Hoover Roosevelt Dbq

After World War One ended in 1918, America moved towards isolation. After Wilson the next two presidents, Harding and Coolidge, had relatively unremarkable terms. The next two presidents, Herbert Hoover and Franklin Delano Roosevelt can be measured by their policies and the laws enacted during their time terms. Herbert Hoover and Franklin Delano Roosevelt have been labeled as Conservative, and Liberal, respectively. President Herbert Hoover believed in Classical economics (Doc A) which is the same as Laissez Faire. He also pushed for Rugged Individualism which is the belief one should succeed on their own efforts. This is not to say that Hoover left the public to fend for itself. In order to help the economy Hoover created public works projects (Doc B). These projects created jobs which then caused more money to circulate. The most prominent of these public works was Boulder Dam, which has been renamed Hoover dam in his honor. Hoover attempted to save the economy in several other ways as well. In order to increase consumption of americans goods Hoover created the Hawley- Smoot Tariff (Doc C), this increased the price of imported goods making american goods more appealing. He also created the Reconstruction Corp, which loaned the banks, railroads, and insurance companies 2 billion dollars. This is considered conservative because it was intended that the loan would be paid back. He also passed the Glass-Steagall act, which allowed banks to accept a greater range of items for collateral. Comparatively President Franklin Delano Roosevelt was a liberal. Originally FDR wishes to balance the budget, thus he passes the Economy act in 1933 (Doc D) this cut the wages of government jobs by 15%. When his attempt to balance the budget backfired FDR finally came to accept the Keynesian theory, which states the government spending is one of the major parts of the economy. During his attempt to balance the budget FDR caused the Roosevelt Recession (Doc E). After he became aware of what was happening he started deficit spending in order to make up for the loss of other economic stimulants. FDR then began to create many organizations to help the american people (Doc F). This is now thought of as alphabet soup because many of them were shortened to three letters. One example of this is the CIO, or congress of Industrial Organizations, which was headed by John Lewis. This was created to help negotiate during strikes. Based on the policies enacted by Hoover and FDR, such as Classical economics and the creation of “Alphabet soup”, it can be concluded that Hoover was a Conservative, and FDR was Liberal.