Presidential Legacies: Hoover and Roosevelt

This is a continuation of the examination of the Post-Progressive Presidents. These are the presidents that served between the end of World War I and the end of World War II. Their policies were either a reaction to or influenced by the Progressives that ruled between 1901 and 1921.

Herbert Hoover followed Coolidge. He could have been a Democrat, but joined the more popular of the two parties. Shortly after assuming office, the economy collapsed. The main cause of the collapse was under consumption of products. In other words, people stopped buying goods. As a result, credit collapsed, people lost their jobs, and the stock market collapsed. Hoover should have been the right man for the job. He led European relief efforts during World War I. He seemed overwhelmed and inadequate. On the other hand, Hoover did attempt to use government to fix the economy. He failed. He does not get credit for what he did try because his efforts were dwarfed by the New Deal. Hoover became synonymous with poverty. New words entered the vernacular under Hoover's watch. Hoovervilles were shanty towns. A Hoover blanket was a newspaper. This combined with his dour personal image doomed his re-election effort.

Franklin Roosevelt came in like a breath of fresh air. He instituted the New Deal. This was a massive governmental effort to end the depression. Some programs worked while others failed. The idea was to try something. Roosevelt’s greatest success was saving the banks and saving capitalism. Upon entering office, he declared a bank holiday and closed the banks. People were taking everything out of the banks. FDR stopped them and thereby stopped the bank failures. When the banks reopened, deposits far exceeded withdraws.

FDR never scrapped capitalism. In fact, today’s leftists, liberals, and progs resent him for not instituting socialism. While some of his policies were antithetical to laissez faire capitalism, they did manage to save and restore capitalism. In an age where fascists and communists were eliminating freedoms worldwide, and some in this country advocating these types of policies, this is no small achievement.

Despite saving the system, the New Deal did not end the Depression. Instead, it was World War II that got people working again. When the Japanese bombed Pearl Harbor, the unemployment rate collapsed. People were back to work. However, it would not be until the Eisenhower Years that the economy would truly recover.

As commander-in-chief, Roosevelt would save the world and his historical legacy. By leading the “arsenal of democracy”, he supplied the allies with wartime materiel. By pushing the Atlantic Charter with Winston Churchill, he offered an alternative to Nazism and Communism. By leading the coalition, choosing the military leaders, and allowing the generals to do their job, he liberated Western Europe. In the end, Roosevelt saved capitalism, democracy, and the world.

In sum, each of the Post-Progressive Presidencies were influenced by the Progressive Era. Warren Harding wanted to return America to normalcy, end the aggressive foreign interventions of Woodrow Wilson, and work on arms control. Calvin Coolidge operated a minimalist government with the only reform being in the tax code. Herbert Hoover attempted an unprecedented governmental response to the Great Depression. Roosevelt was Hoover on steroids. However, his economic policies ended up creating a barter economy not unlike Medieval Europe. Roosevelt’s saving grace was his leadership through World War II.