Speech No. 3

Across the hilly shoulders of Charleston, W. Va. was draped a grey shawl of early morning mist. From his Chesapeake & Ohio special President Hoover crossed to a stadium near the station. There a sleepy-eyed crowd, many school children, heard him tell how Charleston's chemical industry had waxed fat and strong behind the protecting bulwark of the Republican tariff. A lusty cheer rolled out when the President recalled that he, too, had once worked with pick & shovel in a mine.

Hoover on Harding. "This is my fourth visit to Marion," declared President Hoover during a two-minute stop at the home of the late Warren Gamaliel Harding. "I visited it in 1920 when your fellow-citizen was Republican candidate for President. I visited it again when we buried him, a man broken in the service of his country. I visited it again to dedicate the memorial you erected to his memory. There is no occasion for me to extol his great qualities of geniality, of friendship and devotion to his country ... to go into the sad disloyalties to him which crushed his spirit and brought humiliation to the American people."

At each of the 14 stops between Washington and Detroit President Hoover resolutely acted out his role of hearty campaigner.

Bitter Boos. When the Hoover special drew into hungry Detroit a raucous, disrespectful din arose from 500 out-of-workers, Bonuseers, Communists and disgruntled citizens massed about the station. For 25 minutes the President stuck to the safety of his private car. When he finally emerged, he got a bitter booing. Before his eyes waggled placards: "We Want Bonus." "Down With Hoover." "Hoover--Boloney & Apple Sauce." During the 20-minute drive to the Olympic Arena he was jeered and derided by sidewalk throngs. Inside the hall he was among 20,000 friends yelling and stamping their welcome. On the platform with him were Henry Ford, Governor Brucker, Senators Couzens and Vandenberg, Postmaster General Brown, Secretary of Commerce Chapin.

The President's Detroit speech was his long and familiar recital of his battles with Depression. As at Des Moines and Cleveland, he made the Democratic House and its legislative record his principal target.

Ten Stars. As proof of an economic-upturn, President Hoover cited ten stars in the murk since the Depression's low: 1) return from abroad of $300,000,000 in gold; 2) return of $250,000,000 in currency from domestic hoarding; 3) 20% increase in bond values; 4) 10% increase in manufacturing production; 5) increased building contracts; 6) a jump in weekly car loading from 490,000 to 650,000; 7) 22% increase in foreign trade; 8) improved agricultural prices ("though they are still hideously low") ; 9) "bank failures have almost ceased"; 10) increased manufacturing employment.

By Name. At Detroit President Hoover made campaign history by mentioning his Democratic opponent by name for the first time. He read a letter from Governor Roosevelt to one Lowe Shearon, a Manhattan "forgotten man," which he said had been widely circulated among the jobless. The letter: "I believe in the inherent right of every citizen to employment at a living wage and I pledge my support to whatever measures I may deem necessary for inaugurating self-liquidating public works ... to provide employment for all surplus labor at all times." Hotly the President declared:

"This letter was published . . . with the statement quoted from Governor Roosevelt, that it was substantially correct. ... It is a hope held out to the 10,000,000 men and women now unemployed and suffering that they will be given jobs by the Government. It is a promise no government could fulfill. It is utterly wrong to delude suffering men and women with such assurances. . . . There are a score of reasons why this whole plan is fantastic. ... I ask you whether or not such frivolous promises and dreams should be held out to suffering unemployed people. Is this the 'New Deal'?"

A highly esoteric argument on government finance developed when President Hoover warmly retorted to Governor Roosevelt's Pittsburgh address (see p. 12). The Democratic nominee had charged that from 1927 to 1931 the Republicans had upped the Federal budget a billion dollars which, if elected, he promised to eliminate. President Hoover replied that this increase was all for emergency relief, that the ordinary expenses of government had already been sharply curtailed.

The only way Governor Roosevelt could start to make good his promise to cut expenses by a billion, his Republican opponent strangely suggested, would be to abandon half the lighthouses along the coast, turn half the Federal prisoners loose on the public.

Aglow with satisfaction President Hoover returned to the station. There Henry Ford's private car ("Fairlane") was cut into the presidential special just ahead of the Hoover car. On the journey back to Washington where he and his wife were White House guests, Mr. Ford urged the President to extend his campaign, speak this week in Chicago and Indianapolis, go to California if necessary. Back in Washington, President Hoover made good his tariff talk by instructing the Tariff Commission to reinvestigate, in view of depreciated currencies in 30 foreign nations, the import duties on 16 commodities produced in 30 states. Meanwhile he fell to work on his Oct. 31 speech for Manhattan's Madison Square Garden.

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