Word: hooverness
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President Hoover's soft-voiced pleas to purge the pension rolls fell on deaf ears at the Capitol. Special Congressional committees investigated only to report disagreement and deadlock. The National Economy League took the field in response to widespread sentiment against nonmilitary disability allowances. But the thumbscrew tactics of the veterans' lobbies blocked all legislative action...
...Manhattan, Citizen Herbert Hoover made a hurried call to Pasadena, learned that his wife and Herbert Jr. were uninjured. From Washington President Roosevelt wired Governor Rolph: "If anything is needed wire me at once. Trust preliminary reports are exaggerated." The President ordered the fleet off San Pedro and San Diego to give...
Immediately the conference began, seasoned White House reporters were aware of a new atmosphere of pleasant informality. They could recall friendly expressions of "cooperation" which opened their dealings with Presidents Hoover, Coolidge, Harding, Wilson; but not such cordial warmth as this. Presently they learned of a more important innovation. President Roosevelt intended to answer questions-not only written questions, but impromptu verbal questions popped to his face. He would try it, he said, despite advice by wiseacres that no President since Theodore Roosevelt had been able to keep...
Harding tried it for a little while, then insisted that questions be submitted in advance, in writing. Coolidge refused ever to be quoted, created the "White House Spokesman." He too invited written questions, which he usually ignored. Hoover won applause at the outset by abolishing the "spokesman." His very first sentence to assembled newsmen-"It seems that the whole Press of the United States has given me the honor of a call this morning"-was considered momentous because it was the first direct quotation from a President in years. But like his predecessors, President Hoover soon decreed that questions must...
...Hoover system failed because the Press audience included not only regular White House correspondents but also their editors and influential friends, magazine writers and "tipsters." Instead of barring the supernumeraries, Mr. Hoover simply talked with restraint. Later when the Press became critical of his official acts there grew a mutual distrust. Acutely sensitive to criticism, the President decided the Press was hostile. In turn the Press decided the President was sour, evasive. He began to ignore written questions, eventually practically abandoned press conferences...