Book Description

In the long life of Herbert Hoover, the four years as president of the United States, 1929-1933, sometimes appear as only an interlude in a fruitful public career. Yet those years in the life of the nation were of crucial significance. The decades that have passed since then have revealed how the political and economic struggles in those presidential years shook the foundations of government in the United States. Action in the national interest was made exceedingly difficult as the special interests of states and sections, and the demands of local constituencies on their elected representatives in the nation's capital, inhibited action. That political conflict, which occurred at a crossroads in American history, is the primary concern of this book.