Enough time has passed to allow us to think about the depression, that fascinating and not yet entirely comprehensible catastrophe, with some objectivity. ... [Hoover] did not cause the depression ... but he did not do much to end it, partly because he did not comprehend its magnitude. The irresponsibility, chicanery, and stupidity that helped bring it about were common on the upper levels of American finance and industry all during the twenties ... When the depression came, Hoover met it with a consistently inadequate set of principles. ... [Warren] suggests that Hoover was not a bad man but that, since he was unwilling to use the powers of the federal government to intervene decisively in an economic crisis, he was a poor President.
Well, hello, what have we here?
