Herbert Hoover

Our people are providing against distress from unemployment in true American fashion by a magnificent response to public appeal and by action of the local governments.

I am opposed to any direct or indirect Government dole.

We must avoid burdens upon the Government which will create more unemployment in private industry than can be gained by further expansion of employment by the Federal Government.

As an aid to unemployment the Federal Government is engaged in the greatest program of public-building, harbor, flood-control, highway, waterway, aviation, merchant and naval ship construction in all history.

Such action would open wide the door to price fixing, monopoly, and destruction of healthy competition.

As their rates must be regulated in public interest, so also approximate regulation should be applied to competing services by some authority.

The well-maintained and successful operation and the stability of railway finances are of primary importance to economic recovery.

Their prosperity is interrelated with the prosperity of all industries.

They are and must remain the backbone of our transportation system.

Our people have a right to a banking system in which their deposits shall be safeguarded and the flow of credit less subject to storms.

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…

I recommend the establishment of a system of home-loan discount banks as the necessary companion in our financial structure of the Federal Reserve Banks and our Federal Land Banks.

Such provision would go far to relieve distress in a multitude of families, would stabilize values in many communities, and would liberate working capital to thousands of concerns.

It is urgent that the banks be supported so as to stabilize the market values of their bonds and thus secure capital for the farmers at low rates, that they may continue their services to agriculture and that they may meet the present…

To go further than these limits in either expenditures, taxes, or borrowing will destroy confidence, denude commerce and industry of its resources, jeopardize the financial system, and actually extend unemployment and demoralize…

Such a basis will give confidence in the determination of the Government to stabilize its finance and will assure taxpayers of its temporary character.

We must have insistent and determined reduction in Government expenses.

The first requirement of confidence and of economic recovery is financial stability of the United States Government.

The recommendations which I here lay before the Congress are designed to meet these needs by strengthening financial, industrial, and agricultural life through the medium of our existing institutions, and thus to avoid the entry of the…

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.

We must put some steel beams in the foundations of our credit structure.

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.

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…

We do not require more money or working capital--we need to put what we have to work.

All of this tends to stifle business, especially the smaller units, and finally expresses itself in further depression of prices and values, in restriction on new enterprise, and in increased unemployment.