Herbert Hoover and Franklin Roosevelt
Herbert C. Hoover and Franklin D. Roosevelt were contemporaries andoutstanding Americans of the first half of the 20th century who both roseto the highest political office of their country. They are, however,remembered in history for widely contrasting reasons. While Hoover was aone-term President who presided over the most serious economic crisis inthe country's history-the Great Depression-Roosevelt is the only USPresident to have been elected 4 times and is gratefully remembered forhaving pulled his country out of the Depression. Some people believe thatHoover was unfairly held responsible for the Great Depression and they maywell be right but there is no escaping the fact that some of his policiesworsened the economic crisis and it was left to the outstanding leadershipof FDR and his New Deal policies that lifted the spirits of a dejectednation and reversed the downward spiral of a seemingly endless recession. When the US stock market crashed[1] in October 1929 taking the windout of the US economy, Herbert Hoover had been in office for less than ayear; hence his Presidency cannot be held solely responsible for thedownturn. Hoover, nonetheless, was unable to gauge the seriousness of th
Franklin Roosevelt's leadership, which was instrumental in lifting thespirits of the nation during a testing time in its history, contrastssharply with that of Herbert Hoover's, although both men were perhapsequally talented in their own way. TheSecurities and Exchange Commission, an independent agency empowered toregulate the sale of stocks and bonds was established and a "ReciprocalTrade Agreements Act" was passed that helped to bring down tariffs andimport taxes through mutual trade agreements with various countries. " (Moss 34)[1] on a single day of mass panic (October 29-dubbed "Black Tuesday") thestocks lost $10 billion to $15 billion in value (McElvaine 38). Hence, whatever the merits of Hoover as anindividual, his policies contributed to worsening a serious economic crisisinto a deep Depression. The contagion ultimately spread to almost all theindustrial countries of the world and was mainly responsible for the riseof Adolph Hitler who took the world to the edge of total disaster byinitiating the Second World War. The bankingsystem had virtually collapsed by 1933, and FDR introduced insurance forsmall savings depositors, separated commercial and investment banking, andgreatly increased the authority of the Federal Reserve Board. The performance of Franklin D. Perhapsthe most important reforms initiated by President Roosevelt were thepassing of the National Security Act of 1935 that included provision forunemployment insurance and an old-age pension system, as well as thereforms guaranteeing minimum wages, maximum hours, and the right to bargainas a group to the workers. The Hoover government's policy of hightariffs that severely restricted world trade contributed in no smallmeasure to the internationalization of the Great Depression. Soon after beingelected, Roosevelt provided emergency relief to the people directly and tothose areas of the economy that were hit particularly hard by the recessionsuch as the banking sector. He, therefore,involved several Republicans as heads of various special organizations setup to counter the depression. Due to his shy personality, he could not impress thepublic with the need for calm or reverse the rising "tide of fear" aboutthe future of the economy. Hoover's famous"rugged individualism" and his almost dogmatic belief in "mutual self-helpand voluntary giving" prevented him from the need of the hour: to injectmore money in the economy. (Carlin and Cole xvii-xx) Specifically, FDR carried out significant reforms to increase theexisting regulatory activities of the federal government.
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