HERBERT HOOVER
New York, 22 October 1928
‘Rugged individualism’
Herbert Hoover (1874-1964) accumulated a personal fortune as a
mining engineer before directing relief work in Europe during and after
the Fist World War. He was Secretary of Commerce under Presidents
Harding and Coolidge from 1921, when he speeded the modernization
of industry which increased the people’s prosperity. He became the
Republican candidate in the 1928 p
residential election, when he was seen as the
only man certain to beat the popular
Democrat candidate Al Smith, who had been
chosen by the liberal, urban element in the
part. Smith’s record of progressive social
reform as Governor of New York compelled
Hoover to express the political philosophy
that was to dominate Republican thinking in
the harsh depression years of his own
administration from 1929 to 1933.
His speech on rugged individualism delivered
at the very end of the 1928 campaign ranks as
a classic statement of American conservatism
(even though his philosophy was found
tragically inadequate in the Wall Street crash
of 1929). He implied that government
interference in economic activities must
necessarily lead to socialism and insisted that
its ultimate effect would be to impair the very
basis of liberty and freedom.
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. During one hundred and fifty years we have
builded up a form of self-government and a social system which is
peculiarly our own. It differs essentially 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 a
particular conception of self-government in which decentralized local
responsibility is the very base. Further than this, it is founded upon the
conception that only through ordered liberty, freedom, and equal
opportunity to the individual will his initiative and enterprise spur on the
march of progress. and in our insistence upon equality of opportunity
has our system advanced beyond all the world. . .
When the war closed, the most vital of all issues both in our own
country And throughout the world was whether Governments should
continue their wartime ownership and operation of many
instrumentalities of production and distribution. We were challenged
with a peacetime choice between the American system of rugged
individualism and a European philosophy
of diametrically opposed doctrinesdoctrines of paternalism and state
socialism. The acceptance of these ideas
would have meant the destruction of selfgovernment through centralization of
government. It would have meant the
undermining of the individual initiative
and enterprise through which our people
have grown to unparalleled greatness. . .
There is, therefore, submitted to the
American people a question of
fundamental principle. That is, shall we
depart from the principles of our American
political and economic system, upon which
we have advanced beyond all the rest of
the world, in order to adopt methods based
on principles destructive of its very
foundations? And I wish to emphasize the
seriousness of these proposals. I whish to
make my position clear; for this goes to the very roots of American life
and progress. . .
Bureaucracy is ever desirous of spreading its influence and its power.
You cannot extend the mastery of the Government over the daily
working life of a people without at the same time making it the master
of the people’s souls and thoughts. Every expansion of Government in
business means that Government in order to protect itself from the
political consequences of its errors and wrongs is driven irresistibly
without peace to greater and greater control of the nation’s press and
platform. Free speech does not live many hours after free industry and
free commerce die.
It is a false liberalism that interprets itself into the Government
operation of commercial business. Every step of bureaucratizing of the
business of our country poisons the very roots of liberalism that is,
political equality, free speech, free assembly, free press, and equality of
opportunity. It is the road not to more liberty but to less liberty.
Liberalism should be found not striving to spread bureaucracy but
striving to set bounds to it. True liberalism seeks all legitimate freedom,
first in the confident belief that without such freedom the pursuit of all
other blessings 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 proceeding from the
deep realization that economic freedom cannot be sacrificed if political
freedom is to be preserved. Even if governmental conduct of business
could give us more efficiency instead of less efficiency, the fundamental
objection to it would remain unaltered and unabated. It would destroy
political equality. It would increase rather than decrease abuse and
corruption. It would stifle initiative and invention. It would undermine
the development of leadership. It would cramp and cripple the mental
and spiritual energies of our people. It would extinguish equality and
opportunity. It would dry up the spirit of liberty and progress. For these
reasons 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. . .
Our people have the right to know whether we can continue to solve
our great problems without abandonment 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 meet any economic
problem and still maintain our democracy as master in its own house
and that we can at the same time preserve equality of opportunity and
individual freedom. . .
And what have been the results of our 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 initiative and enterprise. Russia has natural
resources equal to ours. Her people are equally industrious, but she has
not had the blessing of one hundred and fifty years of our form of
government and of our social system.
By adherence to the principles of decentralized self-government,
ordered liberty, equal opportunity, and freedom to the individual our
American experiment in human welfare has yielded a degree of wellbeing unparalleled in all the world. It has come nearer to the abolition of
poverty, to the abolition of fear of want, than humanity has ever reached
before.
Hoover beat Smith but was reluctant to extend federal power during the
depression and was decisively beaten by Franklin Delano Roosevelt in
1932 election.