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1932 › Herbert Hoover (Republican) › Overall role and scale of the federal government
Preserve 'ordered freedom' and equality of opportunity; reject a state-controlled or state-directed economy as 'tyranny'
pledge_forwarddirectional_stancecandidate_directevidence A Economy & Fiscal PolicyExecutive Power⚡ The Great Depression similar solutions · similar reasoning
Solution
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.
Rationale
'The movement of true civilization is towards freedom rather than regimentation'; a state-directed system means 'the regimentation of men under autocratic bureaucracy with all its extinction of liberty, of hope, and of opportunity.'
Statements (7)
It does not follow, because our difficulties are stupendous, because there are some souls timorous enough to doubt the validity and effectiveness of our ideals and our system, that we must turn to a State-controlled or State-directed social or economic system in order to cure our troubles. That is not liberalism; that is tyranny.
The solution of our many problems which arise from the shifting scene of national life is not to be found in haphazard experimentation or by revolution. It must be through organic development of our national life under these ideals.
The following of will-o'-the-wisps is not being progressive. It is not being liberal. It is driving slowly into the tyranny which means extinction under bureaucracy of liberty and hope and opportunity.
It is in the further development of this cooperation and in a sense of its responsibility that we should find solution for many of the complex problems, and not by the extension of the Government into our economic and social life. The greatest function a government can perform is to build up that cooperation, and its most resolute action should be to deny the extension of bureaucracy.
Our Government is rounded on a conception that in times of great emergency, when forces are running beyond the control of individuals or cooperative action, beyond the control of local communities or the States, then the great reserve powers of the Federal Government should be brought into action to protect the people. But when these forces have ceased there must be a return to State, local, and individual responsibility.
The very essence of equality of opportunity in our American system is that there shall be no monopoly or domination by anybody--whether it be a group or section of the country, or whether it be business, or whether it be group interest. On the contrary, our American system demands economic justice as well as political and social justice; it is no system of laissez faire.
Men who are going about this country announcing that they are liberals because of their promises to extend the Government are not liberals; they are the reactionaries of the United States.
Follow-through
not_applicable
Hoover lost the election; the pledge could not be tested in office. The New Deal moved decisively toward the state-directed measures Hoover called tyranny; Hoover spent the rest of the decade attacking them.
Other positions on this issue
- War on any candidate who makes 'demagogic appeals to the masses' setting class against class — Alfred E. Smith, 1932 directional_stance
- An "economic declaration of rights" — the right to make a living and the right to safe savings — Franklin D. Roosevelt, 1932 directional_stance
- Government as a check on concentrated economic power — "individualism" redefined as equality of opportunity — Franklin D. Roosevelt, 1932 directional_stance
- Remove government from private enterprise except public works and natural resources — Franklin D. Roosevelt, 1932 directional_stance
- "A new deal for the American people" — work and security through liberal, planned government action — Franklin D. Roosevelt, 1932 vague_gesture
- Restore confidence by 'unshackling initiative': steady, open, non-partisan administration that stops 'fumbling with recovery' — Alf Landon, 1936 vague_gesture
- Fair, honest, economical and efficient government; preserve free enterprise against 'amateur economic planners' — Frank Knox, 1936 vague_gesture
1932-hoover-against-state-directed-economy · created by claude-fable-5-1 · review: unreviewed