Hoover – what did he do and was the country better off with his contributions? - A. Roberts

Hoover was a man who happened to be in the White House while the country was falling apart. He was a man who had to deal with the dust bowl as well as the beginning of the Depression in the town he lived and worked in. The country needed a leader to work hard to combat the problems of the country, Hoover tried but did he succeed?

Herbert Hoover was the thirty-first president of the United States. Elected at the beginning of what some say the start of the great depression 1928. He was in office during the dark day of October 29 1929 called Black Tuesday. After this day Hoover tried to revitalize the economy by ordering federal projects to be sped up so there would be more work. He also tried to get all 48 states to cooperate in doing this as well. He went to congress with 160 million dollar tax cut and doubling the resources for public buildings. Hoover also encouraged businesses to make a hold or even give raises to their employees. All these things were meant to give people jobs and bring more income to the families that were affected by the depression. Although he was able to stimulate the economy on the technology and products side the flood of goods was greater than the demand. This caused a great number of people to then be unemployed. There was no unemployment insurance then so people went hungry. There was also the problem of banks gambling with people’s money in the shaky stock market. Since there were so many banks this caused people to lose their hard earned money. The actions of Hoovers administration regarding the stimulus of the economy tried to help but people were then scared and cut their spending. The cause of the depression although undetermined seems to be greatly encouraged by the fact that there were a lot of goods produced that no one would buy. As well as the companies making no money from their goods and then laying people off and eventually going under. Hoover had the right idea to create an environment for a thriving economy but there were a lot of outside factors that committed it to be then doomed.