Tragic Transition Part I

Although rapidly flowing away from him, the power of the presidency still lay in Hoover's hands until March 4. Certain that the economy's summer upturn signaled the beginning of the end for the depression, the President took the unprecedented step of seeking the President-elect's cooperation as regards to European war debts and the international economic conference to be held in London, early in 1933. Warily, Roosevelt and his advisors accepted the President's invitation to the White House.

The first ominous act in the interregnum drama took place on November 22, 1932, when Hoover and Secretary of the Treasury Ogden Mills met with Roosevelt and his advisor Raymond Moley. This meeting foreshadowed the pattern of mistrust and misunderstanding that plagued the transition. Roosevelt knew that if he agreed to link European war debts to the economic conference, and further agreed to cooperate with the President in naming delegates to the conference, he would be tossing out his campaign stand that the depression was only a domestic monster. FDR's "Brains Trust" advisors refused to allow Hoover to compromise the New Deal with Republican internationalism. All Hoover could see in the situation was a President-elect being uncooperative in the fight against the the weakening dragon of the depression.

Meanwhile the press reported a jaunty and callous President-elect laughing off the war debts as "Hoover's baby." Roasted in print for this remark, FDR's sense of public relations may have pushed him towards the second meeting with Hoover in January 1933; although most historians credit the second meeting to the persuasive powers of Hoover's secretary of state, Henry L. Stimpson. The quintessential progressive Republican, Stimpson's reputation as a statesman rather than a politician would bring about his appointment as secretary of war during World War II. Stimpson became the perfect liason between Hoover and Roosevelt. Stimpson like FDR was flexible and compatible; Hoover, on the other hand, was stubborn and aloof, leaving the gregarious Roosevelt with no common ground on which to stand.

The White House conference of January 20, 1933 turned out somewhat better than the initial meeting, probably due to Stimpson's presence, but it was still a sad affair. In his book , 1933: Characters in Crisis, Herbert Feis described the meeting as "reminiscent of a naval engagement on a foggy night between two opposed fleets...the proponents were shooting at shadows and hitting air...each of the two groups suspected the other of secret purposes." Arriving at a compromise,

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