Hoover Vs Fdr

Roosevelt's New Deal Versus Hoover's Societal Vacuum

Hoover and Roosevelt had very different ideas on how the Depression should be handled. This was almost entirely a result of two integral differences in their schemas; Hoover was a Republican, and had basically worked his way through life, while Roosevelt was a Democrat, and had been born with the proverbial silver spoon in his mouth. As one can easily see, in many ways these two are complete opposites; in fact, if one looks at both their upbringing and their political affiliation, it seems that Roosevelt's and Hoover's policies had to have been different in a great many ways.

Hoover was brought up in a poor family, and worked almost his entire life. When he was eight years old, his parents died so he went to live with his uncle. Hoover had endured a great many hardships in his life, and knew what it was like to do without. In fact, Hoover was very poor as a child, although not necessarily living in poverty. It was only later in his life that Hoover's uncle became rich. This effect on his schema would be rather interesting, as it seems that he should have had a better understanding of how to handle problems with the poor than Roosevelt. As Hoover was born poor, one would think that he would know how to run the country like a business, so that it would stay afloat; however, when confronted with the Depression, he repeatedly cut taxes. Hoover was basically a hard working Republican, the quintessential self-made man - the American Dream. Roosevelt, on the other hand, had been born into a very rich family; He grew up with everything, had his own pony and sailboat, and had everything basically taken care of for him in his childhood by his mother. He even got an education at Harvard. This gave him a sense of security, of being able to do anything he wanted, most simply because he didn't fail early on. He had never lived through what the American public was going through during the Depression, so his view of the world, his schema, did not necessarily include what it was like to live in poverty. He believed that the Depression could be solved merely by putting as many people to work for the government as possible. This could relate to how, growing up, he himself did not have to work in any way, shape, or form. Roosevelt did have one other perspective that would always be unavailable to Hoover; he was a cripple. He had contracted polio on 1921; by the time he became governor of New York in 1928, he could not walk unaided. He refused to let this stop him, though, and remained a suave speaker, unlike his competitor Hoover. Political affiliation is also one of the most necessary differences to realize in contrasting Hoover and Roosevelt. Hoover's policies, when viewed form the modern perspective, seem rather strange. One of his major efforts appears to have been lowering taxes (still a tactic by Republicans); he basically expressed faith in the existing American system. He called leaders of industry to Washington D.C. and made them promise to keep up wages and such, but when they did not he worked with local welfare agencies. He basically refused to give out any national welfare, believing that it demeaned proud Americans. While he attempted much to help businesses, it was clear by 1932 that his policies were a complete failure. Even when the Democrats had control of the congress after 1930, he still stubbornly refused to take stronger action. Throughout this time, the bank failures had been steadily going up. His lowest point in popularity was when a group of veterans camped in D.C. demanding