“Any history worth learning can be taught through a Broadway play.”

- Peter Austin Duchan

Hoover vs. FDRConservative vs. Liberal?

We'd Like To Thank YouMartin Charnin

Today we're living in a shantyToday we're scrounging for a mealToday I'm stealing coal for firesWho knew I could steal?I used to winter in the tropicsI spent my summers at the shoreI used to throw away the paper--We don’t anymore…

We'd like to thank you: Herbert HooverFor really showing us the wayWe'd like to thank you: Herbert HooverYou made us what we are today

Prosperity was 'round the cornerThe cozy cottage built for twoIn this blue heavenThat you gave usYes! We're turning blue!

They offered us AL Smith and Hoover

We paid attention and we choseNot only did we pay attention

We paid through the nose.

In ev'ry pot he said "a chicken"

But Herbert Hoover he forgot

Not only don't we have the chicken

We ain't got the pot!Hey HerbieYou left behind a grateful nationSo, Herb, our hats are off to youWe're up to here with admirationCome down and have a little stewCome down and share some

Christmas dinnerBe sure to bring the missus tooWe got no turkey for our stuffingWhy don’t we stuff you?!

We'd like to thank you, Herbert HooverFor really showing us the wayYou dirty rat, youBureaucrat, youMade us what we are today

Come and get it, Herb!

So, what do we really knowabout Herbert Hoover?Skilled AdministratorOrganizational Genius

• World War I: pooled money with wealthy friends, organized the Committee for the Relief of Belgium, raising $1+billion for food and medicine.

•Under Wilson, Hoover ran the U.S. food administration channeling 34 million tons of American food, clothing, and supplies to war-devastated Europe—everyone knew that to "hooverize" meant to ration household materials for the war effort.

•He easily won the 1928 Republican nomination for president. His platform rejected farm subsidies, supported prohibition, and pledged lower taxes and more prosperity.

Poor Manager of the Great Depression

• Pro-business

• Cabinet included six millionaires.

• Private enterprise + science and technology = end poverty , beginning to a new humane social order.

• Reduced corporate taxes to stimulate growth and free the economy from government influence.

• Believed in laissez-faire capitalism, refused to provide direct federal assistance when the market crashed, forcing millions of Americans into poverty.

• 2 million Americans rode the rails and lived as "hoboes" in shantytowns called "Hoovervilles.“

• They wrapped themselves in newspapers, or "Hoover blankets," and ate jackrabbits they called "Hoover hogs."

• The Reconstruction Finance Corporation secretly channeled millions of dollars a day as handouts to business.

• Hoover vetoed relief bills, waiting for his "corporate welfare" program to work.

• He seemed uncaring, unwilling to admit that people were starving and that his ideas were failing.

Public Perception of Hoover’s Response

• Summer 1932, called in General MacArthur to drive out the protesters camped on the capital lawns.

• MacArthur used cavalry, tanks, and bayonet-bearing soldiers who clubbed women and children, tear-gassed the marchers, burned their shacks, and forcibly drove them across the Potomac.

• Against the advice of economists, Hoover signed the Hawley-Smoot Tariff Act, a protective tariff slowed US exports and foreign imports.

• Germany could not afford to buy American products or pay their World War I debts. Trade walls sprang up blocking the entry of American products into Europe and Japan.

"Blessed are the youngfor they shall inherit the national debt."

Na na na na, na na na na, hey, hey, hey, good bye…

A Vision Lost

• Ran for re-election 1932, anxious to prove that his policies could work

• FDR offered a "New Deal," a "call to arms" in a "crusade to restore America to its own people.”

• Not blamed for causing the depression, but is faulted for perpetuating it. Hoover's held firm to "trickle down" economics, rather than activist government intervention in the economy, and doomed his presidency and the fortunes of millions. He is remembered as a tragic failure.

First New Deal: Immediate Economic ReliefFDR proposed putting the nation's large corporations

under government regulation rather than busting them up to restore competition. He advocated national

planning as opposed to laissez-faire capitalism.

Roosevelt put the “R” in…

Relief

Recovery

Reform

Agriculture Relief•The Agricultural Adjustment Act (AAA) paid farmers to cut production and establish marketing cooperatives to raise prices.•The Farm Security Administration (FSA)

Employment Relief• Federal Emergency Relief Administration gave cash to states for immediate payment to the unemployed.

• The Civilian Conservation Corps put 300,000 men to work in 1,200 camps planting trees, building bridges, and cleaning beaches.

• The Public Works Admin. channeled $3.3 billion to hire workers to build roads, sewage systems, gov’t buildings, ships, aircraft, etc.

The Works Progress Administration (WPA),put unemployed artists to work painting murals on public

buildings and on other artistic and cultural projects.

These paintings are all WPA murals in Norwalk, CT

Recovery • FDR put purchasing power into the hands of consumers, thereby "priming the pump" of the nation's economy.

• Additionally, the Home Owners Loan Corporation and Farm Mortgage Refinancing Act helped unemployed families avoid foreclosure on their homes and farms.

ReformThe Securities and Exchange Act restored public confidence in the

stock exchanges and banks by compelling stockbrokers to tell the

truth about the stocks they sold. The FDIC guaranteed the savings of

average citizens everywhere.

Social Security provided pensions for the elderly and aid for the blind, disabled, and orphaned.

The first public housing programs were established under the Wagner Act.

Tennessee Valley AuthorityIn a bold act of government intrusion into the private sector, Roosevelt established the Tennessee Valley Authority (TVA), which brought electric power and modernization to a vast area of depressed rural America stretching from Virginia to Mississippi.

Unfortunately, this federal agency also became the most devastating polluter of the natural environment in the nation. In operating its coal burning generators and dams, the TVA practiced strip mining, released sulfur oxides into the air, poisoned and destroyed forests with acid rain, and dumped untreated sewage and toxic materials into streams and rivers

Early Impact• Unemployment fell from 13 million in 1933 to 9 million in 1936.• Farm income also rose, from $3 billion to $5.85 billion• Manufacturing salaries jumped from $6.25 billion to almost $13 billion.

Over 16 percent of the nation's workers remained unemployed.

Critics• Increased taxes and government regulation.• Sapped individual initiatives with its socialistic welfare programs.• Demagogues such as Father Charles Coughlin scorned FDR in weekly radio sermons.

• Dr. Francis E. Townsend attacked him for not doing enough for old people.• Governor Huey Long of Louisiana, accused him of falling captive to American business interests.

Impact of the New Deals• Roosevelt institutionalized the role of the federal government as the guarantor and stimulator of the economy• The federal government assumed responsibility for the welfare of American citizens.• FDR's policies allowed for the manipulation of credit and interest rates to promote economic expansion, and a vast array of economic planning policies aimed at "priming the pump" with tax adjustments, government spending, and active intervention in the private sector.