Roosevelt Vs. Hoover and the Great Depression

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Roosevelt and Hoover

The Great Depression drastically changed America's definition of Liberalism. Prior to the onset of the depression, in the roaring twenties, policies of laissez-faire were considered liberal, radical, revolutionary, and even democratic. This was due to the fact that revolution was a horrifying notion and not until after the laissez-faire and the system of free market fails in the 1920's do people begin to look about for alternatives. The time when people starting to seek alternatives was at the onset of the depression when America's political views drastically change. As the Great Depression, started in 1929, America began to view conservatives as following the policies of social Darwinism, laissez-faire, and having small governments. In contrast, liberals were seen as following polices of having more government regulation and large governments. Thus because the Great Depression started and America's views of liberalism changed, Hoover was seen as a conservative and Franklin D. Roosevelt as a liberal despite occasional occasions where they supported polices not characterized as liberal or conservative.

Due to the fact that the Great Depression changed the definition of liberalism, President Herbert Hoover began as a liberal but by the end of his term was considered a conservative although occasionally advocating liberal policies. When Hoover came into office big business flourished attributable to prior Republican presidents of Harding and Coolidge. Hoover kept the government from intervening in the economy because of the success of the big businesses, the public's fear of revolution, and the public being contentment with the politics. In addition, the invention of the production line, which in...

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...r from the Depression until World War II.

Roosevelt administration and Roosevelt can be characterized as liberal seeing that he quickly passed measures of legislations to create recovery, relief, and reform for the nation by today's standards and standards of the 1930s even though there were occasional conservative notions like the balanced budget. However Hoover's characterization from liberal to conservative changed consequently during the depression. Hoover ideas changed from opposing government intervention in the economy to reluctantly supporting government inception for employment such as the RFC. Thus because the Great Depression started and America's views of liberalism changed, Hoover was seen as a conservative and Franklin D. Roosevelt as a liberal despite occasional occasions where they supported polices not characterized as being liberal or conservative.

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