lunes, 22 de mayo de 2017

How important were Republican reactions to the Wall Street Crash as causes of Roosevelt's success in the presidential election of 1932?

In 1932, the presidential elections in the USA were taking place. Hoover and Roosevelt were the two main candidates, Hoover representing the Republican Party and Roosevelt the Democratic Party. The winner of the elections was Roosevelt. However, what are the causes of his success?

To start with, the Republican Party had their own policies which had a big consequence in the future. First, they believed that the government shouldn't interfere in the life of people, this was called 'laissez-faire'. Secondly, Republicans placed import tariffs to protect their industries from foreign competition and allowing American industries to grow. Finally they kept taxation low, since they thought that if people kept their money, they would buy American goods. In 1932, Hoover paid the price for being unable t solve the problems of the depression. In 1930 and 1931, he tried to restart the economy by tax cuts, he stopped some banks on going bankrupt and he tried to protect the US industries by introducing tariffs, however this made things worse. By this point, the reputation of Hoover was very damaged. Republicans did not interfere much on the economic prices by saying that it was not a major problem.

On the other hand we have Roosevelt, he believed in an 'active government', he planned to put people back to work, among other characteristics that he had. The campaign was a very important factor for the success in the elections. He made a tour through the USA weeks before the elections, he realized that people wanted action and he promised a 'New Deal'. Finally Roosevelt won by 7 million vote and democrats won a majority of seats in Congress.


To conclude, we can say that the main reason of Roosevelt's success in the 1932's presidential elections was that his main opponent, Hoover, had a very damaged reputation because of the lack of the Wall Street Crash in 1929, the lack of confidence he had and that Americans wanted a change.


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