In the previous part, I established the manner in which Hoover failed to prevent the Great Depression from happening; or at least, how he failed to mitigate it. As unemployment ran increasingly amuck and banks failed left and right, Hoover’s administration began to have cause for worry. The president’s belief in the power of civic, voluntary, and most importantly, nongovernmental action was beginning to crumble for most Americans. This became entirely apparent when Republicans lost whopping 52 seats in the 1930 congressional elections and eight seats in the senate.
In 1931, the following year, Hoover continued to oppose federal relief for unemployment, stating that he would only favor such action if all nongovernmental agencies in the country were to entirely fail to combat physical hunger and economic suffering among the American people. Some businesses did whatever they could, such as General Electric, which cut several new light bulb styles and retrained workers to improve their position in the firm. But such efforts were not enough; consumers receded from their rampant spending in the 1920s, choosing to only spend cautiously on items of sustenance in order to save funds (remember, many Americans had, at this point, lost jobs).
Facing these odds, Hoover could not shy away entirely from federal action. In 1931 he approved the Federal Employment Stabilization Board, which had the primary task of providing federal spending in construction business to curb unemployment. Still, his reluctance support for such laws manifested itself in low budgets and a lack of further legislation to expand public works. He also approved a one-year moratorium on intergovernmental debts in an attempt to prevent international credit collapse, but only succeeded in delaying it. Meanwhile, Americans at home continued to suffer.
As his campaign for reelection loomed and desperation set in, Hoover approved more initiatives. In January 1932 the Reconstruction Finance Corporation (RFC) came into being with the goal of providing financial institutions with lent money and acting as a leader for a ditch effort to save the nation’s banks, the only institutions capable of generating credit in the economy. He also signed the Federal Land Bank system to aid farms in need of mortgage assistance. Measures such as these helped loosen restrictions on bank credit, a positive move in combatting the Depression. But even so, they did little to nothing for average Americans who were not involved in the banking system. All in all, Hoover stood by his deep-rooted principles that did not include direct assistance for workers.
Hoover’s inability to stem the tide of economic depravity must be addressed. But to simply say that Hoover caused the Great Depression (an entirely false accusation) or that he did absolutely nothing to halt it would be too simple of a historical argument. Rather, it is more significant to say that Hoover did attempt to combat the Depression, only in his own way. That method included adhering to Republican principles of government inaction and encouraged communal and business action to aid the nation. Unfortunately for Hoover and America as a whole, that belief in the goodwill of enterprise and community did not materialize. It is unlikely that we can blame America itself for not causing the Depression, though. Rather, we must look at Hoover as such: he did what he thought was right, as per any Republican in an economic crisis; but he did not realize the true extent of the nation’s malign until it was far too late, until a point at which the Great Depression had festered in deep and actually cost him the presidency. It became FDR’s turn to fight where Hoover had lost.
An American Inquiry 
