ABSTRACT
HERBERT HOOVER CAME TO THE OVAL OFFICE when America was at high tide. Peace and prosperity were the order of the day. The national mood was giddy. President Hoover seemed to be the man for the moment. Despite the fact that his Democratic opponent, Al Smith, had carried the twelve largest cities of the United States, the result in 1928 constituted a coup for Hoover and an embarrassment for the Happy Warrior. In March 1929 Hoover was inaugurated amidst great joy and jubilation. That coming summer Coolidge and Hoover, along with Frank Kellogg (Coolidge’s Secretary of State) gathered together to cheer the renunciation of war in accord with the ratification of the Kellogg-Briand Treaty which had been the work of the Coolidge Administration. The Treaty would turn out to be a warm, fuzzy, international kiss of peace. The American leaders held little stock in the real world value of the Treaty.
