Roosevelt a Liberal and Hoover a Conservative
Thesis: Because the Great Depression quickly changed America's view of liberalism, Roosevelt can be considered a liberal and Hoover a conservative, despite occasionally supporting similar policies.
Written for the Advanced Placement U.S. History Document Based Question from the A.P. test.
Hoover
The political shifts in American history during the last two centuries are often explained by Arthur Schlesinger's cyclical explanation of eras of public purpose followed by private interest. What is considered liberal versus what is considered conservative shifts in a similar pattern. While laissez-faire policies are considered liberal in the Roaring 20's, the onset of the Great Depression in 1929 quickly changed America's view of liberalism. Suddenly, the small government politics of Hoover were conservative and the progressive politics of Roosevelt were considered liberal. Thus, because the Great Depression quickly changed America's view of liberalism, Roosevelt can be considered a liberal and Hoover a conservative, despite occasionally supporting similar policies.
Because the Great Depression occurred during Hoover's term as president, in the public's mind, Hoover started his presidency as a liberal and ended it as a conservative. With the end of the Progressive Age in 1910, big business flourished because Harding, Coolidge, and Hoover kept government from intervening in the economy. Compared to the public purpose policies of Teddy Roosevelt, the laissez-faire policies of these presidents seemed extremely liberal. The invention of the production line which spurred on the Second Industrial Revolution, allowed businessmen such as Henry Ford to prosper, while automobiles and electrical appliances became available to the masses. America's success and optimism caused people to support the liberal policies of the 1920's.
However, even before the Depression, there were signs that Hoover was becoming more conservative. As Document A suggests, Hoover did not want to be considered completely laissez-faire. He seemed less determined to preserve the extremely capitalistic society of the 1920's which was run, often corruptly, by political machines, such as Tweed. However, the success of the American economy under the private interest beliefs of Harding and Coolidge required him to ensure that the lack of intervention ...
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...ca afloat as shown in Document D.
Roosevelt immediately gained the public's favor with his liberal ideas. In the first 100 days, Roosevelt stabilized banks with the Federal Bank Holiday. In the New Deal he fought poverty with the TVA, NRA, AAA, CCC, PWA, and CWA. These policies were definitely liberal in the 1930's and because of the new programs, Roosevelt received false credit for ending the Depression. Ironically Roosevelt succeeded only a little more than Hoover in ending the Depression. Despite tripling expenditures during Roosevelt's administration, (Document F) the American economy did not recover from the Depression until World War II.
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. Still, during...
The Great Depression hit the United States while Hoover was serving his first and only term as president. In the end, the public saw Hoover as a man who began his presidency as a liberal, but who’s beliefs began to resemble those of a conservative towards the end of his term. The Progressive Age had come to an end by 1910 and big business thrived as Harding, Coolidge, an...
The stock market crash of 1929 set in motion a chain of events that would plunge the United States into a deep depression. The Great Depression of the 1930's spelled the end of an era of economic prosperity during the 1920's. Herbert Hoover was the unlucky president to preside over this economic downturn, and he bore the brunt of the blame for the depression. 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 works 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. The Roosevelt administration's response to the Great Depression served to remedy some of the temporary employment problems, while drastically changing the role of the government, but failed to return the American economy to the levels of prosperity enjoyed during the 1920's.
The Great Depression wreaked havoc on the economy, and in light of this President Hoover and President Franklin D Roosevelt Both initiated programs and policies to counter act the effects, however both had very different approaches with varying degree of efficacy. Through their actions, the American people would generally perceive both men quite differently, and cultivated fear in direct respect to both men's approach--both men would earn their critics as the long term effects played out. Hoover and FDR had fairly opposite approaches to solving this horrid depression.
...reased under Hoover. Similarly, it underwent erratic fluctuations under Roosevelt as well; increasing, decreasing but one evident trend is that despite the efforts by both men, the total public debt continued to increase. Neither economic policy truly “worked.” The difference though was in the delivery. Hoover advocates a change in economy by forcing large corporations to act with “glass pockets” to expose any unethical tactics they might employ. He does not resolve to make any significant government changes but merely more regulations on those corporations directly contributing to the economy. By this, Hoover shows his conservatism. Roosevelt, on the other hand (Doc G), identifies “the most serious threat to our institutions” to be coming from “those who refuse to face the need for change.” He goes on to identify that willingness as both conservative and liberal.
President Hoover was part of the Republican Party. He took office in 1929 when the American economy was at its high and when he left it reached its twentieth century low. The Great Depression occurred and he sprang into action by calling a White House conference of business and labor leaders and recommended that they accompany in the voluntary plan for recovery meaning businesses would maintain the same and all the workers would still have jobs. Also labor would keep the same wages, hours, and conditions. But after a few months the plan did not work out and the demand for products started to decrease which meant that they had to cut production, wages and lay off some of the workers, causing the economy to decline.
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.
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.
The Great Depression hit America hard in the 1930s. Money was scarce and jobs were difficult to find. Franklin Roosevelt (FDR) was elected into office and took charge, leading the drive towards building America up again; he created the New Deal programs which aimed at improving the lives of citizens. These acts were successful but created controversy, some for and some against. Despite these disagreements, the New Deal was neither conservative nor liberal; it did just what was needed to help the country pull out of this Great Depression.
In response to the Stock Market Crash of 1929 and the Great Depression, Franklin D. Roosevelt was ready for action unlike the previous President, Hubert Hoover. Hoover allowed the country to fall into a complete state of depression with his small concern of the major economic problems occurring. FDR began to show major and immediate improvements, with his outstanding actions during the First Hundred Days. He declared the bank holiday as well as setting up the New Deal policy. Hoover on the other hand; allowed the U.S. to slide right into the depression, giving Americans the power to blame him. Although he tried his best to improve the economy’s status during the depression and ‘pump the well’ for the economy, he eventually accepted that the Great Depression was inevitable.
Hoover is also vilified repeatedly for his inaction with the Depression. His personal policy and his party’s policy were designed to let the country find its own way, for if it became dependent on government aide, it would be a weaker nation that if it found it’s own way. This was a flawed assumption on their behalf though, because even in the 1920’s, there was a movement from many of the nation’s younger voters advocating change.
Generally when people think of monsters all they think about are some scaly, or hairy, or just big some big scary monster. But actually spending some time with said monsters start to discover a bigger meaning of these monsters. You see a monsters isn't just made off the top of someones head it is actually thought about like what features it will include. For example the makers of horror film monsters have to think about things like what audience are they making this monster for or what kind of features will the monster have to have to scare this audience.
Kanter, R.M., Stein, B.A. and Jick, T.D. (1992) The Challenge of Organizational Change (New York: The FreePress).
Implementing change in the workplace is a dynamic process. Although change itself can be controlled and limited to some degree, innovation is substantially even more dynamic. This dynamic, unpredictable process introduces vulnerability, which can lead to employee frustration. Just as the scenario addresses, many individuals become motivated at the thought of change and innovation; however, the change does not occur due to resistance or other obstacles. Much of this resistance arises from the unpredictability and vulnerability of the process. Managers must be able to prevent or manage resistance by using tools and strategies to smooth the process.
...its were contracting it; The Fed's inaction was the reason why the initial recession turned into a prolonged depression; The economy continually sank throughout Hoover's entire term. Under Roosevelt's New Deal, it rose five out of seven years. Attempts to blame Big Government for the Depression do not withstand serious scrutiny; The Smoot-Hawley Tariff had a minor impact because trade formed only 6 percent of the U.S. economy, and reducing trade gave Americans only that much more money to spend domestically. Hoover's other attempts at government intervention came mostly during his last year in office, when the Depression was already at its depth; The first nations to come out of the Great Depression were Sweden, Germany, Great Britain, and then everyone else did so after they adopted the Keynesian solution of heavy deficit government spending and the Keynesian economic policies have eliminated the depression from the world's economies in the six decades that have followed.