Tag: The Great Depression

On a Bureau Chief

The Chicago Tribune was historically a conservative paper in a fairly moderate to liberal town. Run by the McCormick family, the paper reflected the conservative American values of that family. And practically none of the paper’s reporters was the best embodiment of those values than the firm’s Washington bureau chief, a man named Arthur Henning. Over the course of almost half a century, Arthur Sears Henning reported back to Chicago all the news that the conservative slant of that esteemed newspaper could print.

Henning began reporting from Washington for the Tribune back in 1907, during the William Howard Taft administration. Back then, and up until Teddy Roosevelt a couple of years earlier, most presidents of the United States never held press conferences where reporters could ask questions. No, any time the Chief Executive wished to convey a message to the press, he would call certain reporters to the White House for a meeting. Henning was one of the few that Taft favored, and he was a frequent guest for White House sit-downs with the president. That gave the Tribune many scoops over the years. And it also gave Henning unique insight into the workings of the White House. He got to know the next several presidents well as reporting on what he saw and learned from them.

Woodrow Wilson, he said, was not patient with unintelligent people. Calvin Coolidge, a man notoriously taciturn, would “talk your ear off,” if given a chance. Taft, a large, jovial man, was remembered by Henning as laughing and making his large belly shake like Santa when he told jokes. But Henning had little use for Franklin Roosevelt. The McCormicks were completely against FDR and his New Deal plan for dealing with the Great Depression. And Arthur Henning wasn’t writing anti-Roosevelt news stories simply to please his boss; according to a colleague, Henning was a True Believer. He actually agreed that the policies of the Democrats was tantamount to socialism. Henning would be more at home today on some right-wing media show. Which was interesting, because he had the reputation of being a fun-loving, kindly man who was often generous with his friends.

But that’s not why we remember Arthur Henning. You know about him because of only one story he wrote and for no other. In fact, we can narrow it down even more to three words he penned that you have most likely heard or at least seen. You see, when Roosevelt died near the end of World War 2, the nation worried that the new president, Harry Truman, might not be able to lead the nation like FDR had for over 12 years of first the Depression and then the prosecution of the war. But Truman brought the war to a successful conclusion in the months after assuming the office mostly by following Roosevelt’s blueprint. The peace that followed, however, proved daunting. Inflation, the re-absorption of the millions of service men and women into both the economy and society, the housing crisis, and the rise of communism after the war tested Mr. Truman’s mettle. As 1948 rolled around, it seemed that Truman might suffer an ignominious defeat in the election that year. After all, in the UK, Winston Churchill himself had been ousted after the war ended because people wanted a fresh start.

Henning reported throughout the summer of 1948 about the state of the election. He wrote stories for the Tribune detailing how unpopular Truman was to a wide swath of Americans. So it was no surprise that when election night rolled around, Arthur Henning turned in a story that everyone, including this experienced Washington bureau chief, expected.

The story’s headline?

Dewey Defeats Truman.

On a Great Humanitarian

We all know how the President responded to the Great Depression, right? It’s been thoroughly documented in the history books and in governmental archives. But, before we look at that in a little more detail, let’s remember the man himself.

The President was known for his business knowledge. He’d been in government for some time, and his reputation was unimpeachable. He’d served two previous administrations in the cabinet as a secretary. Before that, during World War 1, the President had led efforts to bring support to the people of Belgium as they suffered extreme food shortages from the effects of much of the war being fought on their territory–and this was even before the United States entered the conflict. His name became synonymous with humanitarian efforts when then-President Woodrow Wilson asked him to lead American efforts at bringing supplies to Europe to help rebuild after the devastation of the Great War. Thus, the man who worked to deal with the Great Depression seemed the perfect man for the job because he knew how to deal with crises.

So, what did the President do to try to overcome the effects of having almost 25% unemployment, the banking system in tatters, Wall Street and the entire business community rattled, and people’s lives on the edge? Well, we have to remember that, at that time, no administration had intervened in the economy before. It’s difficult to believe, but it is so. The American tradition was that business and government were separate, and, while elected officials could affect the economy with laws and guidelines, actually and actively working to stimulate the economy had not been tried before. And when the President did it to combat the economic downturn, many people thought it was tantamount to treason or communism.

No, he knew that to do nothing would be the worst thing for the country. He promised and delivered, in his words, “the most gigantic program of economic defense and [economic] counterattack ever evolved in the history of the Republic.” And so it was. He put the government to work on the economy like no other Chief Executive before him. Public works programs, support for the failing banks, low-interest loans to corporations, and he ordered companies to not lay off people (which was among the first things companies did when hard times hit) knowing that incomes were still needed. In short, he did all he could to make the situation better. What else would you expect from a great humanitarian? He knew what people were going through.

And he tried to calm people’s fears about the economy as well. He called in reporters to show how he continued his daily routines as if to say, “look, all is well. It’s going to be ok.” He even tried to allay fears by coining the term “Depression” to indicate that, like people at times, even the economy could become depressed, and that bright days were ahead.

Sadly, as we know, it didn’t work. His name became synonymous not with humanitarianism but, rather, with the Great Depression itself.

But you can’t say Herbert Hoover didn’t try.