Presumably out of fear of the White House or, perhaps, because it would keep the unions quiet, industrial leaders agreed to this proposal.
The result was rapidly escalating unemployment, as firms quickly realized that they could not continue to employ as many workers when their output prices were falling and labor costs were constant. Of all of the government failures of the Hoover presidency—excluding the actions of the Federal Reserve between and , over which he had little to no influence—his attempt to maintain wages was the most damaging.
Had he truly believed in laissez-faire, Hoover would not have intervened in the private sector that way. Later in his presidency, Hoover did more than just jawbone to keep wages up.
He signed two pieces of labor legislation that dramatically increased the role of government in propping up wages and giving monopoly protection to unions. The result of this move was to close out non-union labor, especially immigrants and non-whites, and drive up costs to taxpayers.
A year later, he signed the Norris-LaGuardia Act, whose five major provisions each enshrined special provisions for unions in the law, such as prohibiting judges from using injunctions to stop strikes and making union-free contracts unenforceable in federal courts. Two other areas that Hoover intervened in aggressively were immigration and international trade.
One of the lesser-known policy changes during his presidency was his near halt to immigration through an Executive Order in September His argument was that blocking immigration would preserve the jobs and wages of American citizens against competition from low-wage immigrants.
Once again, Hoover was unafraid to intervene in the economic decisions of the private sector by preventing the competitive forces of the global labor market from setting wages.
This law increased tariffs significantly on a wide variety of imported goods, creating the highest tariff rates in U. Most of these policies continued and many expanded throughout , with the economy worsening each month.
The Reconstruction Finance Corporation to lend tax dollars to banks, firms and others institutions in need. Creating a Public Works Administration that would both better coordinate Federal public works and expand them. On top of these spending proposals, most of which were approved in one form or another, Hoover proposed, and Congress approved, the largest peacetime tax increase in U. The Revenue Act of increased personal income taxes dramatically, but also brought back a variety of excise taxes that had been used during World War I.
The higher income taxes involved an increase of the standard rate from a range of 1. The Act also raised the corporate income tax along with several taxes on other forms of income and wealth. The myth of Hoover as a defender of laissez-faire persists, despite the fact that his contemporaries clearly understood that he made aggressive use of government to fight the recession. The myth also persists in spite of the widespread recognition by modern historians that the Hoover presidency was anything but an era of laissez-faire.
He said in war times no one dreamed of balancing the budget. Fortunately we can borrow. We might have done nothing. That would have been utter ruin. Instead, we met the situation with proposals to private business and the Congress of the most gigantic program of economic defense and counter attack ever evolved in the history of the Republic.
These programs, unparalleled in the history of depressions of any country and in any time, to care for distress, to provide employment, to aid agriculture, to maintain the financial stability of the country, to safeguard the savings of the people, to protect their homes, are not in the past tense—they are in action. No government in Washington has hitherto considered that it held so broad a responsibility for leadership in such time.
Some might dismiss this as campaign rhetoric, but as the other evidence indicates, Hoover was giving an accurate portrayal of his presidency. When we all burst into Washington. The RFC [Reconstruction Finance Corporation], probably the greatest recovery agency, was of course a Hoover measure, passed long before the inauguration. Nor is this point lost on contemporary historians. Only the last was dubious. Of all the presidents up to and including him, Herbert Hoover was one of the most active interveners in the economy.
New York: Harper Collins, , p. Murray N. David M. New York: Oxford University Press, p. See the data and discussion in Jonathan Hughes and Louis P. Cain, American Economic History , 7th ed. Once the war ended, Hoover, as head of the American Relief Administration, arranged shipments of food and aid to war-ravaged Europe. During the fast-paced modernization of the s, Hoover played an active role in organizing the fledgling radio broadcasting and civilian aviation industries, and also laid the groundwork for the construction of a huge dam on the Colorado River between Arizona and Nevada.
Named for Hoover, the dam opened in In the U. Promising to bring continued peace and prosperity to the nation, he carried 40 states and defeated Democratic candidate Alfred E. Smith , the governor of New York , by a record margin of electoral votes. On October 24, —only seven months after Hoover took office—a precipitous drop in the value of the U.
Banks and businesses failed across the country. Nationwide unemployment rates rose from 3 percent in to 23 percent in Millions of Americans lost their jobs, homes and savings. Many people were forced to wait in bread lines for food and to live in squalid shantytowns known derisively as Hoovervilles. Hoover undertook various measures designed to stimulate the economy, and a few of the programs he introduced became key components of later relief efforts.
He believed in a limited role for government and worried that excessive federal intervention posed a threat to capitalism and individualism. He felt that assistance should be handled on a local, voluntary basis.
Accordingly, Hoover vetoed several bills that would have provided direct relief to struggling Americans. By the time of the presidential election, Hoover had become a deeply unpopular—even reviled—figure across much of the country. Carrying only six states, he was soundly defeated by Democratic candidate Franklin D.
Roosevelt , the governor of New York, who promised to enact a slate of progressive reforms and economic relief programs that he described as a New Deal for the American people. He wrote articles and books outlining his conservative political views and warning about the dangers of investing too much power in the federal government.
Hoover returned to public service in the s, serving on commissions aimed at increasing government efficiency for presidents Harry Truman and Dwight Eisenhower By the time Hoover died at age 90 on October 20, , in New York City , assessments of his legacy had grown more favorable.
Start your free trial today. But if you see something that doesn't look right, click here to contact us! Subscribe for fascinating stories connecting the past to the present. Lou Hoover was an American first lady and the wife of Herbert Hoover, the 31st president of the United States. As a child, Lou developed an interest in nature and the outdoors, a passion she would follow to Stanford University, where she became one of the Hoover was the first president born west of the Mississippi River.
Herbert Clark Hoover was born on August 10, , in a two-room, whitewashed cottage built by his father in West Branch, Iowa, a small prairie town of just people. The future president did not cross east When confronted by the crisis of the Great Depression, the American president knew that doing nothing was not an option.
British politician Herbert Henry also known as H. Asquith , a reform-minded member of the Liberal Party, served in the British House of Commons for three decades and was prime minister from to , leading Britain during the first years of World War I In the early 20th century, the U.
Bureau of Reclamation devised plans for a massive dam on the Arizona-Nevada border to tame the Colorado River and provide water and hydroelectric power for the developing Southwest. Construction within the strict timeframe proved an immense His aggressive methods targeting
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