SEVEN

Into the White House

In the summer of 1927, President Calvin Coolidge, escaping from what the pale Vermonter considered the upper South’s torrid heat, took the entire season to relax away from Washington and fish near Rapid City, South Dakota. Journalists followed like lemmings yet found few morsels of news. Herbert Hoover, enjoying a respite after his exhausting work in the Mississippi Valley, was also vacationing in the West, at one of his favorite retreats: the annual Bohemian Grove encampment beneath the California redwoods, an invitation-only mecca for the wealthy and famous who enjoyed the camaraderie, scenic beauty, and skits featuring all-male, bawdy satire. No political storm clouds appeared on the horizon for either man. The GOP, the majority party, was united. The campaign of 1928 loomed, but incumbent Coolidge appeared a shoo-in for reelection. The president had long since smothered the scandals of the Harding era, and the economy seemed robust and expanding. Meanwhile, Hoover bubbled with fresh ideas to propel the nation’s wealth to even greater heights of economic opportunity. For the time, both men rested.

At about noon on the drizzly day of August 2, 1927, nearly nineteen months before the end of Coolidge’s term, some thirty reporters who had accompanied the president for a sleepy vacation assembled for an impromptu press conference in the mathematics classroom of the local high school. Coolidge, already waiting, said curtly, “The line forms on the left.” As they filtered by the president, he handed each a slip of paper with a single sentence, typical in its brevity, earthshaking in its content. The sentence read, “I do not choose to run for President in nineteen twenty-eight.” If Coolidge’s purpose was to keep the reporters, and the nation, guessing, he succeeded. The wording was curious. What did “I do not choose” mean? What was his rationale? Why was he closing the curtain without a final act, or at least taking a bow? The reporters, hoping to flesh out their stories, prodded the president, yet he retorted only that that there would be no further comment on his part.¹

Coolidge’s declaration struck like a thunderclap at the Bohemian Grove. Everyone, including Hoover, knew that the announcement automatically made the commerce secretary the front-runner for the 1928 GOP nomination. Yet he remained noncommittal, as Coolidge’s cryptic wording seemed to leave an opening for a draft. Hoover repeated ceaselessly that he enjoyed the Commerce Department and preferred to remain there under Coolidge’s benevolent tutelage. Coolidge deserved a second term, he insisted, and could win one. Hoover parsed his words as carefully as the president did, saying nothing that could be considered disloyal, nor anything that would appear to advance his own candidacy.

Republican Party regulars were dismayed by Coolidge’s sudden withdrawal and attempted to discern whether his decision was final. Many believed that, although the president would not campaign for renomination, he would feel obligated to accept a draft if the GOP offered it to him. The business community and conservatives, who considered Coolidge the bedrock of prosperity, were most disturbed, fearing a more activist president might meddle in their affairs. “Coolidge is a known quantity politically,” explained one party regular. “He plays ball with the organization. And he stays put. I’m not so sure about some of these other fellows.” The Old Guard formed virtually a solid phalanx in favor of drafting the incumbent at the convention, even if he made no attempt to clutch the nomination. Publicly, Hoover stated that the president should be renominated; privately, he admitted to Coolidge that some of his friends were urging him to run but that he would much prefer to remain in the cabinet under the president.² While journalists attempted to ascertain the intentions of the White House occupant, an astute political observer wrote, “Whether Calvin meant it or not, I believe he is fairly out of it. The country has in a large measure accepted the statement at face value, and the active candidates will occupy the field without much elbow room remaining.”³

Shortly after Coolidge’s abrupt withdrawal, Hoover’s close friend ex-congressman James H. MacLafferty, also an intimate of Coolidge, visited the First Family in Yellowstone National Park, where they were vacationing. MacLafferty told the president that many people in California regretted his decision. “Well, it is much better not to want to run and to have them want you to, than it is to want to run and them not want you to,” the president reflected. Mac told Coolidge that with him out of the race, the West Coast would go for Hoover, and Coolidge nodded his assent.

On December 6, Coolidge met with the Republican National Committee, stating that they should respect his wishes and begin to seriously seek another candidate. Meanwhile, other pretenders to the nomination revved up campaigns. Most were favorite-son candidates who lacked influence beyond their own state or region. They could be spoilers, but none were likely to win the nomination. Party bosses hoped for a deadlock similar to 1920’s, which would enable them to supersede Hoover and handpick another malleable candidate. Soon numerous Republicans were testing the waters, among them Senators Charles Curtis of Kansas, Guy Goff of West Virginia, George Norris of Nebraska, James Watson of Indiana, and Frank Willis of Ohio as well as Vice President Charles G. Dawes. A majority of delegates could not be assembled by winning primaries at that time, although such victories might win publicity. Most delegates were appointed by state committees, governors, legislators, or other means. Of all the candidates, Hoover was the only one with a national following at the grassroots level, and for that reason he was the most electable in the general election. He had won fame for his relief work in both Europe and America, as well as his productive tenure as commerce secretary. Although he had made enemies by serving in the Wilson administration, backing the Treaty of Versailles, and opposing the McNary-Haugen plan, no one seriously doubted his ability, his honesty, or his capacity to get things done. The fact that he had never held an elective office was rarely considered a liability during the campaign.⁴

Every time Hoover probed Coolidge about whether he should enter the race, the president deflected the question without either firm approval or disapproval. In February, with the Ohio primary pending, Hoover asked the chief executive directly. Did he intend to enter in Ohio? Coolidge replied tersely, “No.” Pressing the matter, the commerce secretary asked whether he thought Hoover himself should enter. “Why not?” replied Coolidge without enthusiasm, probably due more to the man’s laconic temperament than to any ill feeling. Ohio would present a legitimate challenge to Hoover’s presidential prospects. Opposing a popular local, Senator Frank Willis, whom Coolidge did not like, Hoover might well have lost the vote, yet Willis died a month before the primary. While Hoover did not demonstrate great vote-getting ability, he had finally declared himself a candidate for president. It was also now clear that Coolidge himself had no intention of staging a campaign, yet a few conservatives remained hopeful he might accept a draft. As Hoover accumulated delegates, however, the draft movement began to lose momentum.⁵

Ohio had settled the issue that Hoover was, indeed, a candidate, but long before the commerce secretary made it public, an underground campaign had gotten under way. Hoover backers had learned from the 1920 effort how to build from the grass roots and overcome the opposition of entrenched bosses. Hoover clubs began at Stanford and spread nationwide. He drew heavily upon supporters in the journalistic community. His friends William Hard and Will Irwin, both well-known writers, published biographies that humanized Hoover, while numerous reporter acquaintances wrote glowing articles. In addition, Hoover was popular in academia, including among professors, students, and academic administrators. The president of Yale publicly endorsed him, as did Ray Lyman Wilbur, now president of Stanford. Although support was swelling, Hoover did not appoint a campaign manager. Instead, Hubert Work, Coolidge’s interior secretary, coordinated operations at the national level. Below him were regional campaign directors in the Northeast, the Midwest, the West, and the South. Close personal friends Ogden Mills and Edgar Rickard managed the campaign in New York State. Yet while Hoover directed the efforts from behind the scenes, he did not wage a public campaign. Even in states where he entered primaries, he did not stump for support. In fact, Hoover did not deliver a single overtly political speech during the entire primary season. It was clear that he was seeking the job, but he much preferred the appearance that it sought him.⁶

Despite his public reticence, enthusiasm for a Hoover candidacy continued. Michigan Republican leader Justus S. Stearns was asked by the Grand Rapids Herald, “What are we going to do for a presidential candidate since Mr. Coolidge has kicked the chair from under us?” Stearns replied, “Nominate a better one. Hoover!”⁷ Henry Ford, an ardent Hoover backer, said of the engineer, “He knows the working man’s point of view,” adding, “Hoover can bring capital and industry together.”⁸ Senator George H. Moses of New Hampshire, a political admirer of the commerce secretary, explained the dynamics of the Hoover campaign. “He has not said so, but we are making a candidate of him. He is attending to his job as secretary of commerce, but we are carrying him to the people.”⁹ Another U.S. senator, Frederick H. Gillett of Massachusetts, said that Hoover “has the gift of infecting his subordinates with his own energy and inciting in them the most strenuous loyalty; he has an unblemished character, and, in my opinion, is extraordinarily equipped to make a great president.”¹⁰ Former president William Howard Taft and former New York senator Elihu Root counted themselves among Hoover’s prominent supporters.¹¹ He also won ringing endorsements from famed inventor Thomas Edison and from Hollywood moguls Louis B. Mayer and Cecil B. DeMille.¹² The advertising impresario and bestselling author Bruce Barton toiled for Hoover, even offering him free lessons on how to polish his speaking style, which Hoover declined.¹³

No issue dominated American life during the twenties more than the federal ban on alcohol, which had become law with the ratification of the Eighteenth Amendment in 1920. In February 1928, during the Ohio primary campaign, Senator William E. Borah of Idaho, a passionate defender of the ban, mailed a questionnaire to leading GOP contestants to determine their position on Prohibition. A light drinker, Hoover had abstained during Prohibition on the grounds that he favored obedience to the law. He believed Prohibition had increased industrial efficiency but was impractical without concurrent state enforcement. Hoover did not complete all of Borah’s questions, and he attempted to tread a middle path. “Our country has deliberately undertaken a great social and economic experiment, noble in motive and far-reaching in purpose,” he wrote. “It must be worked out constructively.”¹⁴ (Almost every historian who has quoted this well-known passage has omitted the final sentence.) Hoover stated that in the short run he opposed repeal of the Eighteenth Amendment and supported attempts to enforce it, but he did not comment on possible repeal of the Volstead Act, which carried out the amendment, and also declined to recommend a Prohibition plank for the party platform.¹⁵

Hoover drew solid support from numerous constituencies. He had enthusiastic backing from women because of his support for women’s suffrage, children, relief, recreation, and better housing. The Scripps Howard newspaper chain, which had backed La Follette in 1924, now supported Hoover. Many European ethnic groups, including Poles, Czechs, Yugoslavs, Russians, and Germans, were grateful for his help to their native lands during the Great War.¹⁶

The South posed unique complications. The region controlled about one-third of the delegates needed to nominate the candidate, yet Southern delegations comprised large numbers of blacks, who, denied suffrage by state law, were ineligible to vote in general elections. To appease black delegates en bloc might alienate whites whose votes would be needed to win, yet to discriminate against them might lose the support of Northern blacks, who were eligible and voted largely Republican. Southern politics was boss dominated and riddled with corruption. Some delegations, called “black-and-tans,” included both races, while “lily-white” delegations were entirely Caucasian. Sometimes contesting delegations of monolithic or mixed-race varieties challenged for seats, which were settled by the credentials committee at the convention. Hoover carefully avoided personal involvement and his lieutenants pragmatically backed the delegations solidly committed to the commerce secretary, who enjoyed a distinct advantage in the region where citizens of all races fondly recalled his service during the Mississippi Flood of 1927.¹⁷

The nomination process on a state-by-state basis was a greater obstacle to Hoover than a single nationwide referendum would have been, as the general election clearly indicated. Hoover remained on the job at Commerce, skipped some primaries to avoid annoying powerful favorite sons, and did not campaign actively even in those states in which he did enter. Hoover’s showing was mediocre, but he did not hurt his chances while his friends lined up delegates in the nonprimary states through more conventional tactics. Hoover lost to Frank Lowden in Illinois, Lowden’s native state. James Watson edged Hoover in Indiana and Guy Goff beat him narrowly in West Virginia. In Indiana, the strong support of the Ku Klux Klan that helped Watson top Hoover there probably aided him in other states. The engineer lost to Senator George Norris in Nebraska, where Norris was a favorite son, and also in Wisconsin, where both candidates were outsiders. Hoover carried California and New Jersey unopposed and topped weak opponents in Michigan, Maryland, and Oregon. The commerce secretary did not enter the Massachusetts primary, yet won a whopping 85.2 percent of the vote with write-in ballots.¹⁸

In May, Hoover trekked to Coolidge’s office for one final attempt to approach the president. He told Coolidge he had about four hundred votes for certain, almost enough to guarantee a first-ballot victory for the nomination. But if Coolidge wanted to be drafted, he was welcome to all of Hoover’s ballots. As penurious with words as he was with pennies, the incumbent replied, “I think if you have 400 delegates you ought to keep them.” This was about as effusive as Coolidge ever got. It marked the passing of the scepter. Approaching the final stages of the campaign, the president, although he did not overtly help Hoover, generously removed any final impediments to his nomination. Coolidge discouraged his own supporters from entering him into the race. In May he declined to appear on the Wyoming ballot and in April he refused to enter the Massachusetts primary. Coolidge bluntly told two of his supporters, “I have studied it all over and have finally concluded that I do not want the nomination.” Shortly before the convention, Secretary Mellon and National Committee Chairman William Butler instructed their home-state delegates from Pennsylvania to vote for Hoover. This was enough to ensure a first-ballot victory.¹⁹

The Republican convention convened on June 12, 1928, at Kansas City and remained in session for four days. Hoover had already obtained commitments from 476 of the 545 delegates needed for nomination. Prior to the conclave, the commerce secretary and Senator Borah had hammered out a draft platform, which was adopted in substance by the platform committee. Hoover’s most formidable challenger, Lowden, withdrew from consideration after the platform committee rejected inclusion of his major objective, the McNary-Haugen plan, which guaranteed price supports for farmers. The hard work of the Hoover team triumphed. They had assembled a virtually unbeatable first-ballot nomination as the final opposition to Hoover melted away at Kansas City. There would be no deadlock, no smoke-filled, boss-dominated coronation in 1928. Hoover had carved out a consensus. The only member of the Hoover family to attend was son Allan, who served as a page. The commerce secretary canceled his appointments and directed his campaign by telephone from Washington.²⁰

The commerce secretary listened to the proceedings by radio at his Washington office. On June 14, when the evening nominations were made, family and close friends huddled in the library of the Hoover home to hear the announcement over the airwaves. Neighbors gathered in the drawing room, and a few reporters awaited the outcome in the dining room. Hoover had selected a California friend, John L. McNab, to deliver the nominating speech, but he read only a few sentences before the convention floor and the galleries erupted into a demonstration for Hoover that continued for twenty-five minutes. When order was restored, McNab described Hoover’s life as a series of epic achievements. “If the American people a quarter of a century ago had set out to prepare a man for the presidency, they could hardly have devised more apt experience than Hoover’s,” McNab said. Afterward, the nominating of other candidates resumed, followed by the balloting, which resulted in a comfortable first-ballot victory. Hoover won 837 votes, Lowden 74, Curtis 64, Watson 45, Norris 24, and Coolidge 17. Most of the votes for other candidates came from Midwestern states. In his home, Hoover showed little emotion before the assembled well-wishers and reporters, except to smile and kiss his wife, and withheld immediate comment from the press. On June 15, the delegates nominated for vice president Senator Charles Curtis of Kansas, an elderly conservative expected to help attract votes in the farm belt. For the first time in American history, both nominees on a party ticket had been born west of the Mississippi River. While Hoover did not choose Curtis, he consented to his nomination.

George Moses notified Hoover of his nomination for president by telegram, and Hoover accepted by return cable, stating that he would strive to maintain the high standards of rectitude set by Coolidge. The president responded with a cable backing Hoover in what were for Coolidge glowing terms. He wrote the nominee that “your great ability and your wide experience will enable you to serve our party with marked distinction.” The vigor of Coolidge’s message mattered enormously. The GOP was closing ranks behind its ticket.²¹

On June 26, the Democrats met at Houston, where seats on the floor and the galleries were segregated, and nominated their only serious candidate, Alfred E. Smith, who had won four two-year terms as governor of New York. Though Smith’s background was as prototypically urban as Hoover’s had been rural, both were self-made men. While Hoover’s chief assets were his superb mind and his ability to forge lifelong friendships, Smith was a more natural politician, gregarious, opportunistic, a political professional who had risen through the ranks, who knew politics intuitively but lacked a polished formal education. Temperamentally and intellectually, there was a gaping contrast; one man’s strengths were the other man’s weaknesses. Al Smith had begun as a fish peddler and ward heeler for New York’s notorious Tammany Hall machine, which thrived on patronage, and he tolerated the degree of corruption necessary to grease the political wheels. Neither well-read nor erudite, he was rather provincial, ignorant of both world affairs and even those of much of his own nation west of the Hudson. With his New York brown derby, cigar, and East Side accent, which grated on the ears of Midwesterners, he could not persuade Western farmers that he understood their problems. Smith was a better, more convivial public speaker than Hoover, a good mixer, with a magnetic personality, yet he fidgeted before the stationary microphones of that day, which caused some words to be mangled, especially via radio. Except for his urban style, which he flaunted, and his Catholicism, as well as his desire to repeal Prohibition before it had yet grown widely unpopular, his generally conservative views, especially on business, might have appealed to many conservatives. Indeed, some of the Democrat’s positions were distinctly traditionalist; he disliked women’s suffrage, the expansion of government, and extensive regulation of business. As Martin Fausold points out, “In many respects, Hoover was the more liberal and progressive candidate in 1928.”²² On the whole, however, the men were not far apart ideologically; neither roamed far from the political mainstream of their time, and each might be considered center-left. Their chief differences were in style and personality. The glad-handing, ebullient New Yorker, who chose as his theme song “The Sidewalks of New York,” might have given the impression that his philosophy lay to the left of Hoover’s, but these differences were largely superficial.²³ Hoover was much better known nationally and internationally than Smith, and both candidates were men of integrity who never deliberately said a false or unkind word about each other, although some of their less-principled subordinates embraced a win-at-all-costs philosophy. Moreover, Smith’s chief enemy was neither Hoover’s stature nor his own provincialism, but the deceiving glow of the Coolidge-era prosperity. Voters were to ultimately vote their pocketbooks in 1928. As one analyst explained, “No one will shoot Santa Claus.”²⁴ Phrased differently, mammon was a powerful ally.

Now focused on the general election, Hoover applied his virtuosity in organization to his campaign, as did his legion of friends. He did not appoint a special campaign committee but instead delegated the task to the Republican National Committee, chaired by his most respected political consultant in the cabinet, Interior Secretary Hubert Work. After Coolidge declined to run for another term, Work had been the first cabinet member to endorse Hoover. A conservative Westerner, Work helped forge ties with Old Guard Republicans. With the Progressives already backing Hoover, the GOP was more united than at any time since the split between Theodore Roosevelt and William Howard Taft in 1912. Work’s task was to implement strategy devised by Hoover. As in most previous Hoover operations, policy was centralized and execution decentralized. Regional campaign managers focused on local issues, fund-raising, and turnout, operating under the rubric of Hoover and the central committee. Within each region, volunteers were organized on the state, county, municipal, and ward levels. Like the CRB and the ARA, the campaign organization resembled an octopus with many tentacles but a single head. Work considered overall prosperity more important than parochial or interest-group issues. Hoover emphasized farm problems to a greater degree, especially cooperative marketing. He was confident of his support in the West and portions of the East, yet he considered the Midwest a battleground where farmers had not fared as well as most groups during the prosperous 1920s. Many farmers still blamed Hoover for urging them to maximize production during the Great War, only to have prices plummet when the war ended suddenly. Nonetheless, most did not consider New Yorker Al Smith a plausible alternative.²⁵

American political tradition—until Franklin D. Roosevelt shattered it in 1932—held that nominees were not officially informed of their designation until a party of official representatives visited them at their homes and personally notified them of their selection. For Hoover and his wife, who still considered Palo Alto their permanent home, this required a transcontinental trek by rail. Along the ride west, he visited briefly with Vice President Dawes in Chicago and paid homage to President Coolidge at his fishing lodge along the Brule River in Wisconsin. While the men fished, Coolidge with worms, Hoover with artificial flies, the nominee angled for a more important prize—Coolidge’s public endorsement. Afterward, the two quiet men attempted to chat, seated in rocking chairs on the porch of the lodge. Coolidge joked that Hoover would not hold up his end of the conversation but conceded that his commerce secretary was a better fisherman.²⁶ Coolidge gave his imprimatur to Hoover’s campaign and said he would render some help, but he intimated that he wanted Hoover to remain in the cabinet a bit longer to finish some incomplete projects. As they resumed their rail journey west, Lou received a telegram that her father, Charles Henry, was seriously ill, followed by a second telegram informing her of his death. She retired to a private car to grieve. Her husband continued to greet crowds along the way, but the passing of Lou’s father had dimmed the spirit of the trip. Hoover canceled a celebratory parade at San Francisco and the couple went directly to the chapel at Stanford for a memorial service for Charles Henry.²⁷

After arriving in Palo Alto, Hoover went about his chief task of drafting and revising his acceptance speech. A scrupulous perfectionist, he was the last president to craft his own speeches, not only in the White House, but throughout his life. In composing his address, Hoover attempted to express his ideas accurately and with little embellishment. As a speaker, he tended to mumble, speaking into the microphone in a flat monotone voice with little use of inflection. Never prone to exaggerate, he minimized his own accomplishments, a virtue in ordinary people but a vice among politicians.

Before an audience of seventy thousand students, professors, alums, friends, and news media personnel, Hoover stood on a small platform in Stanford’s cavernous stadium, which he, as a trustee, had been influential in constructing. Beyond Palo Alto, between 34 million and 40 million people listened via radio, or later viewed the address on newsreels at theaters. He spoke directly into the microphone; his words carried clearly, and he expressed gratitude for the opportunity to serve.²⁸ “In no other land could a boy from a country village without inheritance or influential friends look forward with unbounded hope,” he said.²⁹ Hoover’s address synthesized ideas and programs he had advocated for years. His tone was philosophical, his content broad and general, including passages denoting moral and spiritual uplift. Hoover praised his party, especially Coolidge for facilitating prosperity, but prudently omitted Harding. He indicated, however, that his administration would move at a brisker pace. Foreseeing that religious prejudice would inevitably creep into the campaign, he tried to preempt it. “I come of Quaker stock,” he reminded listeners. “My ancestors were persecuted for their beliefs. By blood and conviction I stand for religious tolerance both in act and in spirit.”³⁰ He also believed in racial equality and opposed the model of status based on class. “Equality of opportunity is the right of every American—rich or poor, foreign or native-born, irrespective of faith or color,” he explained.As commerce secretary, he had worked to ensure prosperity, yet economic plenty was merely a means to a higher purpose, he elaborated. “Our party platform deals mainly with economic problems, but our nation is not an agglomeration of railroads, of ships, of factories, of dynamos, or statistics,” he continued. “It is a nation of homes, a nation of men, of women, of children.”³¹

On the campaign trail, Hoover defined the economic beliefs he had developed over a lifetime of private enterprise and public service. He believed in limited regulation, stating that fair competition must be encouraged and monopolies dismantled when salutary. The federal government’s most important function in regard to the economy was to allay the boom-and-bust cycle and alleviate downturns. In agriculture, he vowed to make farming as prosperous as other occupations by providing moderate protective tariffs on select products, waterway development, and more effective marketing through cooperative farming. In labor, he upheld workers’ right to strike and called for legislation that would curtail the use of injunctions in labor disputes. Falling back on his reputation as an effective administrator, he called for a reorganization of the government by function, with bureaus and agencies that overlapped to be consolidated and unnecessary ones eliminated altogether. He vowed, if elected, to launch a massive public works program that would include waterways, highways, and public buildings, projects that would alleviate unemployment. Estimating the cost at $1 billion, he did not promise either tax cuts or additional debt reductions. He called for enforcement of Prohibition and advised those who opposed the Eighteenth Amendment to work for repeal rather than to flout the law.³²

Hoover was a strong proponent of women’s suffrage and insisted women could contribute to a higher moral tone in politics.³³ As commerce secretary, he had worked for better homes and improved recreational opportunities, and as a national candidate he supported education and believed that strong families were crucial to the success of America. Hoover had been involved in movements to improve the quality of life of children for decades, and as president he would continue to advocate for children, asserting, “The greatness of any nation, its freedom from poverty and crime, its aspirations and ideas, are the direct quotient of the care of its children.”³⁴

Prosperity, Hoover believed, could best be preserved in a peaceful world.³⁵ Intending to make world peace a cornerstone of his foreign policy, he pledged to cooperate with the League of Nations, though not to join it, and was prepared to disarm America’s military to the extent that other nations would disarm.

One passage in the speech came back to haunt Hoover: “In America today we are nearer a final triumph over poverty than in any land. The poorhouse has vanished from among us,” and he added, “We have not reached that goal, but given a chance to go forward, we shall, with the help of God, be in sight of the day when poverty will be banished from this nation.”³⁶ At the time, it might have been true that no nation had ever enjoyed such prosperity as America experienced during the 1920s. Still, Hoover took too much for granted in suggesting it would continue unimpeded, and he inadvertently provided ammunition later turned on him by his critics. His words were to prove ironic years later when the nation lay prostrate beneath the burden of the Great Depression.

Throughout the nation, press reception of the Republican’s address was mixed. The New York Herald Tribune emphasized the speech’s patriotic commitment to American values, while the Mobile Register considered it “a genuinely human document.” The New York Times observed that the GOP nominee considered farm relief a more important priority than Prohibition. While the Chattanooga Times carped that Hoover had said nothing unexpected, the Indianapolis Star found his speech thoughtful and practical. The Cleveland Plain Dealer believed Hoover spoke directly to the common people rather than to the politicians. The Louisville Courier-Journal stated, “It differs from other Republican speeches, not in substance, but in spirit; in the elevation of its tone, in imaginative color, in pervasive idealism.”³⁷

Between August 11 and November 2, Hoover delivered only six major addresses, but he held numerous local meetings and greeted crowds from the rear platform of his campaign railroad car. On his return trip to the East from Palo Alto, Hoover delivered an address at his birthplace, West Branch, Iowa, presenting his program for agriculture and praising the rural way of life, including the central role of the family. Back east, he spoke at Newark, New Jersey, where he discussed the use of public works as a device to even out the business cycle and mitigate unemployment, as well as the creation of mediation methods to resolve labor-management disputes. At Elizabethton, Tennessee, a Republican enclave in the upper South, he discussed enforcement of Prohibition, use of cooperative marketing for farmers, and the need for a clean campaign, disavowing bigotry. Returning to the Northeast, the GOP candidate spoke at Boston, where he emphasized tariff protection as a major element in the Republican economic program. At New York’s Madison Square Garden, in the heart of his opponent’s bailiwick, Hoover focused on issues government should avoid, such as competing with private business in the sale of electric power. Before an unexpectedly receptive audience, he advised that Prohibition should be given a fair trial before a rush to judgment. He did not condemn alcohol on moral grounds, but he advised that repeal, not disobedience, was the proper antidote to a failed social experiment. In his final major address, in St. Louis, on his return to Palo Alto to vote, Hoover emphasized the necessity for peace and equability between labor and capital.³⁸

In a campaign pitting the first Quaker nominee of a major party against the first Catholic candidate, religion inevitably became an issue, though both contenders attempted to avoid it. Some Democrats claimed that no one of Hoover’s faith could be a credible commander in chief because all Quakers were pacifists. Hoover pointed out that several of his Quaker uncles had served in the Civil War and that his own father had volunteered yet had been rejected as too young. He reminded voters that he had supported American participation in the Great War. In addition, some political opponents charged that he was ineligible for the presidency because he was a British citizen, having lived in London during much of his mining career. Hoover retorted that he was an American citizen by birth, had certainly not renounced his U.S. citizenship, and had never voted anywhere but in the United States. Another frequent assertion was that as food administrator, Hoover had cheated American farmers in order to provide low food prices to the Allies. The candidate patiently explained that he had tried to balance all interests, that he had compelled the Allies to honor their agreement to buy the full 1918 harvest when they tried to renege, and that after 1918 he had disposed of much of the U.S. farm surplus as relief for Central and Eastern Europe and the Soviet Union. At least one charge against Hoover was pure fabrication. Designed to hurt his chances in the South, rumors were circulated that Hoover had danced with a black woman while in Mississippi during the Great Flood of 1927. Actually, Hoover could dance only awkwardly, if at all. He pointed out that he had been in the small town where the alleged incident occurred for only three minutes and had never left his railroad car.³⁹

The smears against Smith were predictable, yet repeated ceaselessly, often in furtive whispering campaigns, sometimes openly. Many Protestants believed Catholics owed their first allegiance not to their country but to the pope in Rome. The issue was closely linked to Prohibition, which was supported more ardently by Protestants, who pointed out that wine was used in the Catholic mass. Although the Democratic platform was dry, Smith openly opposed Prohibition, and Hoover received the endorsement of many Protestant churches because of the Prohibition issue. Hoover publicly denounced all defamatory propaganda drawn to his attention. In late September, he stated, “Nor can I reiterate too strongly that religious questions have no part in this campaign.” He further explained, “There are important and vital reasons for the return of the Republican administration, but that is not one of them.” The following day he restated, “The glory of our American ideals is the right of every man to worship God according to the dictates of his own conscience.”⁴⁰

Smith’s aggressive attacks on those who resorted to the use of religion in the campaign probably backfired. Rather than bringing him sympathy, his outrage drew attention to the matter and did not seem presidential.⁴¹ The Catholic issue hurt Smith primarily in the South, and while it might have changed some individual votes, it did not determine the outcome. Not until 1960 was another Catholic, John F. Kennedy, nominated by a major party. Coincidentally, he was matched against another Quaker, Richard Nixon.

Hoover came to believe that his colleague from the Wilson administration, Franklin D. Roosevelt, was not simply campaigning against him, but had stooped to circulating personal slurs and embroidering falsehoods, which the Republican considered a betrayal. Roosevelt wrote to Hoover’s colleague Julius Barnes and attempted to convince him that their common friend would make an unfit president. FDR wrote that “high ideals and a forward-looking policy—not only for this country but for the world—would stand as little chance under Mr. Hoover as they have stood under President Harding, Mr. Coolidge and Mr. Mellon.” The message angered Barnes, who wrote that “this letter, I am frank to say, greatly surprises me and disappoints me.” Barnes added that the letter “falls below my previous estimate of your character and your ideals.” Barnes went on to say that he had known Hoover for many years, had never known him to be incompetent or unethical, and intended to vote for him.⁴² Barnes’s rebuttal did not restrain Roosevelt, who continued to direct invective at his former friend. Shortly before Election Day, FDR told an audience that Hoover was an elitist who disdained the common people, though Roosevelt’s own ancestry and education were far more aristocratic than Hoover’s. “There is such a thing as too much engineering,” he added.⁴³

On Election Day, Hoover, along with Lou, Allan, and Herbert Jr., voted at the Stanford precinct, which Hoover carried 450–10. That evening, the family and about fifty local friends awaited election returns in the spacious Hoover mansion near campus, where running totals were posted on a chalkboard. Hoover sat quietly, puffed on his pipe, and remained composed. Months earlier the university had booked an outdoor performance by the great composer of marches, John Philip Sousa, and his seventy-piece band. When it became obvious that Hoover would win, the band marched to the Hoover home, clogging the streets with two thousand jubilant students, for a brief serenade that included the national anthem and the Stanford alma mater. The usually stoic Hoover greeted the students from a portico and shed tears. He retired at about eleven thirty and was awakened about half an hour later by a telegram of concession from Al Smith. Hoover informed reporters that there would be no speeches and no comments about cabinet selections until they were made. “In this hour there can be for me no feeling of victory or exultation,” he said in his first statement to the press on the day after the election. “Rather, it imposes a sense of solemn responsibility of the future and complete dependence upon divine guidance.”⁴⁴

Numerous pundits had predicted a Hoover victory, but not the scope of it. He carried forty-two states, with 444 electoral votes to Smith’s 87 votes and eight states. Hoover overwhelmed the Democrat with 58.1 percent of the popular vote in one of the most decisive victories in American history up to that time. Incredibly, Hoover won five former Confederate states, usually Democratic bastions. Smith won only Massachusetts, Rhode Island, and a tier of resolutely Southern Democratic states in the “black belt,” South Carolina, Georgia, Alabama, Mississippi, Arkansas, and Louisiana. Though he had appeared a strong candidate and an energetic campaigner, Smith proved weak in every region, even where Democrats had won easily in previous contests. The defeat was nationwide and conclusive. Hoover, a more sedate, restrained campaigner, had won wet states, corn belt states, Southern states, and states that sympathized with Smith because of his religion, most by large margins. The only genuine national issue was prosperity and the desire to maintain the status quo. “Mr. Hoover, after all, was better qualified for the Presidency,” the Washington Post wrote. The magnitude of Hoover’s victory made a political comeback for Smith unlikely.⁴⁵

The morning after their victory, the Hoover couple rose early and celebrated in a typically subdued manner, strolling the foothills and meadows near Stanford where they had courted as geology students. With the strain of the election dissipating, they walked hand in hand for an hour. Returning, the president-elect plunged into thousands of congratulatory cables from well-wishers. Most would be answered by secretaries, but a few required personal responses, among them memos from Vice President Dawes and Vice President–Elect Curtis.⁴⁶ Hoover knew his life would never be the same. Already, he was losing some of the privacy he craved. During his interlude as president-elect, Hoover confessed his fears privately to his friend Willis J. Abbot, the editor of the Christian Science Monitor: “My friends have made the American people think I am some kind of superman, able to cope successfully with the most difficult and complicated problems. They expect the impossible of me and should there arise in the land conditions with which the political machinery is unable to cope, I will be the one to suffer.” Hoover knew that his reputation had outgrown him and that it invited a backlash if things went wrong.⁴⁷

Despite his postelection apprehension, Hoover turned his focus toward planning his administration. His contacts with Latin American diplomats during his tenure as commerce secretary whetted his appetite to improve trade and diplomatic relations as president. He decided that a goodwill trip to Latin America would be the first major item on his diplomatic agenda. No president-elect had previously taken such a prolonged voyage to other nations. By leaving the country, Hoover also avoided upstaging Coolidge in Washington and evaded the hordes of patronage seekers pursuing him. Having campaigned to make world peace the centerpiece of his diplomacy, he decided to start in the Western Hemisphere. Hoover departed from San Pedro, California, on November 19, 1928, aboard the battleship USS Maryland, accompanied by his wife, a small group of advisers, and a party of reporters. Hoover paid his personal expenses, except for use of the battleship. The ten-week tour included Honduras, Peru, Chile, Argentina, Uruguay, and Brazil. Aboard ship, Hoover relaxed on deck, reading detective novels and Westerns as well as books about fishing. He and Lou joined the sailors in watching a treasure trove of Hollywood movies loaned by director Cecil B. DeMille.⁴⁸

The incoming president considered the voyage his first step in a reorientation of American policy toward Latin America. He delivered some twenty-five short speeches, including one in each major capital. The centerpiece of his program was that he intended to inaugurate a new approach to the United States’ relations with the Southern Hemisphere, renouncing imperialism and economic domination. American troops would not intervene in the hemisphere to collect debts or even to protect American lives, and he promised to withdraw all American troops remaining in Latin America. He vowed to upgrade the quality of the diplomatic corps assigned to Latin neighbors. No longer would ambassadorships be assigned as political sinecures or patronage rewards. Rather, able career diplomats, usually native speakers, would be assigned. He promised to settle all disputes peacefully and to inaugurate airmail delivery between the hemispheres. In nation after nation, Hoover labeled his approach the “Good Neighbor Policy,” a strategy that would be continued by Franklin Roosevelt. As part of the new overtures, he inaugurated exchanges of professors and students between the Northern and Southern hemispheres. Perhaps Hoover’s sincerity, humility, lack of pretense, and respectful attitude helped ensure more stable relations in what had been a turbulent part of the world.

After his return from Latin America, Hoover spent time in Florida as a guest at the estate of the department store mogul J. C. Penney. There, Hoover held appointments with party leaders and fished. He visited Thomas Edison and chatted with Al Smith, also vacationing in Florida. The recent adversaries became friends who found each other’s company mutually pleasant.

As the twilight of the Coolidge era dimmed and the dawn of the Hoover years beckoned, the nation felt refreshed, facing the future with confidence. Yet Coolidge prosperity was stumbling. The adrenaline that had propelled Wall Street and powered the engine of the economy was soon to receive a jolt that would forever change Hoover’s life and reputation—as well as the fortunes of a generation.⁴⁹