So said former President Herbert Hoover in Denver Colorado, on October 20, 1936 on behalf of Republican candidate Alf Landon’s presidential campaign. Hoover used the god term “freedom” to override the practical economic failures of the Republican Party’s attempts to overcome the Great Depression.
Herbert Hoover
“Freedom does not die from frontal attack. It dies because men in power no longer believe in a system based upon Liberty.” [italics added]
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The God Term
Widely considered to have been one of the United States of America’s worst presidents, Hoover asserted a stark disconnection between conservatives and liberals. Ardently pounding on the god term “freedom,” Hoover ignored the disastrous consequences of the conservative economic policies, tight money and protective tariffs, which aggravated the Great Depression’s horrors. Instead, he reframed the debate with the word “freedom.” While Democrats cast the debate in terms of Hoover’s failed policies versus Roosevelt’s New Deal, Hoover debated on national values. The great conservative rhetorical theorist Richard Weaver explains god terms in, The Ethics of Rhetoric: “By “god term” we mean that expression about which all other expressions are ranked as subordinate and serving dominations and powers.”
As he began this speech, Hoover warned against the growth of federal government power, which he called “illegal invasions of the Constitution.” Ignoring the economy’s wholesale decline, the 16.9% unemployment rate, and the banking industry’s collapse, Hoover instead focused on the god term:
Donald Trump's Tariff Speech: "Liberation" as a God Term
Widely considered to have been one of the United States of America’s worst presidents, Hoover asserted a stark disconnection between conservatives and liberals. Ardently pounding on the god term “freedom,” Hoover ignored the disastrous consequences of the conservative economic policies, tight money and protective tariffs, which aggravated the Great Depression’s horrors. Instead, he reframed the debate with the word “freedom.” While Democrats cast the debate in terms of Hoover’s failed policies versus Roosevelt’s New Deal, Hoover debated on national values. The great conservative rhetorical theorist Richard Weaver explains god terms in, The Ethics of Rhetoric: “By “god term” we mean that expression about which all other expressions are ranked as subordinate and serving dominations and powers.”
As he began this speech, Hoover warned against the growth of federal government power, which he called “illegal invasions of the Constitution.” Ignoring the economy’s wholesale decline, the 16.9% unemployment rate, and the banking industry’s collapse, Hoover instead focused on the god term:
“I gave the warning against this philosophy of government four years ago from a heart heavy with anxiety for the future of our country. It was born from many years’ experience of the forces moving in the world which would weaken the vitality of American freedom. It grew in four years of battle as President to uphold the banner of free men.” [italics added]Hoover then railed, albeit in abstract terms, against President Franklin Roosevelt’s New Deal policies. Again, ignoring his own policies’ abject failure, Hoover attacked “economic planning,” “attempts to centralize relief in Washington,” and “attempts at currency inflation and repudiation of government obligation.” He histrionically called the latter policy “robbery of insurance-policy holders, savings-banks depositors and wage earners.” Hoover omitted that people who held financial instruments like insurance policies and savings accounts ranked among society’s more successful members.
Continuing, Hoover used inexact terms about policies while deriding Roosevelt’s supposed assault against freedom. Thus, when Hoover criticized “Marxists,” “Brain Trusters,” and “American radicals,” he may have felt that the god term overrode point by point details. Instead, consistent with conservatives’ habitual opposition to government spending,
Since Hoover was using “freedom” as a god term, a term that had by now achieved almost mystical power, he implied that freedom overrode mere economic considerations. Nearing his conclusion, Hoover marked a line between economic welfare (which he said he supported!) and moral principles. He did not, however, rank economics and moral principles equally: instead, his first and foremost principle was freedom. Without freedom, he asked, what good could material success do for us? Why, he wondered, would we sacrifice our freedom at the cost of moral collapse? Offering another biblical allusion, Hoover said:
The reader will have noted by now that Hoover discussed freedom in an entirely negative sense. That is, freedom meant the absence of government restraint. Hoover never mentioned restraints that business conglomerates and trusts might impose upon their workers or customers, nor did he consider the kind of freedom that means nothing more than the freedom to do without. In contrast, a few years later, Franklin Roosevelt’s Four Freedoms speech would include Freedom from Want. Freedom from Want placed freedom in a more positive sense – not merely the absence of restraint, but the positive freedom to live a fruitful life. Thus, Hoover repudiated not just Roosevelt’s policies, but also the value structure that Roosevelt was still developing.
Franklin Roosevelt’s “Four Freedoms” Speech, a Lesson in Positive Justice
Hoover boasted that:
“I vetoed the idea of recovery through stupendous spending to prime the pump. That was born of a British professor.”One presumes that the British professor was Lord John Maynard Keynes, the economist who founded the modern science of macroeconomics. Interestingly, Hoover never said what was wrong with priming the pump. By this point, the influence of the god term rendered details needless. Going further, Hoover literally condemned macroeconomic stimulus in biblical terms:
“The New Deal repudiation of Democracy has left the Republican Party alone the guardian of the Ark of the Covenant with its charter of freedom.” [italics added]The Ark of the Covenant is found in the Hebrew scriptures (e.g., Deut. 31:9) Hoover thundered that the New Deal, with its vastly increased governmental power, would destroy national freedom and spread suffering:
“Let me say to you that any measure which breaks our dykes of freedom will flood the land with misery.” [italics added]Indeed, continuing to slight the practical pros and cons of economics, Hoover instead emphasized the god term of freedom:
“I am proud to have carried the banner of free men to the last hour of the term my countrymen entrusted it to me.” [italics added]
Mystical Power Overrides Economic Details
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| Soup Kitchen Feeding the Hungry, 1936 |
“There are things far more important to a nation than material welfare. It is possible to have a prosperous country under a dictatorship. It is not possible to have a free country. No great question will ever be settled in dollars and cents. Great questions must be settled on moral grounds and the tests of what makes free men. What is the nation profited if it shall gain the whole world and lose its own soul?” [italics added]That last question recalls Mark 8:36 from the Christian Bible: “For what shall it profit a man, if he shall gain the whole world, and lose his own soul?”
The reader will have noted by now that Hoover discussed freedom in an entirely negative sense. That is, freedom meant the absence of government restraint. Hoover never mentioned restraints that business conglomerates and trusts might impose upon their workers or customers, nor did he consider the kind of freedom that means nothing more than the freedom to do without. In contrast, a few years later, Franklin Roosevelt’s Four Freedoms speech would include Freedom from Want. Freedom from Want placed freedom in a more positive sense – not merely the absence of restraint, but the positive freedom to live a fruitful life. Thus, Hoover repudiated not just Roosevelt’s policies, but also the value structure that Roosevelt was still developing.
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Conclusion
Hoover asked an important question, and we should not underestimate it. His lofty reification of the moral issue of freedom deserves our respect. At the same time, his casual dismissal of the economy’s nearly total collapse, like his stubborn review of his own failed policies, gives us pause. His attempt to equate the New Deal with Marxism and dictatorship was hyperbolic enough to weaken his credibility. For him to equate the free enterprise system with biblical values seemed to me like quite a stretch. Still, when lofty moral goals conflict with a harsh economic disaster, we need to wonder what kind of freedom Hoover was talking about. People enjoy liberty, yes, but no one wants to starve free while other people thrive.
Yet, to economic historians, it is entirely unclear that Roosevelt’s economic policies were actually much better than Hoover’s. Nevertheless, what made the rhetorical difference is that Roosevelt gave people hope by speaking as if he cared about the people, while Hoover only seemed to care about abstract values that somehow only seemed to support individuals who were already thriving. Perhaps that difference in attitude is what propelled Roosevelt to one landslide election victory after another.
The same harsh rhetorical contrast between liberty and prosperity marks our political discourse today. Both sides have a point. For example, Mike Johnson, the Republican Speaker of the House, told the Faith and Freedom Conference that:
______________
Personal note: My parents both grew up during the Great Depression. My paternal grandfather left his family’s rocky farm in the Shenandoah Valley and made a good living as a wholesale grocery salesman. As a result, my father grew up in a large house that was decorated with glorious woodwork and equipped with modern appliances, and his childhood never knew poverty. My father later joked that his father’s business sense never passed down to his descendants, and, to my regret, he had a point. In contrast, my mother, the child of eastern European immigrants, grew up desperately poor. Her father was a carpenter in a steel mill but handled his money poorly, while her mother raised chickens and sold eggs. They still raised 12 successful children through the Great Depression.
Conclusion
Hoover asked an important question, and we should not underestimate it. His lofty reification of the moral issue of freedom deserves our respect. At the same time, his casual dismissal of the economy’s nearly total collapse, like his stubborn review of his own failed policies, gives us pause. His attempt to equate the New Deal with Marxism and dictatorship was hyperbolic enough to weaken his credibility. For him to equate the free enterprise system with biblical values seemed to me like quite a stretch. Still, when lofty moral goals conflict with a harsh economic disaster, we need to wonder what kind of freedom Hoover was talking about. People enjoy liberty, yes, but no one wants to starve free while other people thrive.
Yet, to economic historians, it is entirely unclear that Roosevelt’s economic policies were actually much better than Hoover’s. Nevertheless, what made the rhetorical difference is that Roosevelt gave people hope by speaking as if he cared about the people, while Hoover only seemed to care about abstract values that somehow only seemed to support individuals who were already thriving. Perhaps that difference in attitude is what propelled Roosevelt to one landslide election victory after another.
The same harsh rhetorical contrast between liberty and prosperity marks our political discourse today. Both sides have a point. For example, Mike Johnson, the Republican Speaker of the House, told the Faith and Freedom Conference that:
“The danger that we have right now is the energy, the excitement, the grassroots operation, the money is on the side of the insurgent left and they are openly running as Marxists, communists, for Congress!”
Governments can, indeed, oppress our freedom. Yet, wise government can sometimes alleviate our suffering. As a god term, “freedom” carries great rhetorical power. Can the god term, however, fill an empty dinner table?
by William D. Harpine
______________
Personal note: My parents both grew up during the Great Depression. My paternal grandfather left his family’s rocky farm in the Shenandoah Valley and made a good living as a wholesale grocery salesman. As a result, my father grew up in a large house that was decorated with glorious woodwork and equipped with modern appliances, and his childhood never knew poverty. My father later joked that his father’s business sense never passed down to his descendants, and, to my regret, he had a point. In contrast, my mother, the child of eastern European immigrants, grew up desperately poor. Her father was a carpenter in a steel mill but handled his money poorly, while her mother raised chickens and sold eggs. They still raised 12 successful children through the Great Depression.
Here Is My Family's Immigration Story
Research Note: The rhetorical theorist and literary critic Kenneth Burke wrote about “god terms” in his 1945 book, The Grammar of Motives. Richard M. Weaver later made god terms central to his theory of rhetoric in The Ethics of Rhetoric.
Research Note: The rhetorical theorist and literary critic Kenneth Burke wrote about “god terms” in his 1945 book, The Grammar of Motives. Richard M. Weaver later made god terms central to his theory of rhetoric in The Ethics of Rhetoric.
Copyright ©2026 by William D. Harpine
Image of Herbert Hoover, Executive Office of the President, public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
Image of soup kitchen line, US government, public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
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