Chapter 48 2. President Hoover looked in the mirror: he was not a human being inside and out

The 1932 presidential election kicked off in the midst of an economic depression. With 13 million unemployed people and a 25% unemployment rate, the incumbent President Hoover felt pressured.In the face of Democratic presidential candidate Roosevelt's fierce attack on economic policies since 1928 and his severe accusations of President Hoover's close relationship with Wall Street bankers, President Hoover kept an intriguing silence. The memo recorded his real thoughts like this: In response to Roosevelt's statement that I was responsible for the speculative frenzy (of 1929), I wondered whether the Fed's 1925-1928 period, under the influence of European powers, should be deliberately The responsibility for implementing the inflation policy was exposed. I was against this policy at the time.

President Hoover was indeed wronged. Although he was the president of the United States, he did not have much influence on economic policy and monetary policy.Since the government does not have the right to issue currency, any policy would be empty talk without the cooperation of the privately owned Federal Reserve Bank of New York. President Hoover's fall from favor on Wall Street began when he strayed from the bankers' established policy on the issue of German reparations.It turned out that the Younger Plan planned by Morgan in 1929 was at the cost of increasing Germany's debt burden. By issuing German bonds on Wall Street, it raised war reparations for Germany and made a fortune in the process of underwriting the bond issuance. .In May 1931, it was unexpected that shortly after the implementation of the plan, it would catch up with the financial crisis in Germany and Austria. The rescue operations of the Rothschild Family Bank and the Bank of England failed to curb the spread of the crisis. Wall Street bankers such as Morgan Unwilling to see the Younger project, which had just started a good start, die halfway, Morgan's partner Ramon immediately called President Hoover, asking the US government to agree to pay the German government the war debt and take a short vacation, waiting for the German government to pay the war debt. The financial crisis subsides and then recovers.Ramon also warned that if the European financial system collapses, the recession in the United States will also deepen.

President Hoover had already promised the French government that any matter involving German war reparations should be consulted first. As a politician, Hoover could not go back on his word, so Hoover immediately replied bluntly: I will consider this matter, but From a political point of view, this is not realistic.You can't stay in New York and understand the sentiment as a country about these inter-government debts. Ramon also put down his words unceremoniously: You must have heard a lot of rumors these days that someone is planning to sideline your team at the 1932 (Republican) convention.If you follow our plan, these rumors will disappear overnight.In the end, Ramon also handed over a carrot, and if it works, the president will take all the credit.The president considered it for a month, and finally had to bow his head.

In July 1932, Ramon once again sent someone to the White House to tell the president that he should reconsider the issue of Germany's war reparations. This time Hoover couldn't bear it anymore. He roared full of resentment and frustration: Ramon got the whole thing wrong .If there is one thing that the American people hate and dislike, it is that this collusion (forgiving or postponing the debts of Germany, Britain and France to the United States) violates their interests.Ramon didn't understand the anger (against the bankers) sweeping the country.They (bankers) want us (politicians) to be complicit in the gangsters too.Perhaps they (the bankers) had reached an agreement with the Germans on reparations, but it was done in the worst possible way.As a result, Hoover rejected Wall Street's demands, and France defaulted on its payments.

What made Wall Street bankers even more furious was the series of financial scandals brought about by President Hoover's pursuit of short-selling in the stock market. Forces gathered into a fury against Wall Street bankers.President Hoover believed that the public opinion was available, so he broke face with the bankers and wanted to make the problem bigger.Hoover denounced the New York stock market as a big casino run by bankers, and short-selling speculators in the market hindered the restoration of market confidence.He warned Whitney, president of the New York Stock Exchange, that if he did not restrict short-selling in the stock market, he would launch a congressional investigation and regulate the stock market.

Wall Street's answer to the president's demands was simple and crisp: Absurd! President Hoover, who was going to fight to the death, ordered the Senate Banking and Currency Committee to start investigating short-selling in the stock market.Frustrated, Wall Street immediately went to the White House to have lunch with the President and the Secretary of State in order to interrupt the investigation, but the President was unmoved. When the investigation expanded to the shady stock trading in the late 1920s, major and important cases were revealed one after another, and many stock market scandals such as Goldman Sachs Group and Morgan Corporation were revealed to the world.When the logical relationship between the stock market crash and the Great Depression was clearly shown to the public, the people's anger finally focused on the bankers.

And President Hoover and his official career were also ruined by the double anger of bankers and the people.Instead, Franklin was called the greatest president of the United States in the twentieth century︱Franklin.Delano.Roosevelt.