Such is the nature of being President—you inherit whatever your predecessor (and the world) left for you—and then you create your own legacy. Hoover inherited many structural problems that his predecessor, Calvin Coolidge, was fortunate enough to see contained—and Coolidge went off a hero. But Hoover wasn’t just unlucky, he was unwise, and sometimes that lack of wisdom stemmed from his adopting a set of rigid ideas that felt like an extended scolding.
That’s the thing about Hoover. He’s the coldly competent stepfather ready to take command. He becomes the center of the drama. Things are improving because he and his unique abilities are at the helm. They will be concluded successfully because he says, “[t]he fundamental business of the country, that is, the production and distribution of commodities, is on a sound and prosperous basis.” This, first uttered shortly after the crash, is repeated constantly, as are other comforting words. On March 8, 1930, he tells the public the crisis will be over in 60 days. To the business and labor leaders who attend his conferences in November and communicate with him thereafter, it is always “stick to the plan, I know what I’m doing.”
The problem with this approach is that it requires communication skills that Hoover lacks—he’s too distant. He has spent his adult life ordering people around, been extraordinarily successful at it, and, now, having reached the apex of power, finds he needs another tool—persuasiveness that requires a degree of emotional resonance. He doesn’t have it, and he’s rejected. The public doesn’t see someone who, in his gut, cares enough about them to merit the gamble of patience.
What they do see is failure on the ground. Under Hoover’s watch, through either active policy or ideologically trussed-up inaction, roughly 5,000 banks fail, a tight money policy is adopted at a time when credit is desperately needed, and a sharp increase in income-tax rates is passed. Also, perhaps most notoriously, the Smoot-Hawley Tariff Act of 1930 becomes law, leading to retaliatory tariffs by trading partners, essentially freezing international trade and, in particular, rendering Europe helpless, unable to pay debts owed to the United States.
So, he begins to fail, becomes a man apart, so committed to his credo, so dismissive of alternatives, that he appears detached and unfeeling, and finally tone-deaf. He is right, he is following the proper course of action. How galling it must be to see his name plastered on homeless camps now called “Hoovervilles.” How angry he must feel when World War I veterans undertake a “Bonus March” to Washington to demand pre-payment of modest pensions and camp out within sight of the White House. What must he be thinking when he authorizes the Army to evict the marchers by force, in the process destroying their shelters and their meagre possessions? All he has left is the authority of his office and his sense of virtue mixed with grievance.