Herbert Hoover Speeches: November 5, 1932

The New Deal 

St. Paul, Minnesota

Governor Roosevelt in his address last night also stated:  "I have been scrupulously careful to engage in no personalities, no unfair innuendoes, no baseless charges against the President of the United States.”

I would like to have someone else answer this, but it appears that I am the one to carry the answer across to the American people.  I would recommend that anyone interested in this statement should read Governor Roosevelt's speeches from the beginning of this campaign.

I have been compelled to take the unprecedented action of calling attention to a few of them.  I have been also compelled to frequently call attention to statements being put out through the Democratic National Committee and their agencies which amount to positive calumnies.  In no case has the Democratic candidate disavowed this action of his official committee or agencies.  He has naturally profited by his silence.

I have been informed in this State that someone is endeavoring to picture me as having voted in a foreign country as an indication that I am not a citizen of the United States.  I know it is directed from the activities of the Democratic local committees.  But why answer these things?  That picture is taken from the tax rolls of a foreign country where I at one time rented a house, and where there is a tax on every item of rent and where the rolls are made up from the tax rolls; where I never voted or had a right to vote.  This has been privately and publicly denounced by the Secretary of State over the last 8 years.

I have just heard of another of these actions which took place yesterday in the State of Ohio—the circulation of thousands of handbills stating that the Farm Board spends $5 million annually in salaries and has a fund of $250,000 for traveling expenses.  This statement is untrue.  There follows a long list of salaries purported to be paid by the Farm Board.

It states, incidentally, that Mr. Roosevelt will abolish the Farm Board.  If that be true—but I don't believe it is true—that will be of interest to the 2 million members of farm cooperatives in the United States and especially in a great part of the Northwest. . . .

But the only point of importance for me to make now is that this is typical of stories being spread throughout the Nation with a view to misleading the people.  I regret that I have to refer to them.  They ought to be omitted from a political discussion.