By Thomas F. Schwartz
It is now commonplace for incoming presidential administrations to release books outlining their new vision. Because they are written for political partisans, the writings are celebrated or mocked according to one’s political bent. Lewis Strauss forwarded Herbert Hoover an advance copy of Franklin Roosevelt’s Looking Forward on March 29, 1933, with the following comments:
“I am sending you, under separate cover, one of the advance proofs of Roosevelt’s book, Looking Forward, which was called back after having been sent out to the various newspapers for review. The only differences which I can find between this and the text as finally issued are the four deletions on pages 36, 158, 235 and 269, and a new page tipped in at 141. The deletions appear to be all rhetorical trifles and the tipped in page is a revised historical allusion where there had been a research man’s error in one of Roosevelt’s campaign speeches. None of the changes are of sufficient importance to have warranted the hullabaloo, and I am inclined to suspect it was a publicity stunt to attract attention to the book, or perhaps that the book had been announced before Roosevelt had a change to look it over and he had it held up in order to go over it in person. The whole thing looks like the usual ghost job—probably Early or Michelson.”
Strauss references Steve Early, FDR’s press secretary, and Charles Michelson, who was on the Democratic National Committee payroll since the election defeat in 1928 to discredit the Hoover administration.
The following year, Hoover published The Challenge to Liberty, a critique of Roosevelt’s policies without referencing the sitting president. Roosevelt published, On Our Way, an argument for New Deal programs. Harold Ickes, FDR’s Secretary of Interior, also published The New Democracy, a defense of the New Deal. In a letter to newspaper publisher Ashmun Brown, Hoover took delight in a comparison of sales:
“I see that some Washington columnists correspondents think my little book was a failure. There is at least the sardonic humor that it has reached 125,000 copies, whereas On Our Way by FDR reached 14,700 and the publisher went broke. Likewise, Ickes sold 2,400.”
Hoover’s own copy of FDR’s On Our Way, contains penciled underlining and occasional marginalia. Perhaps the most telling is a comment on the handling of the banking crisis: “In the Treasury itself we had successfully surmounted the problem of borrowing enough money to meet necessary expenditures, although the Treasury was to all intents and purposes empty when we inherited it.” To which Hoover writes “thanks to you.” Hoover was bitter that FDR refused to act in a bipartisan manner during the end of Hoover’s administration, forcing Hoover to attempt his own solution to deal with the banking crisis. Hoover wanted to declare a bank moratorium (holiday) and have the Reconstruction Finance Corporation provide money to stabilize the run on banks and reassure the public that their money was safe. Having run out of time, Hoover was frustrated by FDR subsequently implementing the policy he and his Treasury staff developed. Because FDR did not have time to replace key staff at Treasury, he used the main actors from Hoover’s Treasury to implement the New Deal solution to the banking crisis, which was largely Hoover’s solution. Raymond Moley who headed FDR’s “Brains Trust” wrote: “If it had not been for help from the outgoing Treasury group, the storm could never have been weathered.” Moley was referring Hoover officials William Mitchell, Ogden Mills, Arthur Ballentine, William Wyatt and his staff at Treasury.