Sublime

Like Dwight Eisenhower after World War II, Hoover was being courted by both parties and kept his own counsel.

By contrast, Hoover was pessimistic and bitter. He exuded defeat. Not hangdog, whipped-puppy defeat but the vanquishment of the proud, done in by hubris and conceit.

President Hoover’s solution to the Depression was still largely to maintain that it was over, and that proposals for direct federal aid for relief, or for increased spending on public works, were as unnecessary as debt relief for farmers—although thousands of American families were losing their farms, relief funds had run out for states and municip

At a far pole from accountable public trust, or constitutional duty, Hoover corrupted the FBI to wage political war.

As he saw it, the true problem with the economy was neither the injustice of capitalists nor the impatience of workers, but the inefficiency of objects. So much time and money were wasted on things that just didn’t work. Solve that problem, Hoover thought, and there’d be more than enough to go around. Standardizing and simplifying were, in his mind

Howe, the older man, always called Roosevelt by his first name and spoke out whenever he thought FDR was mistaken.