J. M. Kennedy

“- Viens t’agenouiller avec moi près de la fenêtre, David, et prions pour que ta maman se sente bien demain, et que rien n’arrive à ton papa ce soir, et que toi et moi… que toi et moi ne souffrions pas trop, ni demain, ni jamais.Cela m’avait l’air d’une prière magnifique, alors j’ai regardé par la fenêtre et j’ai commencé, mais mes yeux sont tombés sur la Bible de néon, en dessous de nous, et je n’ai pas pu continuer. Et puis j’ai vu les étoiles du ciel qui brillaient autant que la belle prière et j’ai recommencé, et la prière est venue sans que j’aie à réfléchir, et je l’ai offerte aux étoiles et au ciel de la nuit.””

“In that same month, disaffected conservatives within the president's Democratic Party formed the American Liberty League. Its members included Al Smith, former Democratic Party chairman John J. Raskob, onetime Democratic presidential nominee John W. Davis, and a raft of corporate leaders like Alfred P. Sloan of General Motors and Sewell Avery of Montgomery Ward. Growing ever more shrill in their denunciation of the New Deal, they represented what Herbert Hoover scornfully called the "Wall Street model of human liberty." (Hoover pointedly declined an invitation to join.)””

“Economically, the Hawley-Smoot Tariff signaled the world that as the depression lowered the United States was moving toward the same autarkic, beggar-thy-neighbor, protectionist policies with which other nations were already dangerously flirting. Many observers warned of the perils of this position. One thousand economists signed a petition urging Hoover to veto the bill. Thomas Lamont, a partner in J. P. Morgan and Company and usually an influential economic adviser to Hoover, recalled that "I almost went down on my knees to beg Herbert Hoover to veto the asinine Hawley-Smoot Tariff. That Act intensified nationalism all over the world.””