Rugged Individualism Speech, Herbert Hoover, 1928

This speech was delivered in New York City by Republican presidential candidate Herbert Hoover on October 22, 1928, toward the close of the election campaign. In this classic example of American conservative philosophy, Hoover condemned the Democratic platform as a misguided attempt to solve the problems of prohibition, farm relief, and electrical power through state socialism; he extolled free, private enterprise and initiative, a system of "rugged individualism," as the foundations of America's "unparalleled greatness." Government entry into commercial business, he argued, would destroy political equality, increase corruption, stifle initiative, undermine the development of leadership, extinguish opportunity, and "dry up the spirit of liberty and progress."

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