Handling the Great Depression
Handling the Great DepressionHoover and Roosevelt had very different ideas on how the
Depression should be handled. This was almost entirely a result of two
integral differences in their schemas; Hoover was a Republican, and
had basically worked his way through life, while Roosevelt was not
only a Democrat, he had basically been born with the proverbial silver
spoon in his mouth. As one can easily see, in many ways these two are
complete opposites; in fact, if one looks at both their upbringing and
their political affiliation, it seems that Roosevelt's and Hoover's
policies must have been different in a great many ways. Hoover was
brought up in a poor family, and worked almost his entire life. When
he was eight years old, his parents died so he went to live with his
uncle. His uncle worked with him, and later became rich. Hoover had
endured a great many hardships in his life, and knew what it was like
to do without. In fact, Hoover was very poor as a child, although not
necessarily living in poverty. This effect on his schema would be
rather interesting, as it seems that he should have had a better
understanding of how to handle problems with the poor than Roosevelt.
As Hoover was born poor, one would think that he would know how to run
the country like a business, so that it would stay afloat; however,
when confronted with the Depression, he repeatedly cut taxes. Hoover
was basically a hard working Republican, the quintessential self made
man. Roosevelt, on the other hand, had been born into a very rich
family; He grew up with education at Harvard, had his own pony and
sailboat, and had everything basically taken care of for him in his
childhood by his mother. This gave him a sense of security, of being
able to do anything he wanted, most simply because he didn't fail
early on. He had never lived through what the American public was
going through, so his view of the world, his schema, did not
necessarily include what it was like to live in poverty. He believed
that the Depression could be solved merely by putting as many people
to work for the government as possible. This could relate to how,
growing up, he himself did not have to work in any way, shape, or
form. Roosevelt did have one other perspective that would always be
unavailable to Hoover; he was a cripple. He had contracted polio on
1921; by the time he became governor of New York in 1928, he could not
walk unaided. He refused to let this stop him, though, and remained a
suave speaker, unlike his competitor Hoover.
Political affiliation is also one of the most necessary
differences to realize in contrasting Hoover and Roosevelt. Hoover's
policies, when viewed form the modern perspective, seem rather
strange. One of his major efforts appears to have...
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