Compare And Contrast Hoover And Fdr

While the US seemed to be succeeding, the great depression struck, giving rise to unemployment and poverty, prompting both Hoover and FDR to come up with different strategies in response to it, regardless of some opposing the new deal. The great depression arises when the stock market crashes, following the banks to collapse. This made Americans begin to panic and run to their banks to withdraw their money, called the bank panic of 1930. Then high unemployment, foreclosure of businesses, and poverty began taking over. Many Americans became frustrated and worried with the wave of poverty hitting the nation, becoming hopeless and living in poor conditions, where “lights were cut off…cut off the water”, and starvation began to take over, creating

Roosevelt. They both had different responses to the problems of the great depression. Hoover believed in indirect action; he thought that the government was in charge of encouraging voluntary cooperation, guiding relief measures but not directly running them, and asked businesses to retain workers and continue production. Hoover limited the government spending, set up committees, and created the Hawley-Smoot Tariff in order to protect farmers and manufacturers, but it did not work. Hoover didn't do enough, but he did help the great depression by establishing the Reconstruction Finance Corporation (RFC), which authorized loans for banks, railroads, ect, and helped with housing by creating the Federal Home Loan Bank Act (FHLA), that helped lower the cost of house ownership. However, even though Hoover used these programs, they still did not succeed in getting the nation out of the great depression because his actions were too small to have any effect on the problem. In comparison, FDR believed in direct action; he thought that the government should get more involved in the economy in order to fix the nation's problem. FDR proposed the new deal, containing relief, recovery, and reform in an attempt to save the nation from the great depression, saying its a “new instrument of public power” (American Liberty League). FDR provided relief by spending “huge sums upon

Business leaders opposed the new deal because they viewed it as a threat to their profits and economic power and, “harassed American business and has entered into competition in almost every possible way with private industry” (American Liberty League). A lot of conservative politicians criticized the new deal because it symbolized an excess of power leading to socialism and they saw the government programs as a threat to individualism, with “no sphere of individual or business life” sinking “the welfare of the individual to the government” (American Liberty League). Southern democrats were against the new deal because the policies relating to labor and union rights gave too much power to labor unions. Some farmers were against the new deal because it favored large agribusiness by opening “American markets to import of foodstuff which properly should be supplied by the American Farmer” (American Liberty League). They also believed that crop policies like the Agricultural Adjustment Act that paid farmers to not grow crops “raised the price of foodstuff” and were not properly addressing the problem they were facing (Anti-New Deal