Work in progress — cycles are added one at a time. Every quote is machine-verified against an archived source; follow the links to read it.
Reception (33)
What the press and public understood candidates to stand for — versus what they said.
Roosevelt was 'a pleasant man who, without any important qualifications for the office, would very much like to be president.'
He is a pleasant man who, without any important qualifications for the office, would very much like to be president.
Party leaders such as Raskob judged Roosevelt an extremist after the Forgotten Man speech and sought to block him.
Roosevelt's speech caused party leaders, such as Democratic National Committee Chairman John J. Raskob , to judge Roosevelt as an extremist, causing them to oppose his candidacy.
The 'forgotten man' broadcast was a demagogic appeal setting class against class.
His threat was interpreted as di rectly intended for Gov. Franklin D. Roosevelt of New York, who in a re cent radio address, charged that the l "little fellow," the common citizen, has been forgotten.
Intra-party opposition; the April 7 speech proposed farm purchasing power, mortgage relief and tariff reciprocity, not class redistribution.
Roosevelt was intentionally vague on economics to hold both Midwestern progressives and Eastern conservatives.
Roosevelt had been intentionally vague about his economic stances, so as to earn the support of midwestern progressivists without further alienating eastern progressivists (who favored a more conservative economic approach).
There is no difference between the Republican and Democratic candidates; only the Socialists champion the working class.
There will be no difference between the candidates of the Republican and Demo cratic parties.
Roosevelt is running on a platform more emphatic on veterans' relief, and veterans may vote for him expecting the bonus, which he could not sign.
Governor Roosevelt is running upon a platform with a more emphatic plank upon veterans' relief.
The Democratic plank was confined to service-connected disability; the perception that it was more generous shows how the bonus silence was read.
The Commonwealth Club speech is read in retrospect as the outline of the New Deal's expansive federal role.
In a speech in San Francisco, FDR outlined the expansive role that the federal government should play in resuscitating the economy, in easing the burden of the suffering, and in insuring that all Americans had an opportunity to lead successful and rewarding lives.
First returns of the 20-million-ballot Digest poll gave Hoover a slight lead.
First Poll Figures Give 'Hoover a Slight head'
OCR of the contents line; 'head' is 'lead'. The poll is the only quantitative measure of national sentiment in 1932; it had no scientific sample.
The farm program is more liberal and definite than Hoover's, but the tax-relief promise rests on local reorganization and the mortgage position is indefinite.
Equally Mr Roosevelt's position on the refinancing of farm mortgages is indefinite.
Written before the Springfield, Illinois mortgage speech of October 21 supplied specifics.
The Topeka farm speech made vague promises without definite legislation; farmers expect delivery or will turn to violence.
Gov Roosevelt is playing with dynamite if he does not have definite legislation in mind to fulfill the vague promises he made to agriculture in his Topeka address.
Letter signed by a farmer; the paper's own editorial on the same page calls the program 'much more liberal and definite than that of Mr Hoover.'
The campaign was deliberately cautious: attacks on Hoover and promises of better days, often without specific programs, so bland that commentators doubted his grasp of the crisis.
Roosevelt was so genial--and his prescriptions for the country so bland--that some commentators questioned his capabilities and his grasp of the serious challenges confronting the United States.
The historian's summary sits uneasily with the archived speeches, which contain roughly sixty distinct positions, many specific; the blandness was in the framing, not the content.
Roosevelt and his party intend to reduce the farm tariffs and open the home market to peasant-labor products.
This is surely a promise of reducing farm tariffs. They will reduce farm tariffs if they come to power.
Roosevelt's Sioux City speech (Sept 29) had already limited reductions; his Baltimore statement (Oct 25) explicitly excluded farm duties. Hoover then called that a 'new shuffle.'
Roosevelt's six-point farm program is understood as the 'voluntary domestic allotment plan,' whose feasibility experts dispute; the points overlapping Hoover's cancel out.
Roosevelt the farmer has received the outline of a program for aiding him by what some students de scribe as the "voluntary domestic allot ment plan," but which other students declare Is Impossible.
Republican managers plan to portray Roosevelt as 'a radical wolf in a conservative sheep's clothing' by publicizing his embrace of Senator Norris; the columnist compares it to Hanna's 1896 scare tactics.
Watch out for a concerted Republi can movement during the next two or three weeks to scare the country into believing that Franklin D. Roosevelt is a radical wolf in a conservative sheep's clothing.
Reports the opposition framing rather than endorsing it; Hoover's Madison Square Garden speech three weeks later executed it.
Roosevelt, unlike Hoover, favors adequate unemployment relief; on the bonus he deserves credit but remains open to the charge that he would pay it once the budget balances.
Until he makes that compaction Roosevelt will remain open to the charge that he favors a blanket cash bonus when the federal budget is balanced.
'compaction' is OCR for 'correction' or similar.
Roosevelt has not disavowed the House's $2.3 billion greenback bill; the 'new deal' means currency tampering.
One of the most important issues of the campaign arises from the fact that the Democratic candidate has not yet disavowed the bill passed by the Democratic House of Representatives under the leadership of the Democratic candidate for Vice President to issue $2,300 million of greenback currency--that is, unconvertible paper money.
The platform pledged 'sound currency'; Roosevelt never addressed the Patman greenback provision directly. In outcome Hoover's suspicion of currency management proved correct.
Roosevelt's Baltimore statement that he would not cut farm tariffs is a startling last-minute reversal that rewrites the Democratic platform.
He now announces within 2 weeks of the election that he does not propose to reduce tariffs on farm products.
Roosevelt's bonus statement was late, indirect and timid compared with Hoover's; a position forced by expediency, not conviction.
the difference be- tween the Hoover and the Roosevelt statements on the bonus is the difference between courage and timidity, timeliness and lateness, directness and indirectness.
Roosevelt spoke tardily and evasively on the bonus, committing to nothing except a balanced budget before payment.
the Governor has spoken, tho tardily, and a trifle evasively, since he does not commit himself on anything except that he wants a balanced budget before a bonus payment.
Roosevelt evaded the bonus issue; his statement is not courageous.
Mills flatly declares that Mr. Roosevelt 'evaded the bonus issue.'
Roosevelt had in fact stated opposition to prepayment; the charge is about the conditional framing and the seven-month silence.
Roosevelt opposes the bonus only because the Treasury cannot afford it, leaving the inference that the demand is just and would be met once the budget balances.
for it leaves the inference that the bonus demand is just, and that only the present Treasury deficit prevents meeting the demand.
A pro-Roosevelt paper reading the Pittsburgh statement as conditional — which is what it was.
Roosevelt is incapable of taking a positive stand on any important national issue.
Roosevelt seems utterly incapable of taking a positive stand upon any important national issue.
By October 29 Roosevelt had delivered detailed programs on farm relief, railroads, utilities, securities and the budget; the perception of vagueness attached to the whole rather than the parts.
The Pittsburgh speech was aimed at Eastern business: the balanced budget, the 25 percent cut and the bonus stand were read as removing business fears of a Roosevelt presidency.
His pledge of a balanced budget coincides with the unanimous views of financial leaders.
Business audiences took the fiscal pledges literally; the Digest's summary: 'The speech was regarded as plainly intended to remove many of the fears of business regarding his election.'
Pairing the bonus refusal with beer revenue was a 'bald-faced bribe': vote for beer and get your bonus — a promise beer taxes could never fund.
What Roosevelt seems to have done is a dirty trick. He has dunked his bonus in beer. And bitter bread it will be for him in the day of reckoning.
Roosevelt's Pittsburgh text tied beer revenue to balancing the budget, not to paying the bonus; White's reading is what a hostile listener took from the juxtaposition.
Roosevelt is prepared to put the federal government into the power business, and his Senate supporters are pledged to it.
The Democratic candidate has declared that under the same conditions which may make local action of this character desirable, he is prepared to put the Federal Government into the power business.
The Commonwealth Club thesis that the industrial plant is built means Roosevelt believes America's advance has ended — 'the philosophy of stagnation and of despair.'
This philosophy upon which the Governor of New York proposes to conduct the Presidency of the United States is the philosophy of stagnation and of despair. It is the end of hope.
Roosevelt has promised government employment for all ten million unemployed — a cruel and impossible promise.
I especially emphasize that promise to promote "employment for all surplus labor at all times"--by the Government.
The letter said what Hoover quoted; Roosevelt neither repeated nor repudiated it.
The final Digest poll gave Roosevelt 41 of 48 states — an accurate forecast of the landslide (he carried 42).
Roosevelt Bags 41 States Out of 48
The reforestation pledge — a billion trees, a million men — would yield less than three days' work.
The Democratic candidate adds to this program the proposal to plant a billion trees and thereby immediately employ a million men, but the Secretary of Agriculture has shown that the trees available to plant will give them a total of less than 3 days' work.
The Democratic mandate is clear: the party is commissioned to do as it promised, and its promises 'are going to be presented for payment.'
With the Inauguration of the Democratic ad ministration, the promises issued by the party aie going to be presented for pay ment.
Farley, on the same program, said Roosevelt 'becomes President without commitments of any kind' — as to cabinet appointments.
Roosevelt won not on his merits but was pushed over the line by the mass strength of anti-Hoover sentiment; the paper cannot even congratulate him.
is a good deal like an elusive, slidey, half-back who has made a slick run through a broken field, and then has been pushed. over the line for a touch-down by the mass strength of his
After the election, Wall Street felt business had little to fear from the political change, and Republican editors found cause for hope in the apparent continuity of policy.
Wall Street there is reported to be a rather general feeling of confidence that busi- ness need have little to fear because of the political change.
Financial opinion read the campaign's fiscal orthodoxy as the program; within five months the gold standard was gone and the NRA in prospect.
When the debtors asked for postponement after the election, the press split between refusing any reduction (Denver Post, Ohio State Journal) and cancellation as the only cure (Baltimore Sun); both read Roosevelt as bound by the no-cancellation plank.
The best way for the United States to settle the debt prob- lem is to say to Europe, 'We will not consider any proposition for cancelation or further reduction of the debts you owe us.'