The Policies of Hoover
Herbert Hoover was elected President just before the Wall Street Crash. He claimed that the boom would go on forever and that poverty would be removed. These words rebounded on him. Hoover believed that government should not interfere in business and that business would right itself sooner or later. He therefore did nothing at first. He believed that cities and local authorities should help their own unemployed. It was not the government’s responsibility.
Hoover believed in the virtues of ‘rugged individualism’. He was a self-made millionaire and did not see why Americans should be helped out of their difficulties. He believed that people should learn to stand on their own two feet, rather than expect the government to bale them out every time they faced problems. It was easy for Hoover to make such statements, but it was not possible for every unemployed man to help himself. Rugged individualism worked when the great majority of people had work. It failed when there were millions out of work and the government appeared to have failed.
At first Hoover believed that the Depression was simply a blip, or that is what he told the American people. Through the winter of 1929-30 he kept repeating that the situation would soon right itself. He went on saying this throughout 1930 as well, even though the situation was getting steadily worse. This gave the impression that Hoover just did not care. In fact Hoover did care, but he simply did not believe that it was the responsibility of the federal government to take action. When he was finally convinced that he had to do something, it was too little and too late.
In 1930 Hoover past the Hawley-Smoot Tariff, which imposed even higher taxes on imports. Hoover believed that this would force Americans to buy American goods, but the plan back-fired. It simply made American exports even more difficult. In 1930 he reduced taxes. This was an attempt to give people more money to spend. He also began to build the Colorado Dam. This was intended to provide work and also contracts for construction companies. But it was the only example of Hoover getting involved in the economy. Eventually Hoover did agree to spend $4,000,000,000 to try to relieve poverty, but it was too late. Not until 1932 did Hoover set up the Reconstruction Finance Corporation, which could make grants and loans to state governments.
In May 1932 twenty thousand ex-soldiers from the First World War went to Washington to ask for immediate payment of their ‘bonus’. This was a payment of $500 that had been promised by an Act of 1924 and which was due in 1945. The Bonus Marchers, as they became known, camped on the lawn outside the White House. Hoover refused to meet them and in August ordered the US army to clear the Bonus Marchers away. The army sent in tanks, cavalry and infantry under the command of MacArthur, Eisenhower and Patton. As a result, Hoover was deeply unpopular.
In the 1932 presidential election, the Democrat candidate was Franklin Delano Roosevelt. He was an unlikely candidate for the presidency at a time of high unemployment and poverty. He came from a rich family and had never had to cope with poverty in his life. But he had suffered from polio since 1921 and, as Governor of New York, had tried to help those suffering in the Great Depression. In the campaign Roosevelt promised a ‘New Deal’ for the American people and was elected by a landslide majority.
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