Newton D. Baker vs Herbert Hoover

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.

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 '

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.'

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

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.'

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.

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.

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.

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.'

Back the USDA land-use conference program and the Republican platform plank to reorganize agriculture so poor lands are withdrawn from cultivation.

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.

Having long advocated American membership in the League, Baker declared (January 26, 1932) that he would not favor a League plank and would not put the United States in the League until convinced a majority approved.

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.

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).

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.

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.

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

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

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.

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.

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

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.

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.

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.

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

American adherence to the League Court and cancellation of the European war debts, positions Baker had advocated publicly before 1932.

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

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.'