Harry Reid is wrong (The Herald, October 9). It was not President Franklin Delano Roosevelt (1933-45) who established the Reconstruction Finance Corporation (RFC) but his predecessor, the often-maligned President Herbert Hoover (1929-33).

By the time Hoover was president he was a world-renowned figure following his enormous humanity projects in Europe during the early days of the First World War and thereafter. Maxim Gorki wrote of his work in Belgium: "You have saved from death 3,500,000 children and 5,5000,000 adults." Finland added a verb to its language; to "hoover" meant to help.

Depression is an expression Hoover himself coined rather than use the word panic. As it deepened, people talked of "Hoover blankets" (old newspapers) and "Hoover flags" (empty pocket turned inside out). There was also the "Hooverville" of the Bonus Marchers who camped outside the White House in 1932.

FDR beat Hoover in the 1932 election. He then expanded the scope of the RFC and, with his New Deal, adding a battery of acronyms to the political lexicon - the NRA, CCC, TVA and WPA. But to give Hoover his due, he took more measures than any previous president to control a depression. It was to no avail. When the RFC failed to gain any economic traction he told former President Calvin Coolidge (1923-29) of his bitter disappointment. Coolidge observed: "You can't expect to see calves running in the field the day after you put the bull to the cows." Hoover's weary response was: "No, but I would expect to see contented cows." Hoover was a great engineer and even greater humanitarian; he was the first to "prime the pump".

Bob Cuddihy, 143 Constitution Street, Edinburgh.