what would you regard as the main thrust of Hoover's campaign speech
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When summer of 1928, the fifty-three-year-old Herbert Hoover was on the verge of winning his party's nomination for President. He had won primaries in California, Oregon, New Jersey, Massachusetts, Michigan, and Maryland. Among important Republican constituencies, he had the support of women, progressives, internationalists, the new business elite, and corporate interests. Party regulars grudgingly supported Hoover, but they neither liked nor trusted him. Hoover's nomination was assured when he received the endorsement of Treasury Secretary Andrew Mellon, who controlled Pennsylvania's delegates.
The convention nominated Hoover on the first ballot, teaming him with Senate Majority Leader Charles Curtis of Kansas. The Republican platform promised continued prosperity with lower taxes, a protective tariff, opposition to farm subsidies, the creation of a new farm agency to assist cooperative marketing associations, and the vigorous enforcement of Prohibition. The party also proclaimed its commitment to delivering a "technocrat" known for his humanitarianism and efficiency to the White House. In his acceptance speech, Hoover promised "a final triumph over poverty"—words that would soon come to haunt him.
The four-term New York governor, Alfred E. Smith, a Catholic opponent of Prohibition (the common term for the Eighteenth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution that banned the manufacture, sale, or transport of liquor), won the Democratic nomination on the first ballot. His "Protestant Prohibitionist" running mate, Senator Joseph G. Robinson of Arkansas, balanced Smith's "Wet (anti-prohibitionist) Catholic" stance. Democrats hoped that Smith could unify the party and defeat Hoover, something that few political pundits at the time considered even remotely possible. The Smith-Robinson ticket actually mirrored the divide in the party between southern, Protestant backers of Prohibition and northern, urban, often Catholic opponents of Prohibition. The Democratic platform downplayed the tariff issue and emphasized the party's support for public works projects, a federal farm program, and federal aid to education. It also promised to enforce the nation's laws, a nod to supporters of Prohibition who worried that Smith might try to repeal the Eighteenth Amendment.
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