Brandon Rottinghaus

В июле 2004 года Брандоном Роттинхаусом планируется защита его докторской дисертации (Ph.D) в Northwestern University. Тема работы - “Presidential Responsiveness to Public Opinion: Patterns of Presidential Policy Making from Dwight Eisenhower to G.H.W. Bush.” Его руководителем является известный историк президентской власти профессор Benjamin I. Page.

Недавно Б. Роттинхаусом была опубликована статья “Reassessing Public Opinion Polling in the Truman Administration.” // Presidential Studies Quarterly, June 2003, Volume 33, 325-332, принципиально углубляющая понимание процесса становления властной функции общественного мнения в США. Характерной особенностью стиля Б. Роттиннхауса является вниимательное, скрупулезное отношение к фактам прошлого и их современная интерпретация. 

Настоящая статья опубликована в American Politics Research, September 2003, Volume 31, pp. 540-556. На сайте она размещена с любезного разрешения автора.

Профессор Борис Докторов

This article adds to the recent literature on the development and institutionalization of the public opinion apparatus in the White House by exploring the internal process for gauging public opinion during the Administration of Herbert Hoover. Although descriptions of the public opinion polling apparatus, which developed in the White House under President Franklin D. Roosevelt, are rich, there are few analytical descriptions of the early public opinion apparatus.

This article explains the process of gauging public opinion during the Hoover Administration through the systematic collection, synthesis and analysis of White House opinion data from newspaper editorials. In addition, this article describes the use of this data during three major events in the Hoover White House: the stock market crash in 1929, the outcome of the 1930 Congressional elections and the Soldiers’ Bonus Bill in 1931. In each case, institutional procedures primarily allowed President Hoover to follow, rather than manipulate, public opinion.

Recent studies have described the development and institutionalization of the public opinion polling apparatus in the White House and the systematic analysis of the opinion polling data (Jacobs, 1992; Jacobs & Shaprio, 1995; Eisinger & Brown, 1998; Eisinger 2002). However, few of these studies explore attempts by early presidents to gauge opinion without polling or analyze the content of the opinion gathered.

Eisinger (2000) offers an instructive introductory review of the institutionalization of the public opinion apparatus, through newspaper editorial summaries, in the administration of Herbert Hoover. This article builds on this work by analyzing the editorial summaries collected by the Hoover White House concerning three important issues during the Administration of Herbert Hoover: the stock market crash of 1929, the 1930 midterm Congressional elections and the advance payment of the World War I Soldiers’ Bonus in 1931. These case studies illuminate the institutional development of the public opinion apparatus in the White House and further examine the relationship between presidents and public opinion.

Public opinion has always been an important concern of presidents since public opinion represents an invaluable resource in presidential leadership of public policy (see Kernell, 1986). Jacobs (1992) argues that the development of the public opinion apparatus in the White House has allowed public officials to place “greater importance on anticipating the public’s reaction to policy alternatives” (213) and therefore shapes policy actions congruent with public opinion.

Although presidents are hypothesized to pursue public opinion manipulation as a political strategy, scholars have been limited to describing this phenomenon to presidents who utilized mass opinion surveys to gauge public opinion.

This article broadens this perspective by describing the specific pre-polling measures of gauging public opinion in the White House when fewer opportunities to lead or manipulate public opinion existed. This article explores this limitation by examining the context of important events during the Administration of Herbert Hoover and describing the internal White House data that were used in a reactive way to interpret these events.

Hoover’s Public Opinion Apparatus

President Hoover served at a time before public opinion polling was an ubiquitous mechanism to gauge public opinion (Gallup & Rae, 1940; Converse, 1987). Consequently, the Hoover Administration was limited in its ability to gauge mass popular opinion except through the occasional straw poll.[2] Hoover, however, was the first president to systematize the collection of opinion data in the White House and the first to utilize confidential aggregate newspaper editorials to measure public opinion (Eisinger, 2000). Hoover and his staff took these aggregate editorial opinion summaries as tantamount to mass public opinion, as was a common practice of the day by politicians (Herbst, 1993; Geer 1996). These newspaper editorials were thought to reflect the broad sentiments of the region in question. The election of Franklin D. Roosevelt in 1932 ushered in substantial procedural changes within the White House, including the use of survey data to measure public opinion, a more centralized structure of analyzing opinion data with Roosevelt at the core and the assignment of several key staff members to synthesize the incoming opinion data (Eisinger & Brown, 1998; Holli, 2002). The process of gauging public opinion through newspaper editorials seems to have vanished with the advent of public opinion polls.

Theodore Joslin (Secretary to President Hoover) noted that the Hoover White House editorial summaries included “selected daily articles and editorials from five hundred newspapers published throughout the country. This gave him [Hoover] a thorough cross-section.  It presented all shades of public opinion…. I can testify that he read them – and got more bad news than good” (Joslin, 1934, 38). Joslin also kept an entry log of individual editorialists, the paper they worked for and a short description of their partisan leanings. For example, “Walker S. Buel. Cleveland Plain Dealer. Independent and Democratic,” “James L. Wright. Buffalo Evening News. Able writer and fair. His paper is 100 percent Republican and strong for Hoover,” and “G. Gould Lincoln.  Washington Evening Star. Always pro-administration, whatever it is.”[3] Further, in a letter to Adolph S. Ochs, French Strother (Administrative Assistant to the President) notes:

I personally scan daily analyses of editorial opinion covering 700 leading newspapers from every part of the country and representing every shade of opinion, and I also read many representative editorials selected from these papers. Quite the most striking impression received from this daily “finger on the pulse” is the astonishing degree to which the President retains leadership of public opinion and confidence in the midst of the immense complexities and difficulties of the time.[4]

The Herbert Hoover Presidential Archive contains six linear feet of the Administration’s editorial analysis reports on 346 issues over a four year period.[5] Systematic and quantitative summaries were conducted on many issues, including Prohibition, the Smoot-Hawley Tariff legislation and the Wickersham Crime Commission. The editorials summarized were subdivided into explanatory categories such as “Qualified approval [for the administration],” “Democratic leaning paper,” “Hearst Paper,” “Republican Paper,” or “Independent Paper.”[6] A memo explaining the process describes the following:

Analysis [sic] are made of the editorials daily, weekly, monthly, and in some cases yearly. These analyses show in greater or less detail the number of favorable and unfavorable editorials by states including the percentage of total daily circulation within the state, and a list of the papers for and against. Editorials on each subject are also classified under certain general types according to the main point brought out in each case.[7]

The total newspaper editorial circulation figures reported in the summary results were taken as a rough measure of the number of people who already subscribed to a particular view or who may eventually come to that opinion.

This “clippings bureau” was located in the Department of Justice’s Bureau of Investigation supervised by Edward Deeters and Ernest Priest.[8] The reason these documents originated at the Department of Justice is not known. However, the fact that each of the documents was stamped “CONFIDENTIAL” and evidence of early attempts by presidents at hiding the public opinion apparatus indicates that the President may have desired a private location within the Executive Branch to store the opinion data (Jacobs & Shapiro, 1995). Because presidents feared being accused of using data to manipulate public opinion, presidents sought to limit the public’s exposure to such tools.

The Stock Market Crash

The stock market crash on Black Tuesday, October 29, 1929, and the sharp economic downturn that followed was easily the most dramatic event of Hoover’s presidency. It was ironic that an event which would come to irreparably damage Hoover’s presidency would occur during a time when Hoover was considered at the height of his power (Fausold, 1985). Warren (1959) notes, “a depression does not start on the stroke of a clock, but there is no doubt that preliminary events reached a climax on 29 October and thus inaugurated the Great Depression” (98). Although history points to this event as the seminal origin of the worst economic slump in United States history, the editorial opinion summaries collected by the Hoover White House may have initially lessened the Administration’s concern about the severity of the problem. The Administration did not publicly address the market devaluation until several days after the event while Hoover held steadfast to the notion that economic laws and a conservative fiscal philosophy would allow the economy to self-correct (Warren, 1959).

Table 1 aggregates the total number of editorials summarized in the categories developed by the Hoover White House in the days preceding the market crash. Several trends are important to note. First, the number of editorialists that believe the country to be “prosperous and business sound” declines over the course of the week after the crash but remained high over the course of this period, suggesting a signal that no panic was imminent. In Hoover’s first public comment on the situation, six days after the crash, he stated “the fundamental business of this country, that is, production and distribution, is on a sound and prosperous basis” (quoted in Fausold, 1985, 74). The similarity of language between the editorials who viewed the country “sound and prosperous” (as counted in the data) and Hoover’s statement is striking. This suggests a connection between Hoover’s rhetoric and the opinion data collected.

Second, a majority of the editorials coded by the White House were included in the category “discuss and discourage speculation.” Wild stock speculation was the most commonly argued cause of the crash at the time, and Hoover nonchalantly argued in his November 5^th news conference that, “we have a period of overspeculation [sic] that are more or less uncontrollable, as evidenced by the efforts of the Federal Reserve Board, and that ultimately results in a crash due to its own weight.”[9] In his memoirs, Hoover reiterated that the causes of the Depression were due, for the most part, to speculation and credit inflation (Hoover, 1952). Hoover argued that the market had corrected itself, and the editorial opinion analyzed by the Hoover White House seemed to reinforce this view.

Third, the number of editorials that expressed a positive effect of the market crash, captured in the last row of Table 1, declined from 21 on November 2^nd to 17 on November 4^th to 8 on November 6^th. Subsequent to November 7^th, no additional editorials were coded in the positive results category. The rapid market downturn may have initially been viewed positively since the market seemed to have self-corrected. However, the November 7^th White House summary notes “The emphasis has changed somewhat. Comment on prosperity and general business is waning as well as comment on the President’s Statement.”[10] By mid-November, Hoover “had moved with dispatch to try to avert a possible depression” (Fausold, 1985, 75). Slowly, the Hoover Administration, as well as the entire country, began to grasp the enormity of the problem.

TABLE 1

Editorial Summaries Relating to Market Crash of 1929

NOTE: indicates no editorials were coded in this category for the date in question. All data taken from Herbert Hoover Presidential Archive, Presidential Papers – Press Relations, Box 1172, “Stock Market to Swope Stabilization Program.”  Data compiled by the author.

The opinion data collected by the Hoover White House gave the Administration a resource to test public opinion afterthe impact of the market crash and check if President Hoover was effectively following public opinion. The data show that the editorial opinion was not overly concerned with the potential disastrous effects of the market crash. Ultimately, however, Hoover’s lack of action or alarm may have been his downfall. Democrats in the 1932 campaign would label him unsympathetic and inattentive, and the election issues would link Hoover to all of the country’s economic woes (Warren, 1959). The public opinion data, however, showed no mass panic in the days immediately preceding the crash, and the Administration may have thought its actions were following public opinion.

The 1930 Midterm Elections

The midterm Congressional elections in 1930 were a devastating defeat for President Hoover and the Republican Party. In total, the Republican Party lost 49 seats in the House and 8 seats in the Senate. These elections did not give the Democratic Party a majority in either house but the elections sent a powerful signal to an already embattled Administration. The result of the elections produced a slim Republican 220 to 214 (and one Farmer-Labor Party) margin in the House and a slimmer 48 to 47 (and one Farmer-Labor Party) margin in the Senate (Stanley & Niemi, 1992; Warren, 1959). Although the Republican Party maintained control of Congress, President Hoover’s party support was significantly weakened by 1931.

Similar to most other presidents, Hoover desired a broad explanation for the outcome of the elections (Conley, 2001). Elections serve as a direct, if sometimes unclear, conduit for the translation of public opinion to elected officials. The White House needed a clear interpretation of the reasons behind such a dramatic loss to be able to effectively promote their agenda in the coming legislative session and to set the groundwork for the 1932 presidential election. The editorial summaries collected by the White House served to offer a quantitative national interpretation of the election results, and to determine the contours of public opinion to respond effectively.

Table 2 (to get Table 2 send your request to the author) summarizes the results from several days following the elections on November 4, 1930. [11] The original summary results did not include a summary total of the day’s editorial circulation nor did it include a daily percentage. These figures were calculated by the author to provide comparisons between the dates and a consistent trend analysis. The results may have gratified the Hoover White House. The data show that a consistent plurality of the editorialists believed that the election results were resultant from two primary issues: the economic slump related to the depression and the prohibition issue. The fact that these editorialists pinned the election on issues, rather than on Hoover personally, must have been gratifying to the White House. That the election outcome was about the “dry” issue in particular was a clear plurality of the sentiments expressed by the editorials counted. By early 1931, the enforcement of the 18^th Amendment had become largely ineffective and public support was quickly declining (Fausold, 1985). The results of the Hoover White House opinion summary surrounding the issue of Prohibition capture the heated conflict over the potential repeal of the Amendment within the context of the election.

Of similar edification to the Hoover White House may have been the percentage of editorials that argued the election was a “rebuke to the leaders of the G.O.P.” This category was consistently higher than the category of editorials who argued the election represented was a rebuke to Hoover or to the Administration. Hoover himself blamed the election outcome on the lack of Republican unity and the failure of many prominent Republican party members, such as Coolidge’s former secretary Edward T. Clark, to support him (Fausold, 1985). Further, the percentage of editorials that argued that the election demonstrated an increasing independence of the electorate grew to be one of the top factors in the election by November 14^th. This seems to deflect blame away from the Hoover White House and towards the Republican Party.

The results of Table 3 show a continuing favorable trend for the Hoover Administration. Table 3 is a reproduction of a document contained with the other editorial summaries collected by the Hoover White House. The document calculates the total circulation of the papers included in the editorial summary sample for the category that argued the election was a “rebuke” to President Hoover. This document then breaks down this category by perceived partisanship. These data show that those editorials which were coded as “Rebuke to the President” were overwhelmingly Democratic or independent (but leaning Democratic) papers. Almost half, 46.9%, of the editorials run in papers, with circulation of 3,306,700, were considered Democratic papers by the Administration. In contrast, only 5.6% (circulation 395,000) and 11.2% (circulation 769,000) of papers that were considered Republican or independent (but favoring the Administration) considered the election to be a rebuke to the President personally. The Hoover White House was likely more than happy to dismiss the results of a seemingly partisan conclusion.

TABLE 3. “Summary of Election Results”. Reports Nov. 8 to 14 Inclusive “Rebuke to President”

NOTE: Document reproduced verbatim from data at Herbert Hoover Presidential Archive, Presidential Papers – Press Relations, Box 1165, “Editorial Analysis – Adams to Grande,” November 17, 1930. The table as originally organized is somewhat difficult to read. The important interpretation is the statistical percentage in each row.

Fausold (1985) argues that the Republican Party losses in 1930 were inevitable given “the agricultural depression, the western drought, the general economic conditions, the pro-business stance of the administration, the president’s internationalism, and the president-without-supporters syndrome” (103). In contrast to this account, the Hoover White House’s internal public opinion data indicated otherwise. The editorial opinion data collected informed the Hoover Administration that the election was primarily a result of the issues relating to the depression and prohibition. Further, the data suggest that the Administration should not necessarily consider the election a rebuke to Hoover personally but rather a rebuke to the leadership in the Republican Party.  The data may have also suggested certain partisan leanings at odds with the ideology of the Hoover White House. These data may have not erased the sting of the significant party losses, but it may have offered a new interpretation of the election to a president who was searching for clues on mass public opinion.

The Soldiers’ Bonus

Two years after the market crash of 1929, the Depression had hit many people hard. In early 1931, an administrator of Veteran’s Affairs reported to Hoover that about 272,000 World War I veterans were in need of immediate financial relief (Wecter, 1948). On February 16, 1931, a measure was passed by Congress (formally titled the “Emergency Adjusted Compensation Bill”) which allowed World War I veterans to obtain cash loans up to 50% of the value of the bonus certificates they had been issued in 1924 and the government was scheduled to pay off in 1945 (Smith, 1970).

By an overwhelming number the House passed the bill 363 to 39 and the Senate passed the bill 72 to 12 three days later (Fausold, 1985). It was estimated by the House leadership that if every veteran took advantage of the Bonus the total cost would be $1.6 billion. Congress’ argument for early payment was that the money (an average sum of two hundred and fifty to five hundred dollars) was needed immediately to remedy the crippling effects of unemployment and worsening potential of starvation (Smith, 1970; Daniels, 1971).

The Hoover Administration was against the partial Bonus payment for a number of reasons. President Hoover took the issue head-on in his 1931 State of the Union Address: There will be demands for further veterans’ legislation; there are inequalities in our system of veteran’s relief; it is our national duty to meet our obligations to those who have served the Nation. But our present expenditure upon these services now exceeds $1,000,000,000 per annum. I am opposed to any extension of these expenditures until the country has recovered from the present situation.[12].

President Hoover’s vision of America was predicated on self-reliance and self-support of the individual (see Hoover, 1922). Hoover considered the veterans “able-bodied” and in their “prime” so no extra funds were needed as they could find work on their own (Lisio, 1974). In his memoirs, Hoover expressed his concern that Congress was offering bills which were primarily pork-barrel legislation and he was compelled to veto it (Hoover, 1952). The Administration was also concerned that the Bonus payment would unbalance the budget, give rise to inflation and would benefit a certain class of men while ignoring Americans who were not veterans (Smith, 1970; Lisio, 1974).

In an event which would come to define the perceived public callousness of the Hoover Administration to the worsening economic conditions which faced the unemployed in the country, President Hoover vetoed the legislation on February 26, 1931 which would have paid the bonus earlier than promised. As noted above, after the 1930 elections the President has a slim margin in the House and an even slimmer margin in the Senate (Sobel, 1975). Congress predictably overrode the President’s veto on February 27, 1931 by a wide bipartisan margin of 328 to 79 in the House and 76 to 17 in the Senate (Fausold, 1985).

For purposes of analysis in this article, the total circulation of each paper (designated as both favorable and unfavorable by the administration) has been summed and translated into a percentage. Figure 1 graphically depicts the percentage of favorable newspaper circulation nationwide which was collected by the Hoover Administration from January 30, 1931 to February 26, 1931. [13]

These data were generally favorable to the position of the Hoover Administration. The general trend is that editorial opinion collected by the Hoover White House was heavily unfavorable towards the payment of the Soldiers’ Bonus. The average favorable editorial response was only 30.4% over the course of the bill’s lifespan and reached a low of 15.1% on February 3^rd. The week after President Hoover vetoed the legislation, on March 5^th, 75.5% of the newspaper editorials viewed the Administration’s position as favorable. Basing presidential rhetoric and policy decisions on this data could have been thought to be in line with current public opinion.

Treasury Secretary Andrew Mellon testified before Congress on January 28^th, and this event may account for the low percentage of editorials favorable towards paying the Bonus as many were likely convinced by Mellon’s testimony. Secretary Mellon stressed that the consumption resulting from the early payment of the Bonus would lead to “temporary stimulation of an artificial character” and would impede further economic recovery.[14] He argued the early payment of the debt would “shatter securities markets, undermine public credit and retard recovery” (Lisio, 1974, 36). He concluded by arguing:

It seems, therefore, that the proposal to pay off the adjusted service certificates at this time would be against the best interests of the veterans, unjustified as a matter of broad economic policy, and seriously detrimental of the public debt operations of the Government.[15]

Congress overwhelmingly passed the partial early payment of the Bonus Bill on February 16^th, and the February 20^th circulation count showed a 54.1% favorable editorial opinion.  This number, however, steadily declined from the time after Congress passed the legislation to a dearth of 20.3% on the day that President Hoover vetoed the legislation. Given the opinion data from the preceding days, Hoover’s veto of the legislation was clearly in line with public opinion as the data show that the Bill was widely unpopular. When Congress revisited the issue of paying for the entire Bonus in 1932, the single editorial aggregation indicated that a circulation of 5,729,700 editorials was against the measure while 10,300 were in favor of it.[16]

Conclusion

The three issues analyzed in this article span a number of potential uses of the White House public opinion apparatus. Aggregated public opinion data were used after the 1929 stock market crash to gauge public reaction to the crisis, the data were used following the 1930 midterm Congressional elections to interpret the meaning behind significant losses to the Republican Party and the data were used during the debate over the payment of the Soldiers Bonus in 1931 to determine the extent of the policy favorability.

In each of these cases, the Hoover Administration could only determine where the public stood posthumously in relation to the economic crisis, electoral outcome or policy choice. That is, the data collected by the Hoover Administration could not have been used to formulate future policy or to proactively craft pliable rhetoric; it was only consulted after the event in question had passed.

This institutional limit on gauging public opinion represents a stark break from subsequent administrations which could use public opinion polling in advance to potentially manipulate the public by determining future approval of actions or policy. For President Hoover, his only option was to follow public opinion given the limitations on the data the Administration possessed. The Hoover White House could not knowingly manipulate public opinion, as theorized by scholars of public opinion polling, because the data were not constructed to allow him to do so.

Although the extent to which Hoover and the White House staff utilized and followed these data is not known, the existence of this type of data shows a penchant for understanding and interpreting public opinion in the transition to the modern presidency. As the first president to systematically collect public opinion data, President Hoover began an institutionalized White House practice which continues today.

Without survey tools to sample a representative slice of the American public, the Hoover White House systematically categorized and aggregated the opinions of newspapers from across the country. Exploring the opinion data collection process as well as the opinion data from the Hoover White House provides an interesting window into the historical practice of public opinion data collection.

This venture also allows for conclusions about how presidential leadership of public opinion can be affected by internal mechanisms to gauge public opinion.

References

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[1] Brandon Rottinghaus is a Ph.D. candidate at Northwestern University. He is currently completing his dissertation on presidential responsiveness to public opinion. Generous research funding from the Herbert Hoover Presidential Library Association and Professor Dennis Chong, the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Chair of Political Science, assisted in completion of this project.  He would also like to thank the outstanding assistance of Hoover Library archivists Pat Wildenberg and Lynn Smith, as well as the continuing support of Benjamin I. Page. The comments of two anonymous reviewers greatly contributed to the final product but the author is solely responsible for the ultimate content.

[2] For instance, the Hoover for President Committee 1928 conducted straw polls of delegates to the Republican National Convention, see Herbert Hoover Presidential Library, George Ackerson Papers, Box 8, “Delegates,” no date. Hoover’s staff also kept watch over straw polls during the 1932 election, see Herbert Hoover Presidential Library, Press Secretary Files, Box 880, “Straw Vote, 1931-1932,” for a range of clippings sent by associates of the President, newspapers from across the country and multiple colleges and universities.

[3] Herbert Hoover Presidential Archive, Theodore Joslin Papers, Box 8, “Diary Report on Washington Correspondents,” no date.

[4] Herbert Hoover Presidential Archive, French Strother Files, Box 12, Ochs Folder, “Personal and Confidential,” November 8, 1930.

[5] Herbert Hoover Presidential Archive, Presidential Papers – Press Relations, Boxes 1165-77. This range of documents is estimated to hold about 2,400 documents (primarily summaries subdivided by region).  All data reported in this article was collected at this archive unless otherwise noted.

[6] For an example, see Hoover Presidential Archive, Presidential Paper –Press Relations, Box 1176, “Stock Market”, November 12, 1929 or Hoover Presidential Archive, Presidential Paper –Press Relations, Box 1176, “Prohibition”, February 14, 1930. Particular issues or events seem to have not been systematically tracked over time. Certain issues, such as the issues chosen for this paper, were more consistently tracked than others.

[7] Hoover Presidential Archive, Presidential Papers, Press Secretary’s Files, Box 800, “Conversation with Ernest L. Priest”, January 4, 1933.

[8] Hoover Presidential Archive, Presidential Papers, Press Secretary’s Files, Box 800, “Priest, Ernest L.”, September 21, 1931. This document describes the administrative assignment of Priest and Deeters to the clippings bureau at the Department of Justice.

[9]Public Papers of the Presidents of the United States – Herbert Hoover. March 4 to December 31, 1929. Washington: United States Government Printing Office, “The President’s News Conference of November 5, 1929,” p.271 [272]

[10] Herbert Hoover Presidential Archive, Presidential Papers – Press Relations, Box 1172, “Stock Market to Swope Stabilization Program,” November 7^th Summary.

[11] Herbert Hoover Presidential Archive, Presidential Papers – Press Relations, Box 1165, “Editorial Analysis – Adams to Grande,” “Summary of Editorial Comments on Election Results,” November 8, November 10, November 11, November 12, November 13 and November 14, 1930.  The November 10, 1930 summary was missing from this section of the briefing book at the Herbert Hoover Presidential Archive.  Data complied by the author.

[12] Public Papers of the Presidents of the United States – Herbert Hoover. January 1 to December 31, 1931. Washington: United States Government Printing Office, “Annual Message to Congress on the State of the Union,” p.593 [430].

[13] Herbert Hoover Presidential Archive, Presidential Papers – Press Relations, Box 1172, “General Index – Contents – Soldier’s Bonus.”

[14] Senate Committee on Finance, Payment of Veterans’ Adjusted-Service Certificates, Statement of Honorable Andrew W. Mellon, Secretary of the Treasury, 71^st Congress, First Session, 1931, January 28.

[15] Ibid.

[16] Herbert Hoover Presidential Archive, Presidential Papers – Press Relations, Box 1172, “General Index – Contents – Soldier’s Bonus,” June 14 to 18, 1932 inclusive.

American Politics Research, September 2003, Volume 31, 540-556.

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