THE PRESIDENCY: Hubris

In golden Greece the Periclean playgoer knew by heart the Pride & Fall theme of classic tragedy. Hubris (νβÏis) was the offense of the honest but haughty mortal who thumbed his nose at the gods and arrogantly defied fate. Certain as death, Nemesis followed to wreak the wrathful gods’ retribution upon such a presumptuous creature. The hubris-nemesis pattern of drama unconsciously taught the Hellenic lesson of moden agan or moderation in all things. An Attic axiom: “Too much prosperity brings ruin.”

In his great trilogy, Aeschylus made Prometheus, the fire-bringer, pay a fearful price for defying Zeus. On seeing Sophocles’ Oedipus Rex & Oedipus Tyrannus good Athenian audiences were properly shocked at the King’s insensate stubbornness in attempting to influence economic conditions. The mythical hubris of the Trojans before their city was sacked was only matched by the historical hubris of the Athenians themselves just before their defeat in the Peloponnesian War.

Last week in the U. S. many a classicist thought he saw a striking analogy between the Nemesis-like defeat of Herbert Clark Hoover and the hubris of the Republican Party during the past decade. The G. O. P. had defied the political gods by declaring it alone was “fit to rule.” It had taken credit for all the good things fate bestowed upon the land. It had promised to put the entire nation comfortably on Mount Olympus. Wrote Elmer Davis in The New Republic:

“You can search all Aeschylus and Sophocles without finding a better example of hubris than Mr. Hoover’s behavior in 1928. [His] . . . was not the wanton violence of the ancient tragic heroes but a smug arrogance. . . . His campaign promises ran to that excess which above all things offended the Greek temperament, which seemed above all things to invite the correcting interposition of Nemesis. . . . Compare him. for example, with Oedipus. Oedipus, like Hoover, thought very well of himself. We first see him when his country is suffering from a severe and unexpected depression. . . . He has appointed Kreon as a fact-finding commission. Kreon’s subsequent experiences are reminiscent of Mr. Wickersham. . . . But it must be admitted that Oedipus behaves better than his modern analogue; he does not say that it might have been worse.”

¶ While President Hoover was restfully sunning himself at his Palo Alto home last week, War Debts came crashing back into the headlines just as everyone expected them to do once the election was over. On Dec. 15 Britain is scheduled to pay the U. S. $30,000.000 on debt principal, $65,550.000 on interest; France, $19,261,438 on interest. Only Congress has authority to suspend interest payments, continue the Hoover Moratorium for another year.

Two days after election Sir Ronald Lindsay, British Ambassador, called upon Secretary of State Stimson, left a note which said: “His Majesty’s Government . . . believe that the regime of intergovernmental financial obligations, as now existing, must be reviewed. . . . The immediate objective is of a more limited nature. . . . His Majesty’s Government ask for a suspension of the payments due from them [Dec. 15].” A French note delivered next day at the State Department suavely echoed the request “that an extension of the suspension of payments may be granted in order that the study of the present serious problems now under discussion may be continued and completed in the necessary atmosphere of mutual trust.” In substance Britain and France wanted two things from the U. S.: 1) a conference to reduce their debts: 2} an-other moratorium pending such reduction.

When this news was flashed across the continent, President Hoover ordered out his special train a day in advance, started back to Washington at top speed. Before he left California, however, he dispatched a momentous telegram to President-elect Roosevelt at Albany. After giving his successor the gist of the British note, he declared:

“Thus our Government is now confronted with a world problem of major importance to this nation. . . . A year ago I recommended to Congress that a new debt commission be created to deal with situations that might arise. Congress declined to accede to this. … It passed a joint resolution [declaring it] ‘to be against the policy of the Congress that any of the indebtedness of foreign countries to the United States should be in any manner cancelled or reduced. . . .’

“I do not favor cancellation. . . . Substantial reduction of world armament has a bearing upon this question. If negotiations are to be undertaken, protracted discussions would be necessary which could not be concluded during my administration. If there is to be any change in the attitude of the Congress, it will be greatly affected by those members who recognize you as their leader. . . .

“I am loath to proceed with recommendations to the Congress until I can have an opportunity to confer with you personally. . . . There are also other important questions as to which I think an interchange of views will be in the public interest. … A world economic conference will be held during the coming winter. . . . Parallel with this is the Disarmament Conference.

“I understand that you are planning to come through Washington sometime [this week] and I hope you will find it convenient to stop off long enough for me to advise with you.”*

Governor Roosevelt was sick abed with a head cold in the Executive Mansion at Albany, doing as much as he could about the State budget. To President Hoover’s invitation he replied: “I shall call you on the telephone as soon as the time of my departure for the South has been determined. . . . You and I can go over the whole situation. I had already arranged to meet a number of the Democratic leaders of the present Congress late this month at Warm Springs. I hope that you also will see them at the earliest opportunity because, in the last analysis, the immediate question . . . creates a responsibility which rests upon those now vested with executive and legislative authority. My kindest regards. . . .” Never before in U. S. history have a President-reject and President-elect sat down together in the White House before inauguration to discuss grave matters of state.

¶ Detouring from the main line. President Hoover stopped to see by moonlight and floodlight the Colorado River dam which bears his name. With resident engineers he talked the professional jargon of engineering. To him the Hoover Dam meant “millions of happy homes out under the blue sky of the West.” Day after his departure the first big tunnel around the dam site through the canyon wall was opened to divert the river’s flow temporarily during construction.

¶ President Hoover’s sensational campaign statement at Des Moines to the effect that last winter the U. S. was within two weeks of being driven off the gold standard rose again last week to plague him when Benjamin M. Anderson Jr., economist of big Chase National Bank, told a Manhattan audience of banking experts:

“There has been no time in the past 36 years when there has been justifiable ground for doubt as to our ability to maintain the gold standard in its full integrity. . . . The panic in early 1932 was in many ways more intense in political than in financial circles. … At the lowest point of the gold holdings of the Federal Reserve System [June 15] our Federal Reserve banks had 40% of gold against Federal Reserve notes and 35% of gold and lawful money (almost wholly gold) against deposits and over & above that approximately $1,000,000.000 in gold. This was our worst position and our weakest position. And I say to you, categorically and unqualifiedly, that this worst and weakest position was impregnably strong.”

* Last July Governor Roosevelt asked President Hoover for an interview on St. Lawrence water power and New York State’s interest therein. The President refused.