Citation: Landmark Document in American History

Speech delivered in New York City by Republican presidential candidate

Herbert Hoover on October 22, 1928, toward the close of the election

campaign. In this classic example of American conservative philosophy,

Hoover condemned the Democratic platform as a misguided attempt to solve

the problems of prohibition, farm relief, and electrical power through

state socialism; he extolled free, private enterprise and initiative, a

system of "rugged individualism," as the foundations of America's

"unparalleled greatness." Government entry into commercial business, he

argued, would destroy political equality, increase corruption, stifle

initiative, undermine the development of leadership, extinguish

opportunity, and "dry up the spirit of liberty and progress."