan for
disregarding international
treaty agreements when it
seized Manchuria in 1931. The
next year the Japanese would
set up the puppet state of
Manchukuo.
dime-store knickknacks. But there was no real sentiment World depression softened an age-old aggressive
for armed intervention among a depression-ridden peo- attitude in the United States toward weak Latin neigh-
ple, who remained strongly isolationist during the 1930s. bors. Following the stock-market collapse of 1929,
In a broad sense, collective security died and World Americans had less money to invest abroad. As millions
War II was born in 1931 on the windswept plains of of dollars’ worth of investments in Latin America went
Manchuria. The League members had the economic sour, many Yankees felt as though they were more
and naval power to halt Japan but lacked the courage to preyed upon than preying. So-called economic imperi-
act. One reason—though not the only one—was that alism became much less popular in the United States
they could not count on America’s support. Even so, the than it had been in the golden twenties.
Republic came closer to stepping into the chill waters of As an advocate of international goodwill, Hoover
internationalism than American prophets would have strove to abandon the interventionist twist given to
dared to predict in the early 1920s. the Monroe Doctrine by Theodore Roosevelt. In 1932
he negotiated a new treaty with the French-speaking
republic of Haiti, and this pact, later supplanted by
an executive agreement, provided for the complete
Hoover Pioneers withdrawal of American platoons by 1934. Further
pleasing omens came early in 1933, when the last
the Good Neighbor Policy
marine “leathernecks” sailed away from Nicaragua
Hoover’s arrival in the White House brought a more after an almost continuous stay of some twenty
hopeful turn to relations with America’s southern neigh- years.
bors. The new president was deeply interested in the Herbert Hoover, the engineer in politics, thus hap-
often-troubled nations below the Rio Grande. Shortly pily engineered the foundation stones of the “Good
after his election in 1928, he had undertaken a goodwill Neighbor” policy. Upon them rose an imposing edifice
tour of Latin America—on a U.S. battleship. in the days of his successor, Franklin Roosevelt.
Chronology 769
Chronology
1919 American Legion founded 1924 Coolidge wins three-way presidential election
Chicago race riot
1926 U.S. troops occupy Nicaragua
1920 Esch-Cummins Transportation Act
Merchant Marine Act 1928 Kellogg-Briand Pact
Hoover defeats Smith for presidency
1921 Veterans Bureau created Hoover takes goodwill tour of Latin America
Capper-Volstead Act
1929 Agricultural Marketing Act sets up Federal
1922 Five-Power Naval Treaty Farm Board
Four-Power and Nine-Power Treaties on the Stock-market crash
Far East
Fordney-McCumber Tariff Law 1930 Hawley-Smoot Tariff
For further reading, see the Appendix. For web resources, go to http://college.hmco.com.