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US Electoral Maps before and after Great Depression

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Anonymous

Guest
US Electoral Maps before and after Great Depression

What a difference one election cycle (and an economic meltdown) makes:


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TexasBred

Well-known member
I can believe it....I would have voted for FDR myself. I can't beleive Hoover got elected the first time....Course I'm having a hard time believing Obama might get elected as well.
 

Mike

Well-known member
What many don't understand is that the Smoot-Hawley Act had more to do with the prolonging and flourishing of the Great depression than anything else.

It was a protectionist move that many tried to get Hoover to veto.

The act raised tariffs on goods going out of the country, and the recipient countries retaliated by raising theirs also which basically shut down international trade.

Signing this act was the sealing of Hoover's fate.
 

Clarencen

Well-known member
The Great Depression has become pretty fuzzy in the minds of the writers and columnists today. It is true the Smoot Hawley Bill did more harm to the economy then it helped. We had huge surpluses especially in farm products, it was believed that imports only made them worst. But while we had a surplus, and cheap food, there were many people who suffered from hunger because they could not afford to buy food.

The real problem was a shortage of money, or rather not enough money in circulation. Hoover believed it would soon work its way out. He cling to the Quaker beliefs that handouts to the poor destroyed their incentive to care for themselves. He believed people were hoarding money, he had made many appeals to the people to stop hoarding. People did not trust the banks, and were not even sure about our paper money. We still had gold coinage, people associate gold with wealth. Even the American Indian had insisted that he be paid in gold, even though paper money would buy just as much and last just as long.

When buying shut down factories and business shut down or closed then jobs were lost. Late in Hoovers administeration the National Finance Corporation was formed. It provided money to lend to big businesses and the railroads to keep them going. But money at the top did not neccessarly trickle down to the poor. A provision was added for a relief bill where money was loaned to states to provide public work to help the jobless. It had many provisions, limitations, and regulations, so was not very effective. It stipulated that the states would eventually pay these loans back. After Roosevelt became president he removed the provision that these loans must be paid back. It is interesting to note, that the National Finance Corporation remained in effect until 1951. It had a lot to do with building Defence Plants, Military Posts, and Navel Yards.
 
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Anonymous

Guest
A lot of folks in this area thought a lot of FDR- and many turned into lifelong Democrats because of him...I remember many that would tell you "the last Republican I voted for was Hoover, and look what that got us"... Bush may/is creating the same reaction with his economic disaster....
Many folks used to say with the depression and dustbowl drought conditions-and the banks foreclosing on all the farms- they may have starved if it wasn't for the Roosevelt programs like the WPA and CCC...You can still see many of the Fairgrounds, Grandstands, Community Halls, dams and reservoirs, Powerhouses, Irrigation projects, bridges and roads that were built by those in our area including the massive Fort Peck Dam and Reservoir that started in 1933 and wasn't completed until 1940...

My Dad and one uncle went to work on the Dam earning a $1 a day- big money- while my other uncle and Grandpa worked the Homestead...Dad had to quit High School to take the job and earn enough to feed his parents and younger sibs--Most their earnings went back to support the family...100,000's of people from all over the country, worked on the Dam at one time or another, with as many as 11,000 being employed there at one time....

The only ones I ever heard complain were some of those ranchers who's place was on the 134 miles of riverbottom that was "bought" by the government and eventually ended up under water- but even some of them blamed Hoover for creating the situation in the first place...

And now besides this being a major electricity source and flood controll device it has became a huge recreational area..

A good fiction book that depicts that era and those working on the dam is Bucking the Sun by Ivan Doig...
 
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