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Hoover vs. Roosevelt
President Hoover carried several serious handicaps into the 1932 presidential elections. He was an incumbent presiding
over the worst economic collapse in the nation's history. His political philosophy, while progressive, depended
on voluntary actions to achieve his goals, and this voluntary approach failed to materialize during the trauma
of the Depression. As a public personality, he was somewhat dour and he was uncomfortable with the business of
campaigning. His notion of the role of the President was that of a facilitator who brought the parties together,
encouraged partnerships, and supplied the expertise of the engineer to the social problems of a nation. The idea
of the President as a powerful and inspirational leader (an idea that Franklin Roosevelt would come to embody)
was foreign to him. Put it all together, and a surer prescription for defeat could hardly have been assembled.
Franklin Delano Roosevelt, by contrast, was everything Hoover was not. Roosevelt was ebullient and self-confident.
He radiated charm and an almost haughty self-assurance. He was supremely optimistic and his big smile and obvious
relish of campaigning made millions of Americans feel that he was someone who genuinely cared about them. Politically,
he was moved by a single simple philosophical premise: that the nation was in trouble and it was the responsibility
of government to do something about it. Roosevelt's election victory was a landslide. He won 472 electoral votes
to Hoover's 59.
The "New Deal"
Franklin Roosevelt campaigned as a reformer, and surely intended to be one. During his inaugural address he made
his intentions clear:
"[The] withered leaves of industrial enterprise lie on every side. . . a host of unemployed citizens face
the grim problem of existence, and an equally great number toil with little return. . . The money changers have
fled from their high seats in the temple of our civilization. We may now restore that temple to the ancient truths.
. . I am prepared under my constitutional duty to recommend the measures that a stricken Nation in the midst of
a stricken world may require. . . But. . . in the event the national emergency is still critical I shall not evade
the course of duty that will then confront me. I shall ask the Congress for the one remaining instrument to meet
the crisis--broad Executive power to wage a war against the emergency, as great as the power that would be given
me if we were in fact invaded by a foreign foe."
| During his presidency Herbert Hoover received about 4,200 letters a week, offering advice or seeking help. In his
first seven days in office President Roosevelt received 450,000 such letters. |
Impact on Social Security
The election of 1932 was a pivotal event in the development of Social Security. Had President Hoover been reelected,
it is virtually certain there would not have been a Social Security Act in 1935, and it is unlikely that Hoover
would ever have embraced any social insurance scheme. Franklin D. Roosevelt played the key role in bringing social
insurance to America. Even so, those anxious for more radical change in the American political system were deeply
disappointed by President Roosevelt. The President's own values and political mores were actually fairly conservative.
And on the issue of economic security, there were much more radical ideas competing with social insurance for the
nation's attention.
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