Roosevelt, Hoover, And The Great Depression Essays -

Roosevelt, Hoover, And The Great Depression The year was 1929. America goes through the biggest national crisis since the American Civil War. They called it the Great Depression. The Stock Market was going down, unemployment was going up, and money was becoming scarce. The United States had to look up to the one person who could lead the country out of this national catastrophe, The President. At this time the man who had that title was none other than Herbert Hoover. Hoover, A republican, hoped that this was all a nightmare, he hoped that the Depression was a small fluke that would fix itself after a short period of time. After seeing that the Depression was getting worse had to use federal relief efforts. At the end of his term a democrat, Franklin Roosevelt, took his place and tried to fulfill his campaign promises by getting the country out of the Depression. At first Hoover opposed any relief efforts, but as the Depression worsened, he started a few farm assistance programs. Hoover hoped that theses farm programs would help the farmers' situation with the low crop prices. Unfortunately farmers had to come dependent on this government handout. Hoover also started federal work projects such as the Grand Coulee Dam and the Hoover Dam. These projects provided many jobs for people and provided affordable hydroelectric power for people but the Great Depression was a much bigger problem than a few extra job openings could fix. Hoping that raising tariffs could help American business Hoover created the Hawley-Smoot Tarrif. This actually worsened economy and caused lower export rates. One of Hoover's big mistakes was that he wouldn't go off the gold standard. Hoover believed that if our money was not backed up by anything that it would be worthless and that the United States would have bad credit. Also Hoover would not, under any circumstances, a llow America to be in debt. He thought that taping into the national debt would prolong the depression even make it worse since the government would have to pay interest on the loans. Hoover was a man set on his ways and helped very little with the Depression. In Roosevelt's inaugural address he declared war on the Depression and asks for an expansion on his powers. When Roosevelt took over the office he summoned Congress to work out his recovery plan. This is a period called the First Hundred Days and contained a program called the First new Deal. Roosevelt started by putting poorly managed banks under control of the Treasury Department and set standards required for someone to start up a bank. This helped people to trust the banking system and caused people to put money into the banking system. Roosevelt also created the FDIC, which guaranteed bank deposits. Roosevelt later started many agencies known as the ?alphabet agencies?. Some of which are the AAA, NIRA, PWA, CCC, TVA, SEC. All of the agencies were created to provide government jobs or help out the situation of the low prices of farm product. Roosevelt believed in the idea of experimentation. He thought that the government should always be doing something, and if an idea doesn't w ork than it should be replaced with something else. Roosevelt was able to get the American people on his side by informing them what was going on and what he was planing to do this through his ?fireside chats?. Every few months Roosevelt would discuss his future plans on how he was attempting to win the war against the Great Depression. Though Roosevelt was able to provide more job and got the banks up an running again he really had little lasting effect on the fight against the depression. Hoover and Roosevelt had very different policies. Roosevelt didn't let the government sit around. He made sure that there were government programs up and running. If he was dissatisfied with the programs progress he would simply dismiss the program and start a different program in it place. Hoover on the other hand wanted to wait and think. He wanted to make sure that the programs that he provided money for wouldn't be a waste and would definitely work. Hoover didn't want to spend anymore money than