Herbert Hoover's presidency, from 1929-1933, was forever scarred by the Great Depression and his own political philosophy of Rugged Individualism.
1928 Election
When Herbert Hoover ran for the presidency in 1928, he was hoping to continue the good times of the Roaring 20s.
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Hoover promised during the campaign to continue the peace and prosperity that the decade had been experiencing. As a result, he carried 40 states in the presidential election and defeated challenger Alfred Smith 444-87 in electoral votes (a huge landslide victory).
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Hoover's quote of "I have no fears for the future of our country," would come back to haunt him. A short seven months after getting taking office, the
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The president did not believe in government handouts or aid. It wasn't that Hoover was not aware of the suffering, he just believed that Americans did not want the government to interfere in their lives - even when times were bad.
Boulder Dam
The one project that Hoover did attempt was from 1931-1936 called the Boulder Dam.
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The dam would take nearly five years to complete and cost in excess of $49 million to construct.
The good news was thousands of jobs had been created during the Great Depression. The bad news was those jobs were only located near the Colorado River in the area around Arizona and Nevada.
While the dam, now called "Hoover Dam" today, was considered a huge success, it did little to spark the economic downturn facing the entire nation.
1932 Election
By the time Hoover was up for re-election in 1932, the nation was in the grips of the Great Depression (which had begun in 1929). Americans saw Hoover's Rugged Individualism as inactivity on the part of the president.
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As a result, Franklin D. Roosevelt won the presidency easily - defeating Hoover 472-59 in the electoral
Historians claim that Hoovers term during the depression was filled with false promises and accuse the president of doing nothing while the depression worsened. Along with worsening the debt and a fairly aggressive use of government it is clear his approach towards the situation was not the best. FDR’s approach would prove during his administration to suffice in the augmentation of the crisis. Although it seemed like a completely opposite presidency, many ideas came from his predecessor. Roosevelt’s team of advisors understood that much of what they produced and fashioned into the New Deal owed its origins to Hoover’s policies.
The President of the United States is instrumental in the running of the country. He serves as the chief executive, chief diplomat, commander in chief, chief legislator, chief of state, judicial powers, and head of party. Article II of the Constitution states that the President is responsible for the execution and enforcement of the laws created by Congress. He also is tasked with the authority to appoint fifteen leaders of the executive departments which will be a part of the President’s cabinet. He or she is also responsible for speaking with the leaders the CIA and other agencies that are not part of his cabinet because these agencies play a key role in the protection of the US. The President also appoints the heads of more than 50 independent
Hoover believed the root cause of the depression was international, and he therefore believed that restoring the gold standard would ultimately drag the United States out of depression by reviving international trade. Hoover initiated many new domestic jobs programs aimed at creating jobs, but it seemed to have no effect as the unemployment rate continued to rise. The Democrats nominated Franklin Roosevelt as their candidate for president in 1932 against the incumbent Hoover. Roosevelt was elected in a landslide victory in part due to his platform called "The New Deal". This campaign platform was never fully explained by Roosevelt prior to his election, but it appealed to the American people as something new and different from anything Hoover was doing to ameliorate the problem.
One main cause of the depression was the overproduction of farming and factory goods. The nation was so over-productive that its citizens couldn't afford to pay for these goods because all of the money was going into production fees, and not salaries When Hoover enacted the Hawley-Smoot Tariff, U.S. goods acquired an enormously high 60% tax rate, this was part of the reason for the depression, since no other countries wanted to pay the high tariff rate just to buy goods from the United States. While Hoover thought that he was helping the economy with this tariff, it turns out that all he did was isolate the U.S. from Europe and other parts of the world that would normally trade with the United States. President Hoover also thought that the government shouldn't give the citizens any direct help, when in fact, that was exactly what they needed to do. Instead of going out into the community and directly helping people, Hoover thought that if he created “public works” like the Hoover Dam, he could create jobs, and help citizens ...
He quickly moves from the panic of 1929 to the ‘30’s and how many of the popular governmental sentiments during the election were no longer so. Hoover quickly moved from a position of public acceptance and admiration to that of a scapegoat. That the Depression was his fault is not entirely true, though. Hoover did not have much of the information needed to foretell the economic situation. In the laissez-faire form of government he prescribed, there was no place for a department that would document these things for the use of the president’s office.
The 1930s were a very rough time for most people. These were hard times because of the Great Depression and the Stock Market crash. The Presidents of the 1930s were Herbert Hoover and Franklin Delano Roosevelt. Both of these Presidents came from different backgrounds and had the responsibility of trying to help people through the Great Depression. The two Presidents of the 1930s, Herbert Hoover and Franklin Roosevelt were faced with many problems during America’s Great Depression and had very different approaches at solving them. Franklin Roosevelt was favored by many and Hoover was looked down on by most of America’s people.
The Great Depression America 1929-1941 by Robert S. McElvaine covers many topics of American history during the "Great Depression" through 1941. The topic that I have selected to compare to the text of American, Past and Present, written by Robert A. Divine, T.H. Breen, George M. Frederickson and R. Hal Williams, is Herbert Hoover, the thirty-first president of the United States and America's president during the horrible "Great Depression".
“I pledge you, I pledge myself, to a new deal for the American people,” was the famous slogan of Franklin Delano Roosevelt. After long periods of continuous downfall, the people of the nation were consumed with negative feelings due to the lack of effort put forth by President Hoover during the Great Depression. Not only were the people agitated with his poor effort, but more with his method to resolve the situation they were in. Hoover believed in the concept of rugged individualism. This was a term he used during his presidency in the stages of the depression. The idea of rugged individualism was created in order so that the government would be less depended on and that the people of the nation should fend for themselves more in times of distress. It would be obvious that during this era, a majority of the United States would not appreciate or accept the concept of rugged individualism. In fact, there was much tension and turmoil that was set out against President Hoover in the later stages of his presidency due to this factor. It was more so that the people were ready for a change. The nation needed the help and support of a dedicated government. It was more of a need that they longed for to be put out of the economic and social depression that they were in. It was certain that Hoover was not the right man to help them get out of it (Kingsbury). Luckily, the nation soon did find that there was someone out there who would be dedicated enough to get it out of its distress. There was no greater man for the job than Franklin Delano Roosevelt. Being a Democratic politician, Roosevelt would not only win the nation over with his social tactics, but more so with his political party. With...
The American people began to view Hoover’s ideas of the ideal small government as conservative, while Roosevelt’s progressive policies became the representation of liberalism. Therefore, it can be said that the Great Depression was a major contributing factor in changing the way in which Americans differentiated between liberalist and conservative beliefs. As a result of this shift in America’s perception of these policies, Roosevelt became a liberal in the eyes of the people, whereas Hoover gained the reputation of a conservative. However, these former presidents are noted for occasionally supporting similar policies. The Great Depression hit the United States while Hoover was serving his first and only term as president.
Herbert Hoover, President 1929 -1932. was a straight laced, prohibition supporting President who favoured. the Laissez Faire approach to governing the country. He took up office at a time when America was complacent over it’s economics. future, and did not regard economic policy as of major importance in the election of the president. He did have a humanitarian side, having been President.
President Hoover tried designed to jump-start the economy and add jobs. He wanted to reform banks to provide mortgage relief and spend more $423 million federal money into business investment. Congress decided to pass the Federal Home Loan Bank Act, whi...
Thus, while Roosevelt can definitely be characterized as a liberal by today's standards and the standards of the 1930's, Hoover's characterization changed as the public's view of a liberal quickly became a conservative during the depression. Furthermore, Hoover's ideas changed from opposing government intervention in the economy to supporting government incentives for employment. Unlike most presidents (under Schlesinger's theory) Hoover experienced private interest, transition, and public purpose within the one term of his presidency.
President Herbert Hoover was the conservative Republican president of America when the Great Depression occurred, and was given the burden of rebuilding the economy. He believed the federal government should not intervene, and instead believed that helping the needy was the obligation of private organizations and donors, whom he pressured. In addition, Hoover granted loans to big businesses, hoping that the money would “trickle down” and that more employees would be hired.
Because the economy was doing so well during the “Roaring 20s”, there wasn’t much of a dispute over this type of leadership. While President Hoover kept that same mindset in his approach to economic recovery, his successor President Franklin Delano Roosevelt took a completely different and pragmatic approach, willing to think outside of what was accepted at the time. President Hoover continually reminded Americans that things would get better if they kept working hard and pushed through. “Franklin D. Roosevelt introduced programs between 1933 and 1938, designed to help America pull out of the Great Depression by addressing high rates of unemployment and poverty. An array of services, regulations, and subsidies were introduced by FDR and Congress, including widespread work creation programs.
The Great Depression caused major political changes. Three years after the great depression started, Herbert Hoover lost the 1932 presidential election