They were so different! One was patrician, the other common; one had a political background, the other engineering; one was beaming and confident, the other just completed four disastrous years as President!
Franklin Delano Roosevelt and Herbert Hoover were inside the open car, driving down Pennsylvania Avenue to the Inauguration. The New Yorker magazine was going to put a cartoon on the it's cover showing the contrast. At the last minute the cartoon was dropped because it was too scandalous! It was the most famous cartoon that never graced the cover of the New Yorker!
Roosevelt was part of the Hudson Valley Roosevelt's, prominent in New York society for four centuries. Hoover was the first President born west of the Mississippi River. Roosevelt's father had a weak heart. The son learned discretion in the presence of the father. Hoover's father was a 'replacement' blacksmith. The Civil War transformed the American farm. Many tools could be manufactured and shipped for less than the cost of making it locally. Hoover's father saw the changing market. He sold his blacksmith shop and opened a tool supply store. But Hoover was only six when his father died.
Roosevelt was baptized in fire in New York politics and the crippling effects of polio. Hoover was baptized defending foreign nationals in China's Boxer Rebellion and feeding refugees in Belgium. Roosevelt learned patience and timing. Hoover learned logistics and volunteerism. Neither had the tools necessary to solve the problem!
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