Handling The Great Depression :: essays research papers

Handling the Great Depression Hoover and Roosevelt had very different ideas on how the Depression should be handled. This was almost entirely a result of two important differences in their schemas; Hoover was a Republican and considered conservative, and had basically worked his way through life, while Roosevelt was not only a Democrat, he had basically been born with the proverbial silver spoon in his mouth. Roosevelt was considered a liberal. As one can easily see, in many ways these two are complete opposites; in fact, if one looks at both their upbringing and their political affiliation, it seems that Roosevelt's and Hoover's policies must have been different in a great many ways. Hoover was brought up in a poor family, and worked almost his entire life. When he was eight years old, his parents died so he went to live with his uncle. His uncle worked with him, and later became rich. Hoover had endured a great many hardships in his life, and knew what it was like to do without. In fact, Hoover was very poor as a child, although not necessarily living in poverty. This effect on his schema would be rather interesting, as it seems that he should have had a better understanding of how to handle problems with the poor than Roosevelt. As Hoover was born poor, one would think that he would know how to run the country like a business, so that it would stay afloat; however, when confronted with the Depression, he repeatedly cut taxes. Hoover was basically a hard working Republican, the quintessential self made man.   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Roosevelt, on the other hand, had been born into a very rich family; He grew up with education at Harvard, had his own pony and sailboat, and had everything basically taken care of for him in his childhood by his mother. This gave him a sense of security, of being able to do anything he wanted, most simply because he didn't fail early on. He had never lived through what the American public was going through, so his view of the world, his schema, did not necessarily include what it was like to live in poverty. He believed that the Depression could be solved merely by putting as many people to work for the government as possible. This could relate to how, growing up, he himself did not have to work in any way, shape, or form.