If I prove a bad president, I will also likely prove the last president.

Franklin Delano Roosevelt, private remark on the day of his inauguration in 1933.

Welcome to the history of the 20th century. Episode 282.

100 days.

Today I'm going to pick up where we left off last time on Monday, March 6, 1933.

In the wee hours of that Monday morning, Franklin Roosevelt, who officially became president just two days earlier,

exercised powers granted under the wartime trading with the Enemy Act to order a four-day

bank holiday. We will pick up from that moment, but first an observation.

Economics isn't only about numbers and statistics. It is also about attitudes and mood. The challenge for a historian is that

financial data, such as GDP growth or the size of the U.S. Gold Reserve, is easy enough to uncover

and report. Public mood, on the other hand, is not quantifiable and is difficult to assess objectively.

Nevertheless, public mood is central to our narrative today, and we have to consider it whether it is

quantifiable or not. When Herbert Hoover ran for president in 1928, he positioned himself as the champion of the status quo.

And that was smart politics in 1928.

The USA seemed to be chugging along just fine.

Economic growth and the standard of living were at an all-time high.

Hoover's campaign message boiled down to this.

If you want more of the same, vote for me, and you'll get it.

In an uncharacteristically intemperate moment, Herbert Hoover even dangled the prospect of a

coming day in which poverty in the United States would be entirely eliminated. Oh, well, unfortunately for

Herbert Hoover's political fortunes, not to mention his historical reputation, who lives by the status quo,

dies by the status quo. When the U.S. economy began its downturn, just half a year after he took office,

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