Herbert Hoover, "Rugged Individualism Speech"
(October 22, 1928)
I intend... to discuss some of those more fundamental principles upon which I
believe the government of the United States should be conducted....
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
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.
During [World War I] we necessarily turned to the government to solve every
difficult economic problem. The government having absorbed every energy of
our people for war, there was no other solution. For the preservation of the
state the Federal Government became a centralized despotism which
undertook unprecedented responsibilities, assumed autocratic powers, and
took over the business of citizens. To a large degree, we regimented our whole
people temporally into a socialistic state. However justified in war time, if
continued in peace-time it would destroy not only our American system but
with it our progress and freedom as well.
When the war closed, the most vital of issues both in our own country and
around the world was whether government should continue their wartime
ownership and operation of many [instruments] of production and
distribution. We were challenged with a... choice between the American
system of rugged individualism and a European philosophy of diametrically
opposed doctrines doctrines of paternalism and state socialism. The
acceptance of these ideas would have meant the destruction of selfgovernment through centralization... [and] the undermining of the individual
initiative and enterprise through which our people have grown to unparalleled
greatness.
The Republican Party [in the years after the war] resolutely turned its face
away from these ideas and war practices.... When the Republican Party came
into full power it went at once resolutely back to our fundamental conception
of the state and the rights and responsibility of the individual. Thereby it
restored confidence and hope in the American people, it freed and stimulated
enterprise, it restored the government to a position as an umpire instead of a
player in the economic game. For these reasons the American people have
gone forward in progress....
There is [in this election]... 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....
I would like to state to you the effect that... [an interference] of government in
business would have upon our system of self-government and our economic
system. That effect would reach to the daily life of every man and woman. It
would impair the very basis of liberty and freedom....
Let us first see the effect on self-government. When the Federal Government
undertakes to go into commercial business it must at once set up the
organization and administration of that business, and it immediately finds
itself in a labyrinth.... Commercial business requires a concentration of
responsibility. Our government to succeed in business would need to become
in effect a despotism. There at once begins the destruction of selfgovernment....
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 not the
road to more liberty, but to less liberty. Liberalism should not be striving to
spread bureaucracy but striving to set bounds to it....
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. [An expansion of the governmentís role in the business
world] 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 a hundred and fifty years liberalism has
found its true spirit in the American system, not in the European systems.
I do not wish to be misunderstood.... I am defining general policy.... I have
already stated that where the government is engaged in public works for
purposes of flood control, of navigation, of irrigation, of scientific research or
national defense... it will at times necessarily produce power or commodities
as a by-product.
Nor do I wish to be misinterpreted as believing that the United States is a freefor-all and devil-take-the-hindmost. The very essence of equality of
opportunity and of American individualism is that there shall be no
domination by any group or [monopoly] in this republic.... It is no system of
laissez faire....
I have witnessed not only at home but abroad the many failures of government
in business. I have seen its tyrannies, its injustices, its destructions of selfgovernment, its undermining of the very instincts which carry our people
forward to progress. I have witnessed the lack of advance, the lowered
standards of living, the depressed spirits of people working under such a
system....
And what has been the result of the 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.... But
she has not had the blessings of one hundred and fifty years of our form of
government and 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 well-being unparalleled
in the world. It has come nearer to the abolition of poverty, to the abolition of
fear of want, than humanity has ever reached before. Progress of the past
seven years is proof of it....
The greatness of America has grown out of a political and social system and a
method of [a lack of governmental] control of economic forces distinctly its
own our American system which has carried this great experiment in human
welfare farther than ever before in history.... And I again repeat that the
departure from our American system... will jeopardize the very liberty and
freedom of our people, and will destroy equality of opportunity not only to
ourselves, but to our children....
Annual Message to Congress
Herbert H. Hoover
December 8, 1931
…
Further Measures
The major economic forces and weaknesses at home and abroad have now been exposed and can be
appraised, and the time is ripe for forward action to expedite our recovery.
Although some of the causes of our depression are due to speculation, inflation of securities and real
estate, unsound foreign investments, and mismanagement of financial institutions, yet our self-contained
national economy, with its matchless strength and resources, would have enabled us to recover long
since but for the continued dislocations, shocks and setbacks from abroad….
The situation largely arises from an unjustified lack of confidence. We have enormous volumes of idle
money in the banks and in hoarding. We do not require more money or working capital -- we need to put
what we have to work.
The fundamental difficulties which have brought about financial strains in foreign countries do not exist in
the United States. No external drain on our resources can threaten our position, because the balance of
international payments is in our favor; we owe less to foreign countries than they owe to us; our industries
are efficiently organized; our currency and bank deposits are protected by the greatest gold reserve in
history.
Our first step toward recovery is to reestablish confidence and thus restore the flow of credit which is the
very basis of our economic life. We must put some steel beams in the foundations of our credit
structure. It is our duty to apply the full strength of our government not only to the immediate phases, but
to provide security against shocks and the repetition of the weaknesses which have been proven.
The recommendations which I here lay before the Congress are designed to met these needs by
strengthening financial, industrial, and agricultural life through the medium of our existing institutions, and
thus to avoid the entry of the government into competition with private business.
…
Reconstruction Finance Corporation
In order that the public may be absolutely assured and that the government may be in position to meet
any public necessity, I recommend that an emergency Reconstruction Corporation of the nature of the
former War Finance Corporation should be established. It may not be necessary to use such an
instrumentality very extensively. The very existence of such a bulwark will strengthen confidence. The
Treasury should be authorized to subscribe a reasonable capital to it, and it should be placed in
liquidation at the end of two years. Its purpose is by strengthening the weak spots to thus liberate the full
strength of the nation's resources. It should be in position to facilitate exports by American agencies;
make advances to agricultural credit agencies where necessary to protect and aid the agricultural
industry; to make temporary advances upon proper securities to established industries, railways, and
financial institutions which can not otherwise secure credit, and where such advances will protect the
credit structure and stimulate employment. Its functions would not overlap whose of the National Credit
Corporation.
THE CONSEQUENCES OF THE PROPOSED NEW DEAL
Madison Square Garden, New York
October 21, 1932
This campaign is more than a contest between two men. It is more than a contest between two
parties. It is a contest between two philosophies of government…
And I realize that in this time of distress many of our people are asking whether our social and economic
system is incapable of that great primary function of providing security and comfort of life to all of the
firesides of our 25,000,000 homes in America, whether our social system provides for the fundamental
development and progress of our people, whether our form of government is capable of originating and
sustaining that security and progress….
This question is the basis upon which our opponents are appealing to the people in their fears and
distress. They are proposing changes and so-called new deals, which would destroy the very
foundations of our American system…
Our people should consider the primary facts before they come to the judgment—not merely through
political agitation, the glitter of promise, and the discouragement of temporary hardships—whether they
will support changes, which radically affect the whole system, which has been builded up by a hundred
and fifty years of the toil of the fathers. They should not approach the question in the despair with which
our opponents would clothe it…
Let us pause for a moment and examine the American system of government, of social and economic life,
which it is now proposed that we should alter. Our system is the product of our race and of our
experience in building a nation to heights unparalleled in the whole history of the world…
It is founded on the conception that only through ordered liberty, through freedom to the individual, and
equal opportunity to the individual will his initiative and enterprise be summoned to spur the march of
progress…
It is founded on a peculiar conception of self-government designed to maintain this equal opportunity to
the individual, and through decentralization it brings about and maintains these responsibilities. The
centralization of government will undermine responsibilities and will destroy the system…
Our Government differs from all previous conceptions, not only in this decentralization, but also in the
separation of functions between the legislative, executive, and judicial arms of government…
Three years ago there came a break in this progress. A break of the same type we have met fifteen
times a century and yet we have overcome them. But eighteen months later came a further blow by
shocks transmitted to us by the earthquakes of the collapse in nations throughout the world as the
aftermath of the World War. The workings of our system were dislocated. Millions of men and women
are out of jobs. Businessmen and farmers suffer. Their distress is bitter. I do not seek to minimize the
depth of it…
And in order to indicate to you that the proposals of our opponents will endanger or destroy our system, I
propose to analyze a few of the proposals of our opponents in the relation to these fundamentals…






The extension of Government expenditures beyond the minimum limit necessary to conduct the
proper functions of the Government enslaves men to work for the Government.
The Federal Government has been forced in this emergency to unusual expenditure, but in partial
alleviation of these extraordinary and unusual expenditures the Republican Administration has
made a successful effort to reduce the ordinary running expenses of the Government. Our
opponents have persistently interfered with such policies.
These things (massive Government spending) can and must be resisted. But they can only be
resisted if there shall be live and virile public support to the Administration, in opposition to
political log-rolling and the sectional and group raids on the Treasury for distribution of public
money, which is cardinal in the congeries of elements which make up the Democratic Party.
Another proposal of our opponents, which would destroy the American system, is that of inflation
of the currency.
Another proposal of our opponents, which would wholly alter our American system of life, is to
reduce the protective tariff to a competitive tariff for revenue.
Recently there was circulated through the unemployed in this country a letter from the Democratic
candidate in which he stated that he

. . . would support measures for the inauguration of self-liquidating public works such as the
utilization of water resources, flood control, land reclamation, to provide employment for all
surplus labor at all times.
In America today we are nearer a final triumph over poverty than in any land. The poorhouse has
vanished from among us; we have not reached that goal, but given a chance to go forward, we shall, with
the help of God, be in sight of the day when poverty will be banished from this Nation.
My countrymen, the proposals of our opponents represent a profound change in American life—less in
concrete proposal, bad as that may be, than by implication and by evasion. Dominantly in their spirit they
represent a radical departure from the foundations of 150 years, which have made this the greatest nation
in the world. This election is not a mere shift from the ins to the outs. It means deciding the direction our
Nation will take over a century to come.
My conception of America is a land where men and women may walk in ordered liberty, where they may
enjoy the advantages of wealth not concentrated in the hands of a few but diffused through the lives of all,
where they build and safeguard their homes, give to their children full opportunities of American life,
where every man shall be respected in the faith that his conscience and his heart direct him to follow,
where people secure in their liberty shall have leisure and impulse to seek a fuller life. That leads to the
release of the energies of men and women, to the wider vision and higher hope; it leads to opportunity for
greater and greater service not alone of man to man in our country but from our country to the world. It
leads to health in body and a spirit unfettered, youthful, eager with a vision stretching beyond the farthest
horizons will an open mind, sympathetic and generous. But that must be builded upon our experience
with the past, upon the foundations, which have made our country great. It must be the product of our
truly American system.