Taking Aim at the New Guy | The Presidency
Whistlestop: Presidential History and Trivia
Slate Podcasts
4.8 • 1.4K Ratings
🗓️ 3 October 2018
⏱️ 24 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
This episode of Whistlestop travels back to October 18, 1938 when former President Hoover picked on the new President with gusto. Many U.S. Presidents to follow were also publicly critical of the new one in office.
Whistlestop is Slate's podcast about presidential history. Hosted by Political Gabfest host John Dickerson, each installment will revisit memorable moments from America's presidential carnival.
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Podcast production by Jocelyn Frank. Research by Brian Rosenwald and Elizabeth Hinson
Email: whistlestop@slate.com
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Hello and welcome to whistle stop, a podcast of the presidency. I'm John Dickerson. |
| 0:09.0 | Our whistle stop today is October 18, 1938, and we are in Hartford, Connecticut, at the Connecticut Council of Republican Women. |
| 0:18.9 | It is less than a month before the November election in nearly 80 years from the moment in which you find yourself right now. |
| 0:27.1 | That is, if you are a hot off the press's whistle-stopped listener, which you are undoubtedly, but if you are listening to this many years hence, well, then welcome to the past. |
| 0:36.2 | A fellow of very orderly manners whose neck and chin are piled high above his collar, |
| 0:41.9 | which rises straight and immovable, like the Hoover Dam. |
| 0:46.3 | And he is speaking on the topic of undermining representative government. |
| 0:50.2 | That is the title of his speech. |
| 0:51.9 | And in it he is lambasting, the sitting president for his economic policies, and the president's thirst for one-man rule. |
| 1:00.3 | This president has hoodwinked Congress into giving up its power. |
| 1:03.7 | And loosening its spine, claims our speaker. |
| 1:07.3 | They in Congress have become nothing but yes, man. The speaker stabs for an analogy. |
| 1:14.2 | Mr. Hitler also has a parliament, says the speaker, comparing the sitting president to the Nazi leader, who in October of 1938, has moved through the Sudan land in Czechoslovakia. |
| 1:24.6 | The streets filled with ethnic Germans giving him the Nazi salute. |
| 1:28.7 | Our speaker continues talking about the German parliament. You may not know it. It, the German |
| 1:33.4 | parliament, was also once upon a time an independent arm of the German government. But |
| 1:39.1 | Mr. Hitler has rearranged its function. And then the speaker goes on to quote Hitler. |
| 1:45.9 | Hitler said individual members may advise but never decide. That is the exclusive prerogative of the responsible president. |
| 1:53.9 | Well, who is this speaker comparing the sitting president to Hitler? Well, it's none other than |
| 2:00.0 | Herbert Hoover, the 31st president of the United |
| 2:03.2 | States. And he's putting the wood to Franklin Delano Roosevelt, the 32nd President of the United States. |
| 2:09.2 | The purpose of the shalacking is to build support for Republican candidates in 1938. |
... |
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