Paste your essay in here…America Chooses a New Path to Prosperity
The election of 1932 was an election of bad feeling among Americans as it was shaped by one of the toughest times in American history. The great depression had been the main focus of the two candidates in the election being Herbert Hoover the Republican party candidate and incumbent, and Franklin Delano Roosevelt the Democratic party candidate. As it was coming off of the Hoover presidency the election had a focus on the problems of the Hoover Presidency, such as the failed attempts of the administration to recuperate from the ongoing stock market crash. The American people had the choice to give Hoover an extra chance to fix it or try something new, and so the American people spoke which is why I found it so interesting as it really was the American people showing they wanted change. The American people have always shown when they’re ready for change, showing the power of the vote, the American people spoke in this election in the most common way of change of party.
Hebert Hoover the incumbent, and Republican nominee was born in West Branch Iowa in 1874 one of three in a Quaker household. Hoover went to Stanford University in 1891 going on to graduate as a mining engineer, after graduating he married the girl he loved from Stanford with whom he would have two children. Hoover traveled around the world to build a small fortune from expensive mineral deposits before he would make his mark in the political world. Right around 1914 when World War One had started Hoover tried his hand at humanitarian work, helping a great number of Americans trapped in Europe make their way home. To further his Humanitarian work, he helped food reach the citizens of a newly German seized Belgium the then president of the United States Woodrow Wilson noticed this and Hoover earned himself the position of head of the food administration. As the head of the food administration, Hoover was able to reduce the amount of food American families consumed to make sure that allied troops would be fed, by the end of the war Hoover became the head of the American relief administration. Hoover's tenure as the head of the American relief administration was extremely beneficial as his free “hoover lunches” to war-torn areas sparked people to send him letters from all over Europe. Hoover's success led him further up to the position of Secretary of Commerce under President Harding keeping it through the presidency of Coolidge. In the 1920’s he assisted in aviation and radio, in 1936 he had a dam named after him. Come 1928 Hoover decided to make a run for the Republican party, as he was so popular still he had no problem crushing the Democratic president by three hundred and fifty electoral votes. His inauguration was cheerful and full of hope for the future but not long after the economy fell apart, millions of Americans were out of their jobs, savings lost, no homes, and were forced to live in little support towns called “Hooverville’s”. Hoover did have some programs that would help but at a later time, but he struggled by philosophy on the fact that he thought too much government involvement would make the government overstep its bounds and felt that localities should vote on what they should do. Hoovers Presidency did not get better, it actually got much worse people began to see him as a man who cared little for the plight of the American people. As such Hoover would be subject to something the American people do best when they want it to make change happen, the election of 1932 was that feeling being shown.
Franklin Delano Roosevelt the Democratic nominee was born in Hyde Park, New York in 1882 an only child in a wealthy family. Roosevelt went to Harvard as well as Columbia Law not long after he graduated Harvard he married Eleanor Roosevelt with whom he would have 6 children of which one would pass during infancy. Early on he started to admire the work of his cousin Theodore Roosevelt, from the example of Theodore he would find his way into the political field although it would be a little later. After his graduation from Columbia Law, he worked as a clerk in a wall street law firm, by 1910 he won his first senate seat as a Democrat in an extremely republican county. By 1913 President Wilson gave him a high position in the U.S Navy holding the position for several years, in 1920 the candidate James M. Cox selected Roosevelt for his ticket but they would go on to lose. In 1921 Roosevelt was diagnosed with an awful case of polio costing him his legs with his career in politics in danger he made an attempt at recovering with a polio treatment center in Georgia. In a return to politics in 1928 Roosevelt ran and won the race for governor of New York he stayed in office until 1933, as a governor he enacted programs to combat the crippling depression that the United states was struggling with. Going into the election he would run for Roosevelt and his team had to figure out how to combat his illness and use it to help him and not hurt him. Roosevelt went into the election favorably as his opponent was facing discrimination for his handling of the depression.
The Depression was the whole backdrop of the election of 1932, as the country was divided on how Hoover had handled it some saying he did not do an awful job some saying he lost touch and had no clue what people were dealing with. As with this Hoover was given a bad reputation among Americans, as he didn’t handle it well so most Americans were ready for something new. The then governor of New York Roosevelt had seemed like the best choice as he had success with creating programs to help with the depression, how unpopular Hoover was for the depression really made it easy for the Roosevelt campaign to blame him for it over and over without issue. the campaign undoubtedly would go for Roosevelt and it did not take much convincing for a person who won the gubernatorial election in New York by so much and looked like he related extremely well to the normal people with his disability, something Hoover couldn’t figure out.
The Republican Primary was not hard for Hoover as he ran for the most part unopposed as the republican party believed that his policies would handle the depression well. The one man who did challenge Hoover withdrew during the convention while the rest of the nominees dropped before the convention automatically giving the nomination to Hoover. Although Joseph France did give Hoover a good run in the primaries by popular vote beating him by over ten percent, the delegates were not allocated until the convention and France had ended up losing by a monumental amount. Going into the convention Hoover was entirely unopposed, so Hoover was renominated as the republican candidate. Hoover also brought Charles Curtis along with him for a second run, the convention was very strict on keeping it to a theme of a balanced budget and straying away from saying how the country was going in the wrong direction.
Roosevelts success in the primary was largely dependent on his campaign team which guided negativity away from his health and helped him overcome it. The closest competition he had was his predecessor from the gubernatorial election that wanted to get back at him for the loss. Roosevelt had unified the party in his own way by asking for input from different members on what was people thought needed to be done for the depression. Roosevelt at the convention gave his New Deal speech which was so powerful not only did it win him the nomination. It also gathered swing voters from other parties to vote for him. For Roosevelt the Democratic convention was really the push he needed to get his base working behind him, as his political team had managed to make him connect with the common man although he came from a wealthy background.
In the general election the main focus of the Roosevelt team was to convince Americans that change was necessary, and with how Roosevelt managed to unite the Democratic party it helped because the Republican party was hanging on a candidate who was easily attacked. Throughout the election Hoover being the uncharismatic man he was he did not face the American people for the fear of the anger the people had towards him. Roosevelt was charismatic and campaigned all around the country, stumping to prove his health would not affect his strength in office. Throughout the election, Roosevelt charmed many different people and learned what they wanted, where Hoover struggled because he could not connect to the people as well. Roosevelt took advantage of the discontent among the people on Hoover's job handling the depression, and it worked where he was targeting it the south and west and he managed to gather voters from different parties. Even while Roosevelt had been picking on Hoover he decided he was not about to do the same back as he had seen enough in 1928, he still needed a way to defense and it came out in the form of calling Roosevelt a liar. Hoover also would say his actions were smart and correct when Roosevelt said he was doing the wrong things. The New Deal program that Roosevelt spoke of was popular early and helped through the campaign as it was better than anything Hoover had done to help as of yet.
The results of the election showcased how much the American people wanted change with the landslide numbers of 472-59, Hoover asked for a sort of cooperation with the parties but Roosevelt said no. Roosevelt really offered no support as he would leave the rest of Hoovers term to Hoover. Although Roosevelt did crush it he would probably not have without the support of his campaign team, the team of Howe and Farley who lifted him up and helped him get his message across without rapid discrimination of the disability he was facing. By the time Hoover would even make it into office the country was falling apart with banks closed production down to extremely low levels and at least thirteen million unemployed. To show how Hoover really lost and how Roosevelt really got the Americas change time spirit the states are crucial, because Roosevelt won all of the swing states, all of the south, and all of the west. The other candidates in the election did not even touch the line of what he accomplished.
The consequences were the historical 100 days of Roosevelt being in office which consisted of the New Deal programs and new agencies. Roosevelt did an extreme amount of government expansion which most republicans regarded negatively as it was expansion. The republicans complained that it caused an overreach of government power, same with big businesses. The new deal did create social programs that are still around today and continue to be useful such as the FDIC, and social security. The trust in the president went up as he managed to be such a good talker with his “fireside chats” helping to inform the American people of what he was planning. The biggest problems with the New Deal were the critics like people who said it was overreach or the people that said it didn’t go nearly far enough. Roosevelt would accomplish a great many things through his presidency becoming the first to serve four terms, led the states through WWII, helped defeat Germany and declared holidays. There are many reasons he was considered one of the historically best presidents.
In the election of 1932 it felt decided from the beginning as someone so charismatic like Roosevelt took on someone awkward, and besides that so blamed and disliked by so many American people would have a chance of not being the next president. If it weren’t for the team of Howe and Farley who supported Roosevelt throughout the election and got rid of the disability issue, he probably would have struggled not only in the Presidential run but also the gubernatorial New York election. I felt the election was between a man who was struggling to defend his own beliefs and a man attacking those beliefs as best he could, which worked because the man in defense of his beliefs was also criticized by most of America for his beliefs even members of his own party attacked him for his ideas. The republican party at the time was so extremely separate as only the big name republicans believed Hoover could rebalance the budget, and he had lots of critics within the party that did not believe he could. The election really did come down to who defended themselves best and Roosevelt came out on top because he was not only able to defend himself he was able to come out swinging. I honestly think if Hoover had been able to break off some of the more conservative ideals about the depression and had been able to help the people in distress he would have done fine. But when it came down to it Hoover didn’t win anything because of how he handled it and could not break off from his ideals. The election of 1932 in conclusion was all Hoovers mishandling of a situation that he could have handled and still have had the trust of the American people.
Every author wrote about how another man influenced and aided FDR in making his most important decisions, showing that he had a strong system of support. And how Hoover did not have the right amount of backing to win it. Most of the books talked about how Hoover was unpopular and uncharismatic whereas Roosevelt studied his cousin Theodore closely and followed example and was charismatic and extremely likable. Although Hoover was not super likable and he wasn’t very charismatic he was not irresponsible and some of the books pointed out how he was just doing what his philosophy led him to do. I felt like maybe some of the books looked like they were leaning in the way that Roosevelt was just playing the blame game and didn’t have anything extreme on Hoover but his job on the depression. The books were all biased as most books are as they all spoke either down or up of the candidate the book was over.
To write my final paper on something this felt like the best one to choose the election of one of the most engagingly interesting presidents in history. The only one that’ll ever serve a 4 term presidency and the one that directed the states out of the worst economic crises its ever faced.