President Hoover Dbq Essay

Before the early twentieth century, Americans either swayed republican or democratic, but as the country reached the 1900s liberal and conservative ideals surfaced into many citizens’ mindsets. Liberals were people with modern ideas and believed that in order to better the American society, there needed to be room for change. Conservatives, however, believed in tradition and had strong beliefs on sticking to the original way of life in America. President Herbert Hoover, who was seen as a conservative, was elected in 1929. Under the republican party, many Americans liked him because he worked his way to the top. At an early age, Hoover was orphaned and had to depend on his self to learn and create a living. During his presidency, he portrayed

As someone who had always struggled financially throughout his life, he felt he could bring America back up from the depression, as seen in Document 4. Hoover is pulling up America from a waterfall as Europe keeps falling with no help, representing America striving for recovery and Europe’s past recession. A conservative idea seen by Hoover was his belief in rugged individualism, he believed that the Americans should help themselves from the despair of the Great Depression. He also believed that the people should not rely solely on the government’s assistance and the government should not overly aid the people. In Document 2, it is seen that Hoover felt the most effective way for the Americans to end the depression was to volunteer themselves into community services. During his presidency, he also signed the Hawley-Smoot Tariff into effect in 1930 which raised taxes on imports by 60% and was meant to protect businesses and farmers, however it worsened America’s

In Document 8, Roosevelt makes known all of the issues of the time including unemployment, farmers, and wages. In his New Deal system, he found the Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC) where young white men were given community jobs and were required to send money home to their families. Similar to Hoover’s RFC, it provided jobs and money for the unemployed and helped them find small jobs to provide for their families by helping the community. This was seen as liberal because the government was assisting the people financially. During the 1930s, farmers kept growing their crops but had no way of trading due to the increase on tariffs. In response to these issues, the Agriculture Adjustment Act was founded and paid farmers to stop farming and helped them pay their mortgages. This was a huge liberal policy, due to the fact that they had to pay people to stop doing their jobs. Another liberal act that was created was the Wagner Act. It created minimum wage and maximum work hours, which was liberal because businesses were now required to pay their employees a certain amount of money or higher and also allowed labor unions. Another liberal factor that Roosevelt stressed was tariffs, in Document 5 Roosevelt reveals that he wishes to lower tariffs by 25%, which would help farmers when trying to trade. Yet, just like Hoover, Roosevelt also stressed some