Exploring How President Hoover Dealt with the Economic Problems During the Great Depression

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During the Great Depression the task of being president of the United States became even greater, because of the suffering economy. Herbert Hoover was one of the president’s who was faced with this challenge. In fact, he was President during the time of the stock market crash. During his time as president there were many controversies that surrounded him. Many people felt that he wjhnot reaching his full potential as president through some of the things he helped organize in order to help the struggling economy. In actuality, he was doing more than others before him for the economy, but unfortunately it was not enough and what little help he did provide came too late. Part of the reason he acted too late was, because of his opinions and thoughts on the Depression and how the government should go about remedying it. President Hoover’s thoughts and views greatly affected the economy and the ways it was dealt with during his presidency. “President Hoover was deeply concerned about the suffering. However, Hoover did not believe that government should become directly involved in helping end the business crisis. He feared that government might become too powerful. It was up to the businesses, he felt, to end the downslide.” (Davidson 750) Throughout his time as president, President Hoover had many thoughts on and about the economy. One thing he was very adamant about was that the government should not have too much power in fixing the economy. He was concerned that it would have too much of a negative impact instead of a positive one. Instead he thought that businesses should work together and provide more jobs with a reasonable pay to workers. He also did not agree with government relief programs. He thought that these programs wo... ... middle of paper ... ...e many of them were out of work and suffering financially. This caused a lot of friction in Washington, because their was a lot of debates over weather or not they should give these men their bonuses right away or have them wait. In the end it was decided that these men would have to wait and President Hoover said that they were to leave. When these men refused to leave, he had to use a more severe tactic. He asked General Douglas MacArthur to do what was necessary to make these men leave. And he did, he brought in severe military equipment such as, tanks, tear gas and other military supplies. After, this event many people were outraged and angered over it. They felt that what had occurred was too harsh and that is should have been handled differently. Although, President Hoover could have handled things differently, he still had done what was, in his opinion, best.

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