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Herbert Hoover's Response To The Great Depression

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Herbert Hoover was elected before the start of the Great Depression. When the stock market crashed, he was forced to deal with a struggling economy. Many Americans blamed him for their hardships despite his successes. Hoover’s legacy remains tarnished by his failures and lack of support for the American people. Hoover responded to the Great Depression by wanting to keep the government hands off, this is known as a laissez faire. Hoover believed that this issue would work out itself and that all would be okay within time. Also, he believed in rugged individualism. This means picking yourself up and working out your issue. He was horribly wrong, the Great Depression was going to need much more work than he thought it did. (Keplinger, Hoover Struggles with the Depression class notes.) Even though Hoover did many things wrong, there were a few things that he did correctly. One of his greatest achievements while he was in office was building the Hoover Dam. This created jobs for Americans that were out of work. Furthermore, Hoover urged bank owners to join a credit …show more content…

For example, he created the Reconstruction Finance Corporation (RFC). RFC would use trickle down economics to try to help the economy. RFC was passed in 1932 and gave billions of dollars to railroads, banks, and large corporations. These companies were suppose to create more loans and hire more people, but most of them just kept a good part of the money for themselves and didn’t trickle down economics. Another example would be the bonus army. Thousands of veterans from WW1 went to the Capital in June of 1932. They requested early payment of cash bonuses that were originally due to them in 1945. Hoover asked them to leave and when they refused to he called the National Guard on them. This upset many Americans.("Copy of Hoover's Response Fails." Prezi.com. N.p., n.d. Web. 02 Nov.

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