Tragic Transition Part I
compromise, Roosevelt agreed to plan an international monetary conference for sometime during the summer. In this way FDR gave luke warm acceptance to vague international cooperation without embracing Hoover's theory of the depression.
The President-elect also continued to disavow any responsibility until he actually took power. Roosevelt's policy of non-cooperation with the outgoing administration can be explained by looking at his campaign strategy. From the day of his nomination through Election day FDR depicted the president's policies as the bankruptcy of a failed system. This strategy turned Hoover into a leper; to act with him would be tanamount to contracting the disease.
Nevertheless, during the campaign candidate Roosevelt had backed the gold standard and balanced budgets in certain speeches in selected cities where these Republican tenets played well; now Hoover tried to make President-elect Roosevelt publicly back those positions. The more Roosevelt hesitated on gold and the budget, the more Hoover became certain that the campaign speeches had been double talk, and that his successor planned to wreck the economic order Hoover worshipped with religious fervor.
If the first part of the interregnum seemed as Feis wrote, "A sham battle," the second half would take on the aura of a Greek tragedy, as the nation's banking system crumbled. Part II next month.
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