ELECTION #37, 1932. The NASTY-METER is 10 (especially for Hoover).

QUOTE from Franklin D. Roosevelt at his inauguration in March, 1933: "Let me assert my firm belief that the only thing we have to fear is fear itself - nameless, unreasoning, unjustified terror which paralyzes needed efforts to convert retreat into advance."

What a difference four years can make. The stock market had crashed in 1929, twenty-three hundred banks collapsed in 1931 alone, in 1932, more than 300,000 kids were forced out of bankrupt school systems,and millions of Americans were out of work. The name Hoover became synonymous with desperation and poverty - Hoovervilles were shantytowns, Hoover blankets were newspapers, and Hoover Pullmans were boxcars in which, over 200,000 starving Americans rode throughout the country seeking jobs.

The CANDIDATES in !932.

REPUBLICAN: HERBERT HOOVER.

The Republicans were stuck with Hoover and his seventy-two year old VP, Charles Curtis. The only claim to fame that Curtis had was that he had Native-American blood. Before he gave a speech, Curtis would always have an Indian "maiden" recite Longfellow's "Hiawatha."

DEMOCRAT: FRANKLIN DELANO ROOSEVELT.

The Democrats had the charismatic FDR, he was fifty years old and the governor of New York. He had been crippled by polio in 1921 but possessed huge reserves of energy as well as the political gift of being able to tell people exactly what they wanted to hear. FDR's VP candidate was "Cactus Jack" Garner, a hard-drinking Texan and Speaker of the House.

The CAMPAIGN in 1932.

Roosevelt and the Democrats made sure the American people hadn't forgotten the promises Hoover had made. Two examples of those Hoover promises were: "Prosperity is just around the corner." and "The worst has passed" - most Americans had not forgotten.

Hoover had become so unpopular that the Secret Service warned him not to leave the White House. At a campaign stop in Kansas, people threw tomatoes at his train, and a few people were arrested for pulling up spikes from the tracks. In Detroit people demanded he be lynched - the mounted police had to break up this demonstration. In his final campaign appearance in New York he was surrounded by crowds screaming, "We want bread." At one point he said to his aides. "I can't go on anymore."

In the meantime Roosevelt was campaigning by train across the country speaking of his "New Deal for the American people" and was continuously upbeat. Plus he used the campaign songs "Happy Days Are Here Again" and "Kick Out The Depression With a Democratic Vote."

The WINNER was FRANKLIN D. ROOSEVELT and he became the 32nd president of the U.S.

Roosevelt got 22,829,501 popular and 472 electoral.

Hoover got 15,760,684 popular and 59 electoral.

About any Democrat could have won in 1932, that's how unpopular Hoover was. One biographer of Hoover said that "not only was Hoover beaten but 'he was excommunicated.'" Roosevelt won 42 of the 48 states. The vote totals were almost the exact opposite of 1928.

Roosevelt almost didn't get to be president. Being his inauguration wouldn't be until March 4, 1933, in February he took a vacation to the Bahamas and Florida. While giving a speech in Florida a man took a shot at Roosevelt. The shot missed FDR but hit Anton Cermak, the mayor of Chicago. Unfortunately for Cermak, he happened to be standing next to Roosevelt.