By Patrick N. Allitt, Emory University
Herbert Hoover had won the election of 1928, and was the most popular and well-respected men in American life. He became the President of the USA when the country’s economy was enjoying the boom conditions. His life had been an uninterrupted line of triumphs.
A Shining Star
Herbert Hoover was born in Iowa to Quaker parents, but orphaned when he was still a boy. He had gone off to live on the West Coast with relatives and worked his way through Stanford University. He was successful in getting good jobs as a mining engineer in Australia and South Africa, and other parts of the world. He had risen very rapidly as a very shrewd businessman, and an advocate of progressive management policies in the mining business.
Let us take a look at his political career.
Hoover and the First World War
He was in Europe when the First World War started. He organized the evacuation of Americans from France and Belgium to get them safely back to America. He organized famine relief during the war for the people of Belgium, many of whom were caught by the upheavals of the war. After the armistice in November 1918, it was he who supervised the convoys of food bringing relief to the half-starving people of central Europe.
John Maynard Caines, the economist, said of Hoover, “The ungrateful governments of Europe owe much more to the statesmanship and insight of Mr. Hoover and his band of American workers.”
This is a transcript from the video series A History of the United States, 2nd Edition. Watch it now, on Wondrium.
Hoover’s Virtues and Values
As secretary of commerce under Presidents Harding and Coolidge, he contributed to a very successful trade policy. It was because of his work that American manufacturers were able to penetrate world markets. During his eight years in that job, his was the only department of the federal government that continued to grow, while most other areas of the federal government were shrinking.
He believed in all the progressive virtues: application of expertise, study groups, rational planning, and efficient management. When he was inaugurated as President in 1929, just a few months before the Great Depression began, he spoke on behalf of the traditional American values and virtues: self-help, economic independence.
The Attack on the Bonus Marchers
Hoover was an autocratic leader. He lacked what his successor, Franklin Roosevelt, had in abundance, the ability to win citizens’ easy confidence. He was used to being the boss; he’d never had to face such severe conditions of austerity before.
One of his most tactless moves was his attack on the Bonus Marchers. A group of World War I veterans marched to Washington saying, “Now that we’re unemployed, will the federal government consider paying us ahead of time a veteran’s bonus to which we’re due?”
Rather than meeting them at the White House, conciliating them, he ordered a contemporary group of American soldiers to disperse them by force.
“Hoovervilles”
Multiple factors undermining the health of the world economy lead to mass unemployment and underemployment in America. Individuals who had been thrown out of work because the factory had closed down tended to internalize the blame and feel as though they had done something wrong to lose their job in this system.
During the Great Depression, large numbers of workers who were unable to find employment in one place, began to travel the country in search of work. Large numbers of migrants had to ride in the trains, often illegally, and hobo communities established themselves around the country.
As communities of displaced people spread in America, and as more and more hobos were forced to live in shantytowns while they wandered about the country in search of work, the shantytowns were named “Hoovervilles”. These were the little communities that Hoover’s policies had made necessary, a jarring affront to his pride and dignity.
Hoover’s Measures During the Depression
His anti-Depression measures were too little and too late to satisfy his critics. He did support big public works projects, such as the Boulder Dam between Arizona and Nevada downstream from the Grand Canyon, and the building of the great Los Angeles Aqueduct, which was vital in taking Colorado water to Los Angeles.
He was willing to incur federal government deficits, but unwilling to directly involve the government in running the economy. He vetoed the idea that the government ought to take on a hydroelectric scheme at Mussel Shoals on the Tennessee River:
I am firmly opposed to the government entering into any business, the major purpose of which is competition with our citizens. The remedy for abuses and the conduct of that industry, the electric industry, lies in regulation. I hesitate to contemplate the future…of our country if the preoccupation of its officials is no longer the promotion of justice and equal opportunity, but is to be devoted instead to barter in the markets. That is no liberalism. It is degeneration.
Roosevelt and Hoover
When the campaign of 1932 began, Franklin Roosevelt, who emerged as his Democratic challenger, criticized Hoover, not for being too stingy in his spending on Depression relief, but for his profligacy. In other words, as they were campaigning, both candidates agreed that there were certain things that the government couldn’t do, even to alleviate a depression of this magnitude.
Hoover had gone from being one of the most famous and well admired men in America before his presidency, to become the scapegoat. The Great Depression was clearly something far beyond the control of any one individual, even an individual as powerful as the American President.
Roosevelt won the election of 1932 and was much more successful than Hoover. He was not successful in bringing the Depression to an end, which only the Second World War could do, but superior in his political skills, which enabled him to win and keep the popular confidence.
Common Questions about Hoover’s Presidency
The displaced people in America were forced to live in shantytowns named “Hoovervilles”. These were the little communities that Hoover’s policies had made necessary during the Depression.
Franklin Roosevelt, had in abundance, the ability to win citizens’ easy confidence. Hoover, on the other hand, was used to being the boss. This made Hoover an autocratic leader.
As secretary of commerce under Presidents Harding and Coolidge, he contributed to a very successful trade policy. It was because of his work that American manufacturers were able to penetrate world markets.
