King Kong

When the new President said those words, he didn’t have in mind a movie - called King Kong - which had been released just two days before. He was addressing the desperate economic situation gripping the United States.

The free-wheeling, money-earning, flagrant-spending decade known as "The Roaring Twenties" had ended with a stock market crash. (The picture, from the U.S. National Archives, depicts the floor of the stock exchange just after the crash.) People who had plenty suddenly had little, or nothing. Out of work, out of food, out of their homes, Americans were scared of the future.

Herbert Hoover, while wrapping up his presidency and searching for ways to explain the country’s continuing economic woes, had a point when he wrote:

The courage and enterprise of the people still exist and only await release from fears and apprehension.

"Release from fears and apprehension," however, did not happen for many years.