The Great Depression, Part Eleven/A

Political leaders are always important, but even more so in times of crisis. Hoover’s personality seemed unable to instill confidence or to inspire hope in a nation struggling with a terrible economic collapse. He was not a commanding public speaker, nor was he very good at articulating what he was actually trying to accomplish at times, nor in rallying the public to support his programs, and his shyness made him appear less than “warm and cuddly” to the public. Throughout his life, first in the mining business and then in public service, Hoover was used to being involved with relatively small groups of people dedicated to achieving certain goals. In helping the starving and dislocated in Europe, he was surrounded by many volunteers, most not prone to bickering and sniping. In the Wilson, Harding, and Coolidge administrations, he was a Cabinet Secretary, and while politics are always in play in such an office, it was on a much smaller scale than when he occupied the White House. Hoover was also a chronic “worrier,” and no doubt this showed through to the public.

Hoover misjudged the overall problems with the Depression and its severity, but he wasn’t alone. It became so severe; no one really knew what to do, including Democrats. Often Democrats in Congress went along with Hoover’s basic legislative proposals, sometimes even strongly supporting them, with many Democrats supporting the bill to raise taxes. On a public relations level though, Hoover was president, and he suffered the consequences, not the Democrats in Congress, when his programs couldn’t turn the economy around. He had a knack for choosing the wrong side of an issue, especially when he needed a “win,” if you get my drift, and when he needed to get the public onto his side. He approached many issues with “nuance;” that is, he favored or opposed certain things, but with qualifiers. With the attention span of many Americans less than the size of a centipede, trying to explain details of legislation can be difficult, even in the best of times, but with the economy in shambles, Americans just wanted some action that would right the listing ship, not explanations of why certain parts of legislation were considered to be good or bad by the President. Hoover was principled. (“Nuance” is a word now quite familiar to one John Kerry. Remember “I voted for it, before I voted against it?”) With a severe drought affecting a large part of the farm belt and adding to the economic misery, Hoover and Congress developed a relief package of many millions of dollars to help farmers buy seed and feed their animals. Hoover insisted that the money be given as a “loan,” and not an outright grant. Further, when some in Congress wanted to offer the farmers direct help to feed themselves and their families, Hoover insisted the Red Cross could take care of that. He maintained that if the government gave farmers money directly, it would be demoralizing to them. Farmers and others in the American public had a difficult time figuring out why accepting government money was “demoralizing,” but accepting money from the Red Cross was not. Later, it was much the same with government loans to banks and certain other financial entities. Troubled banks got money, but when one community asked for an RFC loan to pay some employees, it was rejected. Again, Hoover was seen as championing banks, but not people.

The public definitely had a problem with Hoover’s hairsplitting, and his inability to fully articulate his ideas compounded the problem. (Note: Like after 9/11, Congress voted to help out the airlines with billions of dollars, going against many members' own basic political convictions, but they saw this as the only way to keep many airlines in business and preserve competition. It was much the same with the banks during the Depression. If the government had allowed the banks to falter, the whole system would have come crashing down, along with everyone's savings, making a terrible situation even worse. Hoover's administration had little choice, but to loan money to banks and financial institutions, regardless of how bad it looked to the public.) Hoover had some tough issues to grapple with for those times; as the Depression was an unprecedented collapse of the American economy. America was founded on a basic skepticism of government authority, and he avoided, as long as possible, using the government in many roles; preferring voluntary cooperation and private charity, but when he found that these things just couldn't work under the conditions of the Depression, he finally gave in and used the government to intervene, but he received little or no credit for having done so. Conservatives could not say that he didn't give the old ways every chance to succeed, although he held out against using total government compulsion of business. As I noted in an earlier part of this series, Hoover refused to release his private papers from his White House days, even while he knew the papers would show many of his critics to be wrong about the charges of inaction against the Depression and an uncaring attitude toward the suffering of so many during those times.

WORD HISTORY:
Bough-This word, with the modern meaning of "branch of a tree," traces back to Indo European "bhaghus," which meant "arm, elbow." This gave its Old Germanic offspring "boguz," which moved the meaning upwards on the arm to "shoulder, upper arm." This gave Old English (Anglo-Saxon) "bog" (with a long "o"), with the same meanings, but including "arm," in general. The idea of "shoulder, arm" led to a secondary meaning, "branch, limb of a tree," which gradually developed into the main meaning of the word. To this day, English is the only Germanic language to have developed this meaning. The spelling changed to "bough," and the "gh" was once pronounced in English, although we now say "bow," which rhymes with "how," and the word appears in the famous bedtime lullaby "Rock a bye baby, on the tree top, when the bough breaks, the cradle will fall." (Hey Mom! What the hell ya doin' putin' me way up here? I mean, down here?) German has "Bug" (long "u"), Low German has "Boog," Dutch has "boeg," West Frisian has "boech," Icelandic has "bógur," Norwegian and Swedish have "bog" and Danish has "bov." All of these mean "shoulder (usually of an animal) or bow, as in the part of a ship," although the meaning "shoulder" is now in more limited use in some of these languages.