Letter: Parallels between Bush, Hoover all too scary

Tuesday, Jan. 14, 2003 | 9 a.m.

In 1929 when Herbert Hoover took office, the Republican Party was at its zenith. He spoke for the Old Order of Individualism and Protestant morality and the New Era of corporate leadership and modern technology. The era of the Roaring '20s had convinced the population, in general, that they had achieved a "permanent plateau of prosperity." In his inaugural address, he said, "In no nation are the fruits of accomplishment more secure."

It was just seven months later that the stock market crashed and the bottom began to drop out of the economy. Industrial production drooped, crop prices plunged downward, and unemployment and home foreclosures skyrocketed. One observer said, "We seem to have stepped Alice-like, through the economic looking glass ..."

In three years national income was cut in half and the unemployed reached 15 million. It is true that a lot of safeguards have been put in place to prevent a similar catastrophe. However, there seems to be a great deal of similarity and parallelism in the attitude of the Bush administration and that of the Hoover administration.

As a person who grew up during the Great Depression and went on to see 18 months of combat in Italy during World War II, I have to ask the question: Are we on the verge of history repeating itself?

RAYMOND HARBERT