Jon Lovett
👤 PersonAppearances Over Time
Podcast Appearances
So what is going on here?
So there's a run on the banks.
Yes.
The economy is in a free fall.
Hoover is president.
He's a smart guy.
Not a dumb man.
He is smart.
He was worried about the speculation all through the 20s.
He didn't seem to have paid enough attention to it, but he is very concerned about it, concerned about the possibility of it all going bust.
Why doesn't he just declare the bank holiday that he believes is necessary?
Why would he ask his...
his successor to do it in advance.
Meanwhile, Carter Glass, who is, as we discussed, against all this Wall Street speculation, he tells Roosevelt, I think the president of the United States had no more valid authority to close or open a bank in the United States than had my stable boy.
He just doesn't believe the authority is there.
Hoover, in that letter you mentioned.
Yes.
Tells him, actually, I think you do have the authority, which is buried in an old dusty statute called the Trading with the Enemy Act.
Yes.
Hey, we have this old law in the books.