Rizwan Alam

What were the social, economic and political causes of the Depression? Why did
the efforts of Herbert Hoover fail to halt the Great Depression?

After the World War Two and in the twenties, an era in which people were
motivated to live for the short term. After the war Farmers weren’t asked for the
necessary products during the war, businesses who made uniforms, and other army
needs had to let go of the people who they hired during the war, which mostly were
women. Harding and Coolidge, both full of morality and conservative ideas and
staff, could not think of ideas to get the nation out of poverty. Then came the
economic genius, Herbert Hoover, who himself rise from poverty, he used radio to
communicate with the nation and poor people of America got a light of hope and
therefore Hoover, in 1928, Hoover triumphed in a landslide with 444 electoral
votes to Smith’s 87. People of United States of America in 1920’s were getting
themselves into loans and buying all the products they wanted, but eventually it
became an economic chaos and Hoover, who had no political background or
experience, was the last hope for some Americans, but if he didn’t came to be what
the people saw him when elected, the only result to the Great Depression would be
another war.
World War I had given the farmers prosperity, as they’d produced much food
for the soldiers. This gave farmers enough money for them to spend it on
experiments to improve and fasten up the pace of producing such goods, and they
triumphed in making such products like the gasoline-engine tractor, but when the
government refused to pay or buy products at such pace, these technologies became
a huge factor in their disadvantages and eventually fell into poverty. McNary
Haugen tried explaining the government and the president through his bill, which
sought to keep agricultural prices high by authorizing the government to buy up
surpluses and sell them abroad, helped a little. Unfortunately the presidents of
that era believed the business of America was its business, and therefore Coolidge
didn’t think critically when it came to the poverty of the farmers and vetoed the
bill twice.

Business of America is its business. Too much attention to the business and
industrialized world was probably the biggest contributor in crashing and injuring
the American economics. Many businesses, mostly who were stable, structured
because of their history coming into 1900’s, lent money to people and other
businesses. This worked great until after the war, when people simply refused to
pay back. People put their money in stocks and kept buying products which kept
moving the businesses until the people stopped buying because they didn’t needed
any more products. This eventually led the businesses and lenders to top investing
and that led to the complete crash of the businesses and the people and
organizations linked with it.

Because America demanded that Britain and France pay their debts, those two
nations placed huge reparation payments on Germany, which then, to pay them,
printed out loads of paper money that caused inflation to soar. This caused even a
greater depression in Germany, and made them feel below everyone, which motivated
them to get revenge and that is a huge factor of why they understood and listened
to let a man in need of medicine run their country, that man named Hitler. in
1924, Charles Dawes engineered the Dawes Plan, which rescheduled German
reparations payments and gave the way for further American private loans to
Germany. The Germany asked for debt from the United States of America, and that
helped Germany pay their debts to France and Britain and then they could make
adjustments in their economy and paid off their debts to the USA. This helped no
nation but brought anger in them and which drove these countries into the World
War Two, hoping to end this depression.
Hoover had never been elected to public office before, but he had made his
way up from poverty to prosperity, and believed that other people could do so as
well. Unfortunately in the very beginning of his presidency, on October 29, 1929,
a devastating stock market crash caused by over-speculation and overly high stock
prices built only upon non-existent credit struck the nation. People looked the
Hoover to panic and do something amazing to help the people of America, but Hoover
believe these were just a part of life and part of business cycle, people clashed
with him, radio stations debating on this issue for almost the whole decade of
great depression, many said that he could feed millions in Belgium, after World
War I, but not millions at home in America.

When circumstances worsened Hoover went to act. Hoover voted to withdraw

$2.25 billion to start projects to alleviate the suffering of the depression, The
Hoover Dam of the Colorado River was one such project. Early in 1932, Congress,
responding to Hoover’s appeal, established the Reconstruction Finance Corporation
(RFC), which became a government lending bank. Unfortunately giant corporations
were the ones that benefited most from this, and this feature also became another
critic towards Hoover. Hoover’s contributions to help Americans get their way
around poverty didn’t work, not at least in short terms.