Herbert Hoover vs Franklin D. Roosevelt

Maintain the doctrine, announced over Manchuria in January 1932 and endorsed by the League and the Western Hemisphere nations, that the United States will not recognize title to territory acquired in violation of the Kellogg Pact.

Repeal the Farm Board's stabilization (price-support purchase) provisions while keeping its cooperative-marketing work; oppose any bureaucracy controlling farm production or subsidies; rely on tariff protection, credit, reopened export markets via war-debt payments and world stabilization.

Add to the world price of staple commodities "the amount of a reasonable tariff protection," giving agriculture the protection industry enjoys; in exchange farmers agree to plan production to reduce surpluses and end dumping abroad; repeal the Farm Board's stabilization purchases; the plan "does not

Make restoration of farm purchasing power an essential part of a national recovery program, on the theory that industrial employment depends on farmers being able to buy. Method left unspecified in April; developed into the Topeka farm plan in September (see 1932-fdr-topeka-farm-plan).

Strengthen and impartially enforce the antitrust laws against monopoly and unfair trade practices, and revise them to better protect labor and the small producer and distributor.

Enact the banking reform (Glass bill) Congress postponed: a stronger banking system that will not 'permit the credit of the country to be made available without adequate check for wholesale speculation in securities'; authority for early liquidation of deposits in closed banks (denied by Congress).

Continue the Reconstruction Finance Corporation ($2 billion) and the expanded Federal Reserve powers to uphold banks, insurance companies, building-and-loan associations, farm-mortgage associations and railroads; oppose the Rainey bill's direct federal loans 'to everybody' as making the government '

Sever affiliated securities companies from, and divorce the investment-banking business from, commercial banks; restrict use of Federal Reserve facilities for speculation; more rigid supervision of national banks to keep depositors' money out of speculation; quicker realization of assets of suspende

Continuous publicity of political contributions and expenditures; strengthen the Corrupt Practices Act with severe penalties for misappropriating campaign funds; condemn paid lobbies and excessive money in politics.

Treat the abolition of child labor and sweatshops as settled social policy; keep children in school to sixteen.

Recommend aid to states for the protection and health of children; continue non-legislative leadership through the White House Conference on Child Health and Protection, the home-ownership conference and the illiteracy campaign.

Continue the Children's Bureau and federal child-welfare work (no economies there); federal government as a clearing house and incentive for higher state standards; children in school to age sixteen; more vocational education — without taking from the states their control of education.

Maintain the civil-service merit system as an unassailable part of government.

Recognize and approve collective bargaining between responsible representatives of employers and employees chosen without interference; continue Republican-origin labor laws (eight-hour law on government work, mediation, railroad safety).

Continue recommending legislation to correct 'the waste and destruction' of natural resources caused by present antitrust interpretations that prevent cooperative production control in resource industries.

Government to bring "enlightened information" to producers and consumers so they can avoid "headlong plunges into excessive debt"; explicitly not "complete Government control over the use of credit." Interference to stabilize business "kept at a minimum, limiting itself perhaps to wise dissemination

Keep the United States on gold and the dollar 'ringing true'; reject greenback issues (the Patman bonus-currency bill), price-level mandates to the Federal Reserve, and inflation; use Federal Reserve changes (Glass-Steagall of Feb. 1932) to free gold for commercial use instead.

Preserve a sound currency "at all hazards" and call an international monetary conference to consider the rehabilitation of silver and related questions. Reverse the Republican "inflation" used to fund deficits.

List 'the guarantee of bank deposits' among the Democratic House measures the party contrasts with its own program; rely instead on stronger supervision and RFC support.

Government-led planning of production and distribution, drawing on the War Industries Board precedent, organized as a "concert of interests" among sections and economic groups rather than class control or a fully regimented economy. Long-term, not only for the emergency. Methods deliberately unspeci

Heads of finance and industry to "work together to achieve the common end," sacrificing private advantage in "reciprocal self-denial"; government to restrain the "lone wolf" who drags an industry toward anarchy, and to intervene if the group abuses its collective power; formal economic regulation "o

Continue the existing federal Employment Service in the Department of Labor, enlarged by appropriation during the depression, rather than the vetoed Wagner federal-state system.

Enact the Wagner employment-service bill Hoover vetoed: a nationally coordinated system of employment offices operated by the states with advisory boards of employers and employees; federal leadership to stimulate and coordinate state systems.

Operate the twelve new regional agricultural credit corporations ($300 million), RFC credit to processors carrying farm stocks, RFC financing of farm exports to new markets, and seed and feed loans ($120 million to 900,000 families) with forbearance on repayment.

Balance the budget by drastic expenditure cuts plus the Revenue Act of 1932's new taxes; revise those temporary taxes if they 'sap the vitality of industry'; hold the credit of the federal government 'impregnable.'

Maintain the national credit by a federal budget balanced every year on accurate executive estimates, with revenues raised on the ability-to-pay principle; stop borrowing to cover deficits. Relief and protection of savings to be paid for by "saving in one place what we would spend in others, or by a

Enact federal laws aiding the states against gangsters, racketeers and kidnappers; continue the drive against illicit narcotics strengthened by treaty.

Continue the President's Organization on Unemployment Relief mobilizing private and local agencies each winter; where states are exhausted, lend through the RFC ($300 million authorized) 'and thus maintain the fundamental responsibility of the States'; distribute Farm Board wheat and cotton; keep re

Extend federal credit to states for unemployment relief wherever their diminishing resources make it impossible to provide for the needy; the federal government to "assume bold leadership in distress relief" while primary responsibility stays with localities.

Reduce expenditure by a further $1,500 million from fiscal 1932 totals if the House cooperates; use the reorganization authority Congress finally granted (effective only after the next Congress approves) to abolish obsolete bureaus and commissions; continue vetoing 'raids upon the Public Treasury.'

Immediate and drastic reduction of federal expenditure by abolishing useless commissions and offices, consolidating departments and bureaus and eliminating extravagance, to save "not less than twenty-five per cent" of the cost of the federal government; states urged to do proportionately.

Ask Congress for "a complete reorganization of the means provided to operate in the field of agricultural finance," coordinating the at least seven federal and quasi-federal agencies dealing with farm mortgages so federal farm-credit policy "may be guided by a single purpose."

Reorganize the USDA to cut unnecessary functions and useless jobs and redirect it toward "a program of national planning" in agriculture, replacing "heterogeneous and disassociated" agency efforts.

Inaugurate "a definite long-range plan for dealing with all phases of public health and welfare" that are a proper federal concern, consolidating the "multiplicity of unrelated agencies," on the New York model.

Meet the crisis by 'organic development' and cooperation that builds strength outside government; emergency instrumentalities must supplement, not supplant, private and local initiative and be demobilized afterward; no 'haphazard experimentation,' no regimentation, no panaceas.

Government to assist the development of "an economic constitutional order" under which every man has a right to a comfortable living through his own work and a right to the safety of his savings, restricting "the speculator, the manipulator, even the financier" where necessary. The era of expansion

Government, "without becoming a prying bureaucracy," to act as a check or counterbalance to the financial oligarchy so as to secure "the chance to work and the safety of savings"; oppose regimentation whether by private economic government or by the state; "equality of opportunity for all, the right

Government to withdraw from all fields of private enterprise, with the exception of developing public works and natural resources in the common interest.

Unspecified: a "party of liberal thought, of planned action, of enlightened international outlook, and of the greatest good to the greatest number," pursuing "work and security" for the mass of the people and "more equitable opportunity to share in the distribution of national wealth." Explicitly po

Sickness insurance for industrial workers, named with old-age and unemployment insurance as minimum requirements; no mechanism given.

Count tearing down slum areas and building modern housing as essential public works eligible for federal cooperation with states and cities — while questioning new buildings that leave slums standing.

Adhere to the September 1930 consular order that reduced inward movement below outward movement, admitting essentially only relatives of residents, for the duration of the emergency.

Endorse Hoover's effective restriction of immigration; curb enforcement abuses against families.

Reorient policy from the producer to the consumer; ensure all willing to work receive at least the necessities of life; raise the average reward for a day's work and reduce the reward to capital, especially speculative capital. No mechanism specified.

Participate in organizing the world economic conference for late 1932 (later London, 1933) to rebuild credit structures, restore stable currencies and reduce obstacles to trade; send a representative of agriculture as a delegate.

The United States to invite an international monetary conference (silver, exchange stability) and an international economic conference to restore trade; take the lead in "asking for a general conference to establish less changeable fiscal relationships."

Continue appointing justices 'solely on the basis of their character and their mental power' regardless of party; reject any conception of the Court as 'an instrument of party policy.'

Substantial reduction in the hours of labor and encouragement of the shorter week, applying the principle first in government service; "definite steps to shorten the working day and the working week."

Back the USDA land-use conference program and the Republican platform plank to reorganize agriculture so poor lands are withdrawn from cultivation.

A federally initiated, federal-state economic soil survey (especially in the East) to map and classify land for crops, marginal use, or tree crops; retire poor land from cultivation (New York model: $10 million voted, 200,000 acres bought and reforested); accompanying efforts to decentralize industr

Complete the withdrawal from Nicaragua once the supervised election is held; continue withdrawing supervisory services from Haiti except those mandated by treaty; maintain 'frank and friendly understanding' throughout Latin America.

No interference in the internal affairs of other nations; cooperate with the nations of the Western Hemisphere to maintain "the spirit of the Monroe Doctrine" (i.e., collectively rather than unilaterally).

Convene the nation's tax experts after the election and recommend to Congress a readjustment of the tax fields among federal, state and local governments so states can find other revenue and lift the burden on real property.

Use the Presidency's influence, as he used the Governorship, for a national movement to reorganize local government — fewer taxing districts, units and offices — and to separate national, state and local fields of taxation so as to lift some of the tax burden on land.

Base the size of the Army and Navy on a fact survey of the existing establishments so that peacetime defense spending, "fast approaching a billion dollars annually," is reduced.

Operate the new home loan discount banks (proposed November 1931, opening October 1932) to mobilize building-and-loan and savings-bank resources so mortgages can be renewed on reasonable long-term payments and new home construction financed.

Propose to Congress at the next session a further reorganization of the Federal Land Banks with 'resources and liberty of action' to expand farm-mortgage refinancing; remedy the organization of the Joint Stock Land Banks; coordinate federal and private mortgage agencies (already secured).

Make it an objective of the federal government to give the small home-owner and farm-owner at least as much help against mortgage foreclosure as the Reconstruction Finance Corporation gives big banks, railroads and corporations. Specific machinery came later (Springfield, Ill., Oct 21).

Press the Geneva proposal to reduce armaments a third and shift weapons toward defense, saving the world $1 billion and the United States $200 million a year; maintain the London Naval Treaty ratios; do not reduce Army and Navy further absent general agreement.

Pursue international agreements to reduce armaments.

Old-age insurance enacted by the states rather than a federal system.

Oppose the Democratic Hawes-Hayes bill (9–17 year probation with duty-free sugar rising to 850,000 tons); instead freeze duty-free Philippine sugar at 600,000 tons and reduce it annually so the islands build economic independence before political independence.

Grant independence to the Philippine Islands; ultimate statehood for Puerto Rico; Panama Canal operated by American citizens.

Treat the change in the dollar's commodity value as a problem to be met "straightforwardly": either restore commodity prices to roughly the level of several years earlier, or accept continued defaults and write-downs of debts contracted at the higher level. Method not stated in May; became the "soun

Support a constitutional change giving each state the right to deal with liquor as it determines, subject to federal guarantees protecting dry states from invasion and forbidding the saloon's return anywhere; continue enforcing existing law; oppose the Democratic plan as destroying 'every vestige' o

Congress to propose immediately a repeal amendment to be ratified by state conventions; states to regulate the liquor traffic, promote temperance and prevent the saloon's return, with federal help against importation into dry states; pending repeal, modify the Volstead Act to legalize beer and raise

Enact federal regulation of interstate electric power (as repeatedly recommended) while continuing to oppose federal operation of power plants (Muscle Shoals vetoed 1931).

Federal development of Columbia River power as the fourth regional "yardstick" project alongside the St. Lawrence, Muscle Shoals and Boulder Dam, with the federal government never parting with sovereignty over its power resources.

Where the public owns a power site, a public authority builds and permanently owns the dams and powerhouses; transmission and distribution are offered first to private capital at a price built from plant amortization plus a reasonable return on actual investment; if private capital refuses those ter

Maintain federal public works at $500–700 million a year and RFC loans up to $1,500 million for reproductive projects that repay themselves; oppose the $1,200 million Garner-Rainey bill and any works that 'never make a real return'; reject the idea that government can employ all surplus labor.

Secure Senate ratification of the July 1932 treaty with Canada and build the Great Lakes–St. Lawrence seaway, 'the greatest public improvement ever undertaken upon our continent'; continue the Mississippi and inland waterway program already doubled in pace.

A letter over Roosevelt's signature to Lowe Shearon, circulated among the unemployed, pledged support for self-liquidating public works — water resources, flood control, land reclamation — 'to provide employment for all surplus labor at all times' and asserted 'the inherent right of every citizen to

Do not rely on huge federal, state and local public-works expenditure to solve unemployment; treat it as a temporary expedient and attack causes (farm purchasing power, mortgages, tariff) instead. Later superseded by the Boston program of October 31 embracing public works and federal relief (see 193

Expand the federal program of "necessary and useful construction affected with a public interest" (flood control, waterways, the St. Lawrence deep waterway) as an emergency employment measure; works should be self-sustaining so bond financing is sound; adopt advance planning of public works.

Stand 'pledged to maintain equal opportunity and rights for Negro citizens' and not alter the party's traditional pledge; no specific legislation named.

Persist in the repeatedly recommended revision of railroad law to give 'greater stability and greater assurance' of service; continue RFC credit to railroads to protect the bonds held by savings banks and insurance companies.

(1) Government support for a specified period, conditioned on scaling down top-heavy fixed charges, planned jointly by the RFC and ICC under a national transportation policy; (2) overhaul federal railroad and utility receivership law; (3) ICC regulation of competing motor carriers; (4) relieve the I

Convert many millions of acres of marginal, abandoned and cut-over land into timberland through reforestation, giving employment to a million men, financed by bonds secured on the future timber crop; a national land policy on the European model. Modeled on the New York program.

Leave control of securities issues to the states (New York above all), where 'the full constitutional authority for that sort of action rests'; reject a federal securities board as unconstitutional, centralizing and unwanted; reject the idea that a President should 'tilt with a boom' or supervise mu

Two executive policies requiring no legislation: (1) end the practice by which international bankers sell foreign securities on the implied understanding that the State Department has passed on them; (2) high officials of the next administration "will neither by word nor by deed seek to influence th

Regulate "to the full extent of federal power" holding companies that sell securities in interstate commerce, the rates of utilities operating across state lines, and exchanges in securities and commodities.

Require that all offerings of foreign and domestic stocks and bonds file with the government, and carry in advertisements, true information about bonuses, commissions, principal invested and the sellers' interests.

Keep the 1930 act's flexible provisions under which the Tariff Commission recommends and the President adjusts rates up to 50 percent; oppose the Collier bill (vetoed) that would return rate-making to Congress.

Keep the 'historic American plan' of equal, non-discriminatory treatment of all nations through reciprocal treaties guaranteeing equality of trade and residence; reject bargaining tariffs and concessions as 'unsuited to America's position.'

Keep the Hawley-Smoot schedules with adjustment through the bipartisan Tariff Commission; raise farm tariffs further if needed; refuse reciprocal bargains that would open the home market to foreign farm products in exchange for industrial concessions.

Replace the Hawley-Smoot schedules with tariffs set "on the basis of a reciprocal exchange of goods": bilateral or group agreements letting other nations pay for American exports with goods that do not seriously unbalance any domestic industry. Not a flat across-the-board cut; negotiated, item by it

Rates equalizing differences in cost of production — not prohibitory rates; restore the Tariff Commission as a fact-finding body reporting to Congress rather than the President; enact the vetoed 1932 bill making Commission-recommended rate bills unamendable as to other items; appoint a public counse

Taxation "on the principle of ability to pay": graduated income, inheritance and profits taxes; oppose taxes on food and clothing that fall on consumers per capita.

Unemployment insurance enacted by the states rather than a federal system.

Public servants at every state capitol and in the national government to "restore the fundamentals of public control": rates based on wisely and necessarily invested cash, adequate service, and the credible threat of public operation if private capital will not serve at a fair return.

Care and compensate every veteran incapacitated by illness and provide for dependents of the war dead; study existing veterans' legislation 'to elimination of inequalities and injustices and effecting all possible economies' without departing from full relief for the service-disabled.

Justice and generosity for war veterans "who have suffered disability or disease caused by or resulting from actual service in time of war" and their dependents. The platform and candidate say nothing about immediate cash payment of the adjusted-service bonus.

Continue to oppose the Patman bill's $2.3 billion cash payment of adjusted-service certificates, passed by the Democratic House and killed in the Senate, and any payment financed by greenbacks.

Do not consider anticipating payment of the adjusted-service bonus while the government runs deficits; only after "a balanced budget, not only on paper, but with a surplus of cash in the treasury."

Continue the November 1929 conference policy: employers maintain real wages, stagger employment rather than discharge, expand construction and equipment replacement; apply shorter hours to government employees; mobilize business, labor and farm leaders in cooperative committees (the Banking and Indu

Defend the one-year intergovernmental debt moratorium of June 1931 and the standstill on German private debts as having 'stemmed the tide of collapse in Germany'; continue cooperation for foreign stability.

Maintain the policy of Hoover's predecessors against cancellation; consider reducing a given annual payment only for 'tangible compensation' such as expanded markets; recommend that debt receipts be used specifically to open foreign markets for American agriculture; reject the Democratic plan of low

Oppose cancellation of the debts owed by foreign governments; instead lower tariffs and revive trade so the debtors can pay from trade profits.

Adhere to the World Court 'under proper reservations preserving our freedom of action'; consult with other nations in emergencies under the Pact of Paris; enter 'no agreements committing us to any future course of action or which call for use of force.'

Adherence to the World Court with the pending Senate reservations; settlement of international disputes by arbitration; make the Pact of Paris effective by consultation and conference when treaty violations are threatened; sanctity of treaties; no interference in other nations' internal affairs.