“Any history worth learning can be taught through a Broadway play.” - Peter Austin Duchan

Hoover vs. FDRConservative vs. Liberal? “Any history worth learning can be taught through a Broadway play.”- Peter Austin Duchan

We'd Like To Thank YouMartin Charnin Today we're living in a shanty Today we're scrounging for a meal Today I'm stealing coal for fires Who knewI could steal? I used to winter in thetropics I spent my summers at the shore I used to throw away the paper-- We don’t anymore… We'd like to thank you: Herbert Hoover For really showing us the way We'd like to thank you: Herbert Hoover You made us what we are today

Prosperity was 'round the corner The cozy cottage built for two In this blue heaven That you gave us Yes! We're turning blue! They offered us AL Smith and Hoover We paid attention and we chose Not only did we pay attention We paid through the nose.

In ev'ry pot he said "a chicken" But Herbert Hoover he forgot Not only don't we have the chicken We ain't got the pot! Hey Herbie You left behind a grateful nation So, Herb, our hats are off to you We're up to here with admiration Come down and have a little stew Come down and share some Christmas dinner Be sure to bring the missus too We got no turkey for our stuffing Why don’t we stuff you?!

We'd like to thank you, Herbert Hoover For really showing us the way You dirty rat, you Bureaucrat, you Made us what we are today Come and get it, Herb!

So, what do we really knowabout Herbert Hoover? • Skilled AdministratorOrganizational Genius • World War I: pooled money with wealthy friends, organized the Committee for the Relief of Belgium, raising $1+billion for food and medicine. • Under Wilson, Hoover ran the U.S. food administration channeling 34 million tons of American food, clothing, and supplies to war-devastated Europe—everyone knew that to "hooverize" meant to ration household materials for the war effort. • He easily won the 1928 Republican nomination for president. His platform rejected farm subsidies, supported prohibition, and pledged lower taxes and more prosperity.

Poor Manager of the Great Depression • Pro-business • Cabinet included six millionaires. • Private enterprise + science and technology = end poverty , beginning to a new humane social order. • Reduced corporate taxes to stimulate growth and free the economy from government influence. • Believed in laissez-faire capitalism, refused to provide direct federal assistance when the market crashed, forcing millions of Americans into poverty.

Public Perception of Hoover’s Response • 2 million Americans rode the rails and lived as "hoboes" in shantytowns called "Hoovervilles.“ • They wrapped themselves in newspapers, or "Hoover blankets," and ate jackrabbits they called "Hoover hogs." • The Reconstruction Finance Corporation secretly channeled millions of dollars a day as handouts to business. • Hoover vetoed relief bills, waiting for his "corporate welfare" program to work. • He seemed uncaring, unwilling to admit that people were starving and that his ideas were failing.

Na na na na, na na na na, hey, hey, hey, good bye… • Summer 1932, called in General MacArthur to drive out the protesters camped on the capital lawns. • MacArthur used cavalry, tanks, and bayonet-bearing soldiers who clubbed women and children, tear-gassed the marchers, burned their shacks, and forcibly drove them across the Potomac. • Against the advice of economists, Hoover signed the Hawley-Smoot Tariff Act, a protective tariff slowed US exports and foreign imports. • Germany could not afford to buy American products or pay their World War I debts. Trade walls sprang up blocking the entry of American products into Europe and Japan. "Blessed are the youngfor they shall inherit the national debt."

A Vision Lost • Ran for re-election 1932, anxious to prove that his policies could work • FDR offered a "New Deal," a "call to arms" in a "crusade to restore America to its own people.” • Not blamed for causing the depression, but is faulted for perpetuating it. Hoover's held firm to "trickle down" economics, rather than activist government intervention in the economy,and doomed his presidency and the fortunes of millions. He is remembered as a tragic failure.

Roosevelt put the “R” in… ReliefRecoveryReform First New Deal: Immediate Economic Relief FDR proposed putting the nation's large corporations under government regulation rather than busting them up to restore competition. He advocated national planning as opposed to laissez-faire capitalism.

Agriculture Relief • The Agricultural Adjustment Act (AAA) paid farmers to cut production and establish marketing cooperatives to raise prices. • The Farm Security Administration (FSA)

Employment Relief • Federal Emergency Relief Administration gave cash to states for immediate payment to the unemployed. • The Civilian Conservation Corps put 300,000 men to work in 1,200 camps planting trees, building bridges, and cleaning beaches. • The Public Works Admin. channeled $3.3 billion to hire workers to build roads, sewage systems, gov’t buildings, ships, aircraft, etc.

The Works Progress Administration (WPA),put unemployed artists to work painting murals on public buildings and on other artistic and cultural projects. These paintings are all WPA murals in Norwalk, CT

Recovery • FDR put purchasing power into the hands of consumers, thereby "priming the pump" of the nation's economy. • Additionally, the Home Owners Loan Corporation and Farm Mortgage Refinancing Act helped unemployed families avoid foreclosure on their homes and farms.

Reform The Securities and Exchange Act restored public confidence in the stock exchanges and banks by compelling stockbrokers to tell the truth about the stocks they sold. The FDIC guaranteed the savings of average citizens everywhere. Social Security provided pensions for the elderly and aid for the blind, disabled, and orphaned. The first public housing programs were established under the Wagner Act.

Tennessee Valley Authority In a bold act of government intrusion into the private sector, Roosevelt established the Tennessee Valley Authority (TVA), which brought electric power and modernization to a vast area of depressed rural America stretching from Virginia to Mississippi. Unfortunately, this federal agency also became the most devastating polluter of the natural environment in the nation. In operating its coal burning generators and dams, the TVA practiced strip mining, released sulfur oxides into the air, poisoned and destroyed forests with acid rain, and dumped untreated sewage and toxic materials into streams and rivers

Early Impact • Unemployment fell from 13 million in 1933 to 9 million in 1936. • Farm income also rose, from $3 billion to $5.85 billion • Manufacturing salaries jumped from $6.25 billion to almost $13 billion. Over 16 percent of the nation's workers remained unemployed.

Critics • Increased taxes and government regulation. • Sapped individual initiatives with its socialistic welfare programs. • Demagogues such as Father Charles Coughlin scorned FDR in weekly radio sermons. • Dr. Francis E. Townsend attacked him for not doing enough for old people. • Governor Huey Long of Louisiana, accused him of falling captive to American business interests.

Impact of the New Deals • Roosevelt institutionalized the role of the federal government as the guarantor and stimulator of the economy • The federal government assumed responsibility for the welfare of American citizens. • FDR's policies allowed for the manipulation of credit and interest rates to promote economic expansion, and a vast array of economic planning policies aimed at "priming the pump" with tax adjustments, government spending, and active intervention in the private sector.

“Any history worth learning can be taught through a Broadway play.” - Peter Austin Duchan