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gage in such vessel, vehicle, or bonded warehouse or oth-

erwise in customs custody or control, or aids or assists

therein; or if any person receives or transports any mer-

chandise or baggage unlawfully removed from any such

vessel, vehicle, or warehouse, knowing the same to have

been unlawfully removed, he shall be guilty of a felony and

liable to the same penalties as are imposed by section 593

of this Act.

Sec. 599. Interested officers.—No person employed

under the authority of the United States, in the collection

of duties on imports or tonnage, shall own, either in whole

or in part, any vessel, or act as agent, attorney, or consignee

for the owner or owners of any vessel, or of any cargo or

lading on board the same; nor shall any such person

import, or be concerned directly or indirectly in the impor-

tation, of any merchandise for sale into the United States.

Every person who violates this section shall be liable to a

penalty of $500.

Sec. 600. Gratuity.—Any officer or employee of the

United States who, except in payment of the duties or

exactions fixed by law, solicits, demands, exacts, or receives

from any person, directly or indirectly, any gratuity, money,

or thing of value, for any service performed under the cus-

toms laws, or in consideration of any official act to be per-

formed by him, or of the omission of performance of any

such act, in connection with or pertaining to the importa-

tion, entry, inspection or examination, or appraisement of

merchandise or baggage, shall be guilty of a misdemeanor

and on conviction thereof shall be punished by a fine not

exceeding $5,000, or by imprisonment for not more than

two years, or both, and evidence, satisfactory to the court

in which the trial is had, of such soliciting, demanding,

exacting, or receiving shall be prima facie evidence that

the same was contrary to law.

Sec. 601. Bribery.—Any person who gives, or offers

to give, or promises to give, any money or thing of value,

directly or indirectly, to any officer or employee of the

United States in consideration of or for any act or omis-

sion contrary to law in connection with or pertaining to

the importation, appraisement, entry, examination, or

inspection of merchandise or baggage, or of the liquida-

tion of the entry thereof, or by threats or demands or

promises of any character attempts to improperly in-

fluence or control any such officer or employee of

the United States as to the performance of his official

duties, shall be guilty of a misdemeanor and on convic-

tion thereof shall be punished by a fine not exceeding

$5,000 or by imprisonment for a term not exceeding

two years, or both, and evidence of such giving, offering

or promising to give, or attempting to influence or con-

trol, satisfactory to the court in which such trial is had,

shall be prima facie evidence that the same was contrary

to law.

Sec. 602. Seizure procedure—Report.—It shall be the

duty of any officer, agent, or other person authorized by

law to make seizures of merchandise or baggage subject to

seizure for violation of the customs laws, to report every

such seizure immediately to the collector for the district in

which such violation occurred, and to turn over and deliver

to such collector any vessel, vehicle, merchandise, or bag-

gage seized by him, and to report immediately to such col-

lector every violation of the customs laws.

* * *

Sec. 604. Same—Prosecution.—It shall be the duty of

every United States district attorney immediately to

inquire into the facts of cases reported to him by collectors

and the laws applicable thereto, and, if it appears probable

that any fine, penalty, or forfeiture has been incurred by

reason of such violation, for the recovery of which the

institution of proceedings in the united States district

court is necessary, forthwith to cause the proper proceed-

ings to be commenced and prosecuted, without delay, for

the recovery of such fine, penalty, or forfeiture in such case

provided, unless, upon inquiry and examination, such dis-

trict attorney decides that such proceedings can not prob-

ably be sustained. . . .

* * *

Sec. 608. Same—Claims.—Any person claiming such ves-

sel, vehicle, merchandise, or baggage may at any time

within twenty days from the date of the first publication of

the notice of seizure file with the collector a claim stating

his interest therein. . . .

Sec. 609. Same—Sale.—If no such claims is filed or

bond given within the twenty days herein before specified,

the collector shall declare the vessel, vehicle, merchandise,

or baggage forfeited, and shall sell the same at public auc-

tion in the same manner as merchandise abandoned to the

United States is sold, and shall deposit the proceeds of

sale, after deducting the actual expenses of seizure, publi-

cation and sale, in the Treasury of the United States.

* * *

Sec. 615. Burden of proof.—In all suits or actions brought

for the forfeiture of any vessel, vehicle, merchandise, or

baggage seized under the provisions of any law relating to

the collection of duties on imports or tonnage, where the

property is claimed by any person, the burden of proof

shall lie upon such claimant; and in all suits or actions

brought for the recovery of the value of any vessel, vehicle,

merchandise or baggage seized for violation of any such

law, the burden of proof shall be upon the defendant: Pro-

vided, That probable cause shall be first shown for the

institution of such suit or action, to be judged of by the

court.

1342 ERA 7: The Emergence of Modern America

* * *

Sec. 619. Award of compensation.—Any person not an

officer of the United States who detects and seizes any ves-

sel, vehicle merchandise, or baggage subject to seizure and

forfeiture under the customs laws and who reports the

same to an officer of the customs, or who furnishes to a

district attorney, to the Secretary of the Treasury, or to any

customs officer original information.

* * *

Sec. 622. Emergency of war.—Whenever the President

shall by proclamation declare an emergency to exist by rea-

son of a state of war, or otherwise, he may authorize the

Secretary of the Treasury to extend during the continuance

of such emergency the time herein prescribed for the per-

formance of any act.

Sec. 623. General regulations.—In addition to the

specific powers conferred by this Act, the Secretary of

the Treasury is authorized to make such rules and regula-

tions as may be necessary to carry out the provisions of

this Act.

* * *

Sec. 647. This Act may be cited as the “Tariff Act of 1922.”

Source:

Statutes at Large, Vol. 42, pp. 858–990.

Herbert Hoover,

“Rugged Individualism” Speech, 1928

Speech delivered in New York City by Republican presidential

candidate Herbert Hoover October 22, 1928, toward the close

of the election campaign. The phrase

rugged individualism

entered American culture as a way to describe conservative

economic philosophy. In this speech, Hoover condemned the

Democratic platform as a misguided attempt to solve the

problems of Prohibition, farm relief, and electrical power

through state socialism; he extolled free, private enterprise and

initiative—i.e., “rugged individualism”—as the foundation of

America’s “unparalleled greatness.” Government entry into

commercial business, he argued, would destroy political equal-

ity, increase corruption, stifle initiative, undermine the devel-

opment of leadership, extinguish opportunity, and “dry up the

spirit of liberty and progress.”

________________________

_______________________

This campaign now draws near to a close. The platforms of

the two parties defining principles and offering solutions

of various national problems have been presented and are

being earnestly considered by our people.

After four months’ debate it is not the Republican

Party which finds reason for abandonment of any of the

principles it has laid down or of the views it has expressed

for solution of the problems before the country. The prin-

ciples to which it adheres are rooted deeply in the founda-

tions of our national life and the solutions which it

proposed are based on experience with government and a

consciousness that it may have the responsibility for plac-

ing those solutions into action.

In my acceptance speech I endeavored to outline the

spirit and ideals with which I would propose to carry that

platform into administration. Tonight, I will not deal with

the multitude of issues which have been already well can-

vassed, I propose rather to discuss some of those more fun-

damental principles and ideals upon which I believe the

Government of the United States should be conducted.

Before I enter upon that discussion of principles I

wish to lay before you the proof of progress under Repub-

lican rule. In doing this I do not need to review its seventy

years of constructive history. That history shows that the

Republican party has ever been a party of progress. It has

reflected the spirit of the American people. We are a pro-

gressive people. Our history of 150 years in the greatest

epic of human progress. Tonight to demonstrate the con-

structive character of our Party, I need only briefly picture

the advance of fundamental progress during the past seven

and a half years since we took over the Government amidst

the ruin of war.

First of all, let me deal with the material side. I do this

because upon the well-being, comfort and security of the

American home do we build up the moral and spiritual

virtues as well as the finer flowers of civilization and the

wider satisfactions of life.

As a nation we came out of the war with great losses.

We made no profits from it. The apparent increases in

wages were fictitious. We were poorer as a nation when we

emerged from it. Yet during these last eight years we have

recovered from these losses and increased our national

income by over one-third even if we discount the inflation

of the dollar. While some individuals have grown rich, yet

that there has been a wide diffusion of our gain in wealth

and income is marked by a hundred proofs. I know of no

better test of the improved conditions of the average fam-

ily than the combined increase of life and industrial insur-

ance, building and loan assets, and savings deposits. These

are the financial agents of the average man. These alone

have in seven years increased by nearly 100 per cent to the

gigantic sum of over 50 billions of dollars, or nearly one-six

of our whole national wealth. In addition to these evi-

dences of larger savings our people are steadily increasing

their spending for higher standards of living. Today there

are almost 9 automobiles for each 10 families, where seven

and a half years ago only enough automobiles were run-

Postwar Economy 1343

ning to average less than 4 for each 10 families. The slogan

of progress is changing from the full dinner pail to the full

garage. Our people have more to eat, better things to wear,

and better homes. We have even gained in elbow room in

our homes, for the increase of residential floor space is

over 25 per cent with less than 10 per cent increase in our

number of people. We have increased the security of his

job to every man and woman. We have decreased the fear

of old age, the fear of poverty, the fear of unemployment

and these are fears which have always been amongst the

greatest calamities of human kind.

All this progress means far more than greater creature

comforts. It finds a thousand interpretations into a greater

and fuller life. In all this we have steadily reduced the

sweat in human labor. A score of new helps save the

drudgery of the home. In seven years we have added 25

per cent more electric power to the elbow of every worker,

and farther promoted him from a carrier of burdens to a

director of machines. Our hours of labor are lessened; our

leisure has increased. We have expanded our parks and

playgrounds. We have nearly doubled our attendance at

games. We pour into outdoor recreation in every direction.

The visitors at our national parks have trebled and we have

so increased the number of sportsmen fishing in our

streams and lakes that the longer time between bites is

becoming a political issue. In these seven and one- half

years the radio has brought music and laughter, education

and political discussion to almost every fireside.

Springing from our prosperity with its greater free-

dom, its vast endowment of scientific research and the

greater resources with which to care for public health, we

have according to our insurance actuaries during this short

period since the war lengthened the span of life by nearly

eight years. We have reduced infant mortality, we have

vastly decreased the days of illness and suffering in the life

of every man and woman. We have improved the facilities

for the care of the crippled and helpless and deranged.

From our increasing resources we have expanded our

educational system in eight years from an outlay of 1,200

millions to 2,700 millions of dollars. The education of our

youth has become almost the largest and certainly our

most important activity. From our ability to free youth

from toil we have increased the attendance in our grade

schools by 14 per cent, in our high schools by 80 per cent,

and in institutions of higher learning by 95 per cent. Today

we have more youth in these institutions of higher learning

twice over than all the rest of the world put together. We

have made progress in literature, art and in public taste.

I do not need to recite more figures and more evi-

dence. There is not a person within the sound of my voice

that does not know the profound progress which our coun-

try has made in this period. Every man and woman knows

that their comfort, their hopes and their confidence for the

future are higher this day than they were seven and one-

half years ago.

Your city has been an outstanding beneficiary of this

great progress. With its suburbs it has, during the last

seven and a half years grown by over a million and a half of

people, until it has become the largest metropolitan dis-

trict of all the world. Here you have made abundant

opportunity not only for the youth of the land but for the

immigrant from foreign shores. This city is the commercial

center of the United States. It is the commercial agent of

the American people. It is a great organism of specialized

skill and leadership in finance, industry and commerce,

which reaches every spot in our country. Its progress and

its beauty are the pride of the whole American people. It

leads our nation in the largest size of its benevolences, in

art, in music, literature and drama. It has come to have a

greater voice, than any other city in the United States.

But when all is said and done the very life, progress

and prosperity of this city is wholly dependent on the

prosperity of the 110,000,000 people who dwell in our

mountains and valleys across the 3,000 miles to the

Pacific Ocean. Every activity of this city is sensitive to

every evil and every favorable tide that sweeps this great

nation of ours. Be there a slackening of industry in any

part of the country it affects New York far more than the

rest of the country. In a time of depression one-quarter of

all the unemployed in the United States can be numbered

in this city. In a time of prosperity the citizens of the great

interior of our country pour into your city for business

and entertainment at the rate of 200,000 a day. In fact so

much is this city the reflex of the varied interests of our

country that the concern of every one of your citizens for

national stability, for national prosperity and for national

progress is far greater than any other single part of our

country.

Contributions to Progress

It detracts nothing from the character and energy of the

American people, it minimizes in no degree the quality of

their accomplishments to say that the policies of the

Republican Party have played a large part in the building

of this progress of these last seven and one-half years. I can

say with emphasis that without the wise policies which the

Republican Party has brought into action in this period, no

such progress would have been possible.

The first responsibility of the Republican Administra-

tion was to renew the march of progress from its collapse

by the war. That task involved the restoration of confi-

dence in the future and the liberation and stimulation of

the constructive energies of our people. It is not my pur-

pose to enter upon a detailed recitation of the history of

the great constructive measures of the past seven and a

half years.

1344 ERA 7: The Emergence of Modern America

It is sufficient to remind you of the restoration of

employment to the millions who walked your streets in

idleness to remind you of the creation of the budget sys-

tem; the reduction of six billions of national debt which

gave the impulse of that vast sum returned to industry and

commerce; the four sequent reductions of taxes and

thereby the lift to the living of every family; the enactment

of an adequate protective tariff and immigration laws

which have raised and safeguarded our wages from floods

of goods or labor from foreign countries; the creation of

credit facilities and many aids to agriculture; the building

up of foreign trade; the care of veterans, the development

of aviation, of radio, of our inland waterways, our high-

ways; the expansion of scientific research, of welfare activ-

ities, safer highways, safer mines, outdoor recreation, in

better homes, in public health and the care of children.

Nor do I need remind you that Government today deals

with an economic and social system vastly more intricate

and delicately adjusted than ever before. It now must be

kept in perfect tune if we would not, through dislocation,

have a breakdown in employment and in standards of liv-

ing of our people. The Government has come to more and

more touch this delicate web at a thousand points. Yearly

the relations of Government to national prosperity

becomes more and more intimate. It has only by keen

large vision and cooperation by the Government that sta-

bility in business and stability in employment has been

maintained during this past seven and a half years. Never

has there been a period when the Federal Government has

given such aid and impulse to the progress of our people,

not alone to economic progress but to development of

those agencies which make for moral and spiritual

progress.

But in addition to this great record of contributions of

the Republican Party to progress, there has been a further

fundamental contribution—a contribution perhaps more

important than all the others—and that is the resistance of

the Republican Party to every attempt to inject the Gov-

ernment into business in competition with its citizens.

After the war, when the Republican Party assumed

administration of the country, we were faced with the

problem of determination of the very nature of our

national life. Over 150 years we have builded up a form of

self-government and we had builded up a social system

which is peculiarly our own. It differs fundamentally from

all others in the world. It is the American system. It is just

as definite and positive a political and social system as has

ever been developed on earth. It is founded upon the

conception that self-government can be preserved only

by decentralization of Government in the State and by

fixing local responsibility; but further than this, it is

founded upon the social conception that only through

ordered liberty, freedom and equal opportunity to the

individual will his initiative and enterprise drive the

march of progress.

During the war we necessarily turned to the Govern-

ment to solve every difficult economic problem—the Gov-

ernment having absorbed every energy of our people to

war there was no other solution. For the preservation of

the State the Government became a centralized despotism

which undertook responsibilities, assumed powers, exer-

cised rights, and took over the business of citizens. To large

degree we regimented our whole people temporarily into

a socialistic state. However justified it was in time of war if

continued in peace time it would destroy not only our sys-

tem but progress and freedom in our own country and

throughout the world. When the war closed the most vital

of all issues was whether Governments should continue

war ownership and operation of many instrumentalities of

production and distribution. We were challenged with the

choice of the American system rugged individualism or the

choice of a European system of diametrically opposed doc-

trines—doctrines of paternalism and state socialism. The

acceptance of these ideas meant the destruction of self-

government through centralization of government; it

meant the undermining of initiative and enterprise upon

which our people have grown to unparalleled greatness.

The Democratic administration cooperated with the

Republican Party to demobilize many of her activities and

the Republican Party from the beginning of its period of

power resolutely turned its face away from these ideas and

these war practices, back to our fundamental conception

of the state and the rights and responsibilities of the indi-

vidual. Thereby it restored confidence and hope in the

American people, it freed and stimulated enterprise, it

restored the Government to its position as an umpire

instead of a player in the economic game. For these rea-

sons the American people have gone forward in progress

while the rest of the world is halting and some countries

have even gone backwards. If anyone will study the causes

which retarded recuperation of Europe, he will find much

of it due to the stifling of private initiative on one hand,

and overloading of the Government with business on the

other.

I regret, however, to say that there has been revived in

this campaign a proposal which would be a long step to the

abandonment of our American system, to turn to the idea

of government in business. Because we are faced with dif-

ficulty and doubt over certain national problems which we

are faced—that is prohibition, farm relief and electrical

power—our opponents propose that we must to some

degree thrust government into these businesses and in

effect adopt state socialism as a solution.

There is, therefore submitted to the American people

the question—Shall we depart from the American system

and start upon a new road. And I wish to emphasize this

Postwar Economy 1345

question on this occasion. I wish to make clear my position

on the principles involved for they go to the very roots of

American life in every act of our Government. I should like

to state to you the effect of the extension of government

into business upon our system of self government and our

economic system. But even more important is the effect

upon the average man. That is the effect on the very basis

of liberty and freedom not only to those left outside the

fold of expanded bureaucracy but to those embraced

within it.

When the Federal Government undertakes a busi-

ness, the state governments are at once deprived of control

and taxation of that business; when the state government

undertakes a business it at once deprived the municipali-

ties of taxation and control of that business. Business

requires centralization; self government requires decen-

tralization. Our government to succeed in business must

become in effect a despotism. There is thus at once an

insidious destruction of self government.

Moreover there is a limit to human capacity in admin-

istration. Particularly is there a limit to the capacity of leg-

islative bodies to supervise governmental activities. Every

time the Federal Government goes into business 530 Sen-

ators and Congressmen become the Board of Directors of

that business. Every time a state government goes into

business 100 or 200 state senators and assemblymen

become directors of that business. Even if they were

supermen, no bodies of such numbers can competently

direct that type of human activities which requires instant

decision and action. No such body can deal adequately

with all sections of the country. And yet if we would pre-

serve government by the people we must preserve the

authority of our legislators over the activities of our Gov-

ernment. We have trouble enough with log rolling in leg-

islative bodies today. It originates naturally from desires of

citizens to advance their particular section or to secure

some necessary service. It would be multiplied a thousand-

fold were the Federal and state governments in these busi-

nesses.

The effect upon our economic progress would be even

worse. Business progressiveness is dependent on competi-

tion. New methods and new ideas are the outgrowth of the

spirit of adventure of individual initiative and of individual

enterprise. Without adventure there is no progress. No

government administration can rightly speculate and take

risks with taxpayers’ money. But even more important than

this—leadership in business must be through the sheer

rise of ability and character. That rise can take place only

in the free atmosphere of competition. Competition is

closed by bureaucracy. Certainly political choice is a feeble

basis for choice of leaders to conduct a business.

There is no better example of the practical incompe-

tence of government to conduct business than the history

of our railways. Our railways in the year before being freed

from Government operation were not able to meet the

demands for transportation. Eight years later we find our

them under private enterprise, transporting 15 per cent

more goods and meeting every demand for service. Rates

have been reduced by 15 per cent and net earnings

increased from less than 1 per cent on their valuation to

about 5 per cent. Wages of employees have improved by

13 per cent. The wages of railway employees are 2 per cent

above pre-war. The wages of Government employees are

today . . . will check their figure definitely tomorrow but

probably about 70% per cent above pre-war. That should

be a sufficient sermon upon the efficiency of Government

operation.

But we can examine this question from the point of

view of the person who gets a Government job and is

admitted into the new bureaucracy. Upon that subject let

me quote from a speech of that great leader of labor,

Samuel Gompers, delivered in Montreal in 1920, a few

years before his death. He said:

“I believe there is no man to whom I would take sec-

ond position in my loyalty to the Republic of the United

States, and yet I would not give it more power over the

individual citizenship of our country. . . .

“It is a question of whether it shall be Government

ownership or private ownership under control. . . . If I

were in the minority of one in this convention, I would

want to cast my vote so that the men of labor shall not will-

ingly enslave themselves to Government authority in their

industrial effort for freedom. . . .

“Let the future tell the story of who is right or who is

wrong; who has stood for freedom and who has been will-

ing to submit their fate industrially to the Government.”

I would amplify Mr. Gompers’ statement. These

great bodies of Government employees would either

comprise political machines at the disposal of the party in

power, or alternatively to prevent this the Government by

stringent civil-service rules must debar its employees

from their full rights as free men. If it would keep

employees out of politics, its rules must strip them of all

right to expression of opinion. It is easy to conceive that

they might become so large a body as by their votes to dic-

tate to the Government and their political rights need be

further reduced. It must strip them of the liberty to bar-

gain for their own wages, for no Government employee

can strike against his Government and thus the whole

people. It makes a legislative body with all its political

currents their final employer. That bargaining does not

rest upon economic need or economic strength but on

political potency.

But what of those who are outside the bureaucracy?

What is the effect upon their lives of the Government on

business and these hundreds of thousands more officials?

1346 ERA 7: The Emergence of Modern America

At once their opportunities in life are limited because

a large area of activities are removed from their participa-

tion. Further the Government does not tolerate amongst

its customers the freedom of competitive reprisals to

which private corporations are subject. Bureaucracy does

not spread the spirit of independence; it spreads the spirit

of submission into our daily life, penetrates the temper of

our people; not with the habit of powerful resistance to

wrong, but with the habit of timid acceptance of the irre-

sistible might.

Bureaucracy is ever desirous of spreading its influence

and its power. You cannot give to a government the mas-

tery of the daily working life of a people without at the

same time giving it mastery of the peoples’ souls and

thoughts. Every expansion of government means that gov-

ernment in order to protect itself from political conse-

quences of its errors and wrongs is driven onward and

onward without peace to greater and greater control of the

country’s press and platform. Free speech does not live

many hours after free industry and free commerce die.

It is false liberalism that interprets itself into the Gov-

ernment operation of business. The bureaucratization of

our country would poison the very roots of liberalism that

is free speech, free assembly, free press, political equality

and equality of opportunity. It is the road, not to more lib-

erty, but to less liberty. Liberalism should be found not

striving to spread bureaucracy, but striving to set bounds to

it. True liberalism seeks freedom first in the confident

belief that without freedom the pursuit of all other bless-

ings and benefits is vain. That belief is the foundation of all

American progress, political as well as economic.

Liberalism is a force truly of the spirit, a force pro-

ceeding from the deep realization that economic freedom

cannot be sacrificed if political freedom is to be pre-

served. Even if governmental conduct of business could

give us more efficiency instead of giving us decreased effi-

ciency, the fundamental objection to it would remain

unaltered and unabated. It would destroy political equal-

ity. It would cramp and cripple mental and spiritual ener-

gies of our people. It would dry up the spirit of liberty and

progress. It would extinguish equality of opportunity, and

for these reasons fundamentally and primarily it must be

resisted. For a hundred and fifty years liberalism has

found its true spirit in the American system, not in the

European systems.

I do not wish to be misunderstood in this statement. I

am defining a general policy! It does not mean that our

government is to part with one iota of its national resources

without complete protection to the public interest. I have

already stated that where the government is engaged in

public works for purposes of flood control, of navigation, of

irrigation, of scientific research or national defense that, or

in pioneering a new art, it will at times necessarily produce

power or commodities as a by-product. But they must be

by-products, not the major purpose.

Nor do I wish to be misinterpreted as believing that

the United States is free-for-all and the devil- take-the-

hindmost. The very essence of equality of opportunity is

that there shall be no domination by any group or trust or

combination in this republic, whether it be business or

political. It demands economic justice as well as political

and social justice. It is no system to laissez faire.

There is but one consideration in testing these propos-

als—that is public interest. I do not doubt the sincerity of

those who advocate these methods of solving our problems.

I believe they will give equal credit to our honesty. If I

believed that the adoption of such proposals would

decrease taxes, cure abuses or corruption, would produce

better service, decrease rates or benefit employees; If I

believed they would bring economic equality, would stimu-

late endeavor, would encourage invention and support indi-

vidual initiative, would provide equality of opportunity; If I

believed that these proposals would not wreck our democ-

racy but would strengthen the foundations of social and

spiritual progress in America—or if they would do a few of

these things—then I would not hesitate to accept these

proposals, stupendous as they are, even though such accep-

tance would result in the governmental operation of all our

power and the buying and selling of the products of our

farms or any other product. But it is not true that such ben-

efits would result to the public. The contrary would be true.

I feel deeply on this subject because during the war I

had some practical experience with governmental opera-

tion and control. I have witnessed not only at home but

abroad the many failures of government in business. I have

seen its tyrannies, its injustices, its undermining of the very

instincts which carry our people forward to progress. I

have witnessed the lack of advance, the lowered standards

of living, the depressed spirits of people working under

such a system. My objection is based not upon theory or

upon a failure to recognize wrong or abuse but because I

know that the adoption of such methods would strike at

the very roots of American life and would destroy the very

basis of American progress.

Our people have the right to know whether we can

continue to solve our great problems without abandon-

ment of our American system. I know we can. We have

demonstrated that our system is responsive enough to

meet any new and intricate development in our economic

and business life. We have demonstrated that we can

maintain our democracy as master in its own house and

that we can preserve equality of opportunity and individ-

ual freedom.

In the last fifty years we have discovered that mass

production will produce articles for us at half the cost that

obtained previously. We have seen the resultant growth of

Postwar Economy 1347

large units of production and distribution. This is big busi-

ness. Business must be bigger for our tools are bigger, our

country is bigger. We build a single dynamo of a hundred

thousand horsepower. Even fifteen years ago that would

have been a big business all by itself. Yet today advance in

production requires that we set ten of these units together.

Our great problem is to make certain that while we

maintain the fullest use of the large units of business yet

that they shall be held subordinate to the public interest.

The American people from bitter experience have a right-

ful fear that these great units might be used to dominate

our industrial life and by illegal and unethical practices

destroy equality of opportunity. Years ago the Republican

Administration established the principle that such evils

could be corrected by regulation. It developed methods

by which abuses could be prevented and yet the full value

of economic advance retained for the public. It insisted

that when great public utilities were clothed with the

security of part monopoly, whether it be railways, power

plants, telephones or what not, then there must be the

fullest and most complete control of rates, services, and

finances by governmental agencies. These businesses

must be conducted with glass pockets. In the develop-

ment of our great production industry, the Republican

Party insisted upon the enactment of a law that not only

would maintain competition but would destroy conspira-

cies to dominate and limit the equality of opportunity

amongst our people.

One of the great problems of government is to deter-

mine to what extent the Government itself shall interfere

with commerce and industry and how much it shall leave

to individual exertion. It is just as important that business

keep out of government as that government keep out of

business. No system is perfect. We have had abuses in the

conduct of business that every good citizen resents. But I

insist that the results show our system better than any

other and retains the essentials of freedom.

As a result of our distinctly American system our

country has become the land of opportunity to those born

without inheritance not merely because of the wealth of its

resources and industry but because of this freedom of ini-

tiative and enterprise. Russia has natural resources equal

to ours. Her people are equally industrious but she has not

had the blessings of 150 years of our form of government

and of our social system. The wisdom of our forefathers in

their conception that progress must be the sum of the

progress of free individuals has been reenforced by all of

the great leaders of the country since that day. Jackson,

Lincoln, Cleveland, McKinley, Roosevelt, Wilson, and

Coolidge have stood unalterably for these principles. By

adherence to the principles of decentralization, self-gov-

ernment, ordered liberty, and opportunity and freedom to

the individual our American experiment has yielded a

degree of well-being unparalleled in all the world. It has

come nearer to the abolition of poverty, to the abolition of

fear of want that humanity has ever reached before.

Progress of the past seven years is the proof of it. It fur-

nishes an answer to those who would ask us to abandon the

system by which this has been accomplished.

There is a still further road to progress which is con-

sonant with our American system—a method that rein-

forces our individualism by reducing, not increasing,

Government interference in business.

In this country we have developed a higher sense of

cooperation than has ever been known before. This has

come partly as the result of stimulation during the war,

partly from the impulses of industry itself. We have ten

thousand examples of this cooperative tendency in the

enormous growth of the associational activities during

recent years. Chambers of commerce, trade associations,

professional associations, labor unions, trade councils, civic

associations, farm cooperatives—these are all so embrac-

ing that there is scarcely an individual in our country who

does not belong to one or more of them. They represent

every phase of our national life both on the economic and

the welfare side. They represent a vast ferment toward

conscious cooperation. While some of them are selfish and

narrow, the majority of them recognize a responsibility to

the public as well as to their own interest.

The government in its obligation to the public can

through skilled specialists cooperate with these various

associations for the accomplishment of high public pur-

poses. And this cooperation can take two distinct direc-

tions. The first is in the promotion of constructive projects

of public interest, such as the elimination of waste in

industry, the stabilization of business and development of

scientific research. It can contribute to reducing unem-

ployment and seasonal employment. It can by organized

cooperation assist and promote great movements for bet-

ter homes, for child welfare and for recreation.

The second form that this cooperation can take is in

the cure of abuses and the establishment of a higher code

of ethics and a more strict standard in its conduct of busi-

ness. One test of our economic and social system is its

capacity to cure its own abuses. New abuses and new

relationships to the public interest will occur as long as

we continue to progress. If we are to be wholly depen-

dent upon government to cure every evil we shall by this

very method have created an enlarged and deadening

abuse through the extension of bureaucracy and the

clumsy and incapable handling of delicate economic

forces. And much abuse has been and can be cured by

inspiration and cooperation, rather than by regulation of

the government.

Nor is this any idealistic proposal. For the last seven

years the Department of Commerce has carried this into

1348 ERA 7: The Emergence of Modern America

practice in hundreds of directions and every single accom-

plishment of this character minimizes the necessity for

government interference with business.

All this is possible because of the cooperative spirit

and ability at team play in the American people. There is

here a fundamental relief from the necessity of extension

of the government into every avenue of business and wel-

fare and therefore a powerful implement for the promo-

tion of progress.

I wish to say something more on what I believe is the

outstanding ideal in our whole political, economic and

social system—that is equality of opportunity. We have

carried this ideal farther into our life than has any other

nation in the world. Equality of opportunity is the right

of every American, rich or poor, foreign or native born,

without respect to race or faith or color, to attain that

position in life to which his ability and character entitle

him. We must carry this ideal further than to economic

and political fields alone. The first steps to equality of

opportunity are that there should be no child in America

that has not been born and does not live under sound

conditions of health, that does not have full opportunity

for education from the beginning to the end of our in-

stitutions, that is not free from injurious labor, that does

not have stimulation to accomplish to the fullest of its

capacities.

It is a matter for concern to our Government that we

shall strengthen the safeguards to health, that we shall

strengthen the bureaus given to research, that we shall

strengthen our educational system at every point, that we

shall develop cooperation by our Federal Government

with state governments and with the voluntary bodies of

the country that we may bring not only better understand-

ing but action in these matters.

Furthermore, equality of opportunity in my vision

requires an equal opportunity to the people in every sec-

tion of our country. In these past few years some groups

in our country have lagged behind others in the march of

progress. They have not had the same opportunity. I refer

more particularly to those engaged in the textile, coal and

in the agricultural industries. We can assist in solving

these problems by cooperation of our Government. To

the agricultural industry we shall need advance initial

capital to assist them, to stabilize and conduct their own

industry. But this proposal is that they shall conduct it

themselves, not by the Government. It is in the interest of

our cities that we shall bring agriculture into full stability

and prosperity. I know you will cooperate gladly in the

faith that in the common prosperity of our country lies

its future.

Source:

Herbert Hoover. Public Papers of the Presidents of the United

States: Herbert Hoover, 1929–33. 4 vols. Washington, D.C.:

Government Printing Office, 1974–77.