Herbert Hoover, Forgotten Progressive: the 31st President Was a Big Govt. Market Interventionist

Without a doubt one of the most severe, most widespread, and most persistent myths of all American history is that Herbert Clark Hoover, the 31st President of the United States of America who served from 1929-1933, sent America into the tragic, drawn out economic downturn now known as the Great Depression by reducing government intervention in the economy, adhering to laissez-faire capitalism, and shrinking the size of government in general... Or, as Democratic Senator Chuck Schumer sums up, just sitting back and "doing nothing." [1] Senator Schumer reiterates the common and terribly ironic view that Hoover's lack of government action turned what would have been only a recession into the Great Depression. The exact opposite is true: Hoover's policies did anything but lack in government action (and furthermore, it was Warren G. Harding's "doing nothing" that stopped the recession of 1920 - just 9 years before Hoover took office - from turning into a Great Depression). The greatest irony of all is that Hoover has forever been portrayed by supporters of his successor, Franklin Delano Roosevelt, as a laissez-faire, "do nothing" President, when in reality the Roosevelt administration based much of the New Deal upon policies that Hoover had already envisioned and enacted. In effect, it can be said that FDR's famous New Deal was created by Hoover; Hoover set the stage for FDR's big government policies and unprecedented amount of market intervention (though he did think his successor took it a bit too far). The awful lie of Herbert Hoover's adherence to small government, laissez-faire capitalism is so widespread that it's nearly accepted as common knowledge and goes entirely uncontested in most interviews, politicial speeches, and worse, almost all school history textbooks. In recent months, there's been a great deal of critique of the ongoing pressure from the GOP to reduce federal spending and cut the size of government, and with that critique, the inevitable comparison of fiscally conservative Republicans to the 31st President of America. New York Times columnist Nicholas Kristoff asserts that a lawmaker who believes that slashing spending is a proper response to a weak economy, "is embracing the approach that Herbert Hoover discredited 80 years ago." He also states that if Congress went through with a government shutdown, current speaker of the House John Boehner should be referred to as "Herbert Hoover" Boehner. [2] His colleague, Princeton University professor and Nobel Prize winning economist Paul Krugman, declared "the obsession with spending cuts" to be "Herbert Hoover economics ." [3] Just this month on MSNBC's Rachel Maddow Show, Vermont politician Peter Welch compared current House Republicans' focus on lowering taxes and cutting spending to, yes, you guessed it, Herbert Hoover. On the August 2nd airing of the show, Welch said "well, basically what we saw today was the ideology of the Tea Party prevailing, very simple, lower taxes for everybody, particularly the so-called job creators, lower spending, and that will build a stronger economy. I mean, that`s a Herbert Hoover philosophy and didn`t work so well last it was tried." [4] Soon after I watched that interview, I was compelled to open my copy of Kaplan's A.P. U.S. History review book for 2011 (written by Krista Dornbush, a high school A.P. History teacher in California) I had bought last year to study for College Board's exam, to see what it had to say about Herbert Hoover. What I found wasn't remotely surprising, but it was more than remotely ignorant, and quite irritating to me personally since I had used it to study for the exam. Here's what Ms. Dornbush had to say about him: "Hoover continually refused to provide any kind of government assistance to those who were being crushed under the weight of the economic crisis... His staunch conservatism stood in the way of his becoming a hero. If he had bent, he might have been able to help stop the deepest years of the Great Depression." And that deserves nothing but a flatout laugh-out-freaking-loud. Herbert Hoover, refusing to provide government assistance? And more laughable still: Herbert Hoover, a staunch conservative? Far more accurate would be: Herbert Hoover, big government champion, market interventionist, and forgotten Progressive. In this debate, I, Pro, must prove that the common myth of Herbert Hoover promoting small government, laissez-faire capitalism is false. I must prove that he was actually a proponent of big government market intervention. Con must prove that the more commonly held view of Hoover is true: that he essentially sat back and didn't do much in the way of government action in the economy as a way of dealing with the downward economic spiral. Essentially Con must prove the sources which I brought in (Schumer, Kristoff, Krugman, Welch, Dornbush) in order to illustrate the nature of the popular Hoover myth to be correct. I will present my main argument in the second round and I request that my opponent do the same. The first round is for acceptance and introductions only. There are a total of four rounds. As should be clear by now, this will not be a debate based on semantics. I thank my opponent and look forward to a fun and engaging debate. [1] http://www.msnbc.msn.com... - (Schumer's comments on Hoover begin at around 4:50; note how the Republican senator doesn't argue with him on the subject) [2] http://www.nytimes.com... [3] http://www.nytimes.com... [4] http://www6.lexisnexis.com...