Landslide: A Portrait of President Herbert Hoover Movie Download

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A very good look at Herbert Hoover’s political career
Many of the interviewees in this documentary are liberal economists, and even they remark Herbert Hoover has gotten a raw deal from history. The truth is, Hoover had a great reputation as a philanthropist and humanitarian prior to his disastrous presidency. It’s also the truth that there was no precedent for what happened during his presidency, 1929-1933. When he was sworn in, America was booming. By the time he left, unemployment stood at 25%. Every action he took – or didn’t take – today is recognized as bound to have a contractive effect on the economy such as high tariffs and refusing to run a deficit even in the short term, but in 1930 there were no rules or even theories for what was going on and he as well as everyone else was just feeling their way through. You have to remember that until the banks failed en masse in early 1933, even FDR thought the concept of federal deposit insurance was a radical one.

What probably sealed Hoover’s doom was his treatment of the bonus army, and many people still blame Hoover for the heavy handed treatment that was doled out. The truth is, the burning of the army’s possessions and the specific actions taken were the decisions of the generals in charge, Eisenhower and McArthur. However, perhaps because he felt that he was ultimately responsible for what his generals did even if he didn’t tell them specifically what to do, Hoover took the rap, so to speak. Due to the fact that polling was in its infancy, Hoover didn’t know he was in trouble electorally in 1932 until his speeches on the campaign trail were greeted with eggs and tomatoes.

After Hoover left office in 1933, he was a vocal opponent of FDR’s New Deal, and that didn’t win him any friends with the White House’s new occupants. When Pearl Harbor was attacked, he offered his service as he always had during times of crisis before he was president. His offer was met with deafening silence. Only after FDR died and Truman became president was there an attempt to mend fences, with Hoover invited to the White House to help the organization of getting food to now Allied-occupied Germany.

In spite of somewhat redeeming his image by the time of his death at the ripe old age of 90 in 1964, his is one tomb that Presidential contenders to this day tend to avoid.

I’m waxing long-winded here because this is such a well made documentary that me retelling the basic facts of the presentation won’t ruin it for you. Hoover was a guy who had the bad luck of being in the wrong place at the wrong time with the wrong economic theories, and he truly felt badly for the starving victims of the Depression. He was a gentleman in so many ways that today’s politicians are not and I think his story is worth a second look, if only for the parallels between what happened in the 30’s and what is happening today and the fact that today’s politicians should – and probably do – know better and just don’t care for anyone but themselves and their own future fortunes.Read More