South Central Review

The Context

In the fall of 1929, America experienced the worst economic crisis in its history: the Great Depression. The stock market crashed, factories slashed production, companies made deep cuts in jobs, and salaries plummeted. As the months wore on, wage earners grew desperate. Many lacked money for food and rent. The lack of economic activity caused yet more businesses to contract, producing yet further cuts in jobs and wages.

By 1932, one-fourth of the nation’s workforce was jobless. A quarter million families defaulted on their mortgages in that year alone. During the winter of 1932–1933, approximately 1.2 million Americans were homeless. Scores of shantytowns (called Hoovervilles) sprouted up. Since 1929, about 9,000 banks, holding the savings of 27 million families, had failed. Of those bank failings, 1,456 folded in 1932 alone. Farm foreclosures were averaging 20,000 a month.

Charities could not care for the millions of people who needed help, and Americans increasingly looked to the government for relief. But President Herbert Hoover argued that “rugged individualism” would prevail and that it was not the government’s job to intervene aggressively in the economy.

By the end of his term, Hoover, a Republican, relented and tried to use the federal government to help those in need. But, by then, it seemed too late for limited measures.

There was also widespread outrage at the deaths of veterans in the Bonus Army incident. World War I veterans had been awarded bonuses, but they could not redeem them until 1945. Given the suffering in the Depression, the veterans demanded the right to redeem their bonuses [End Page 32] immediately. In the summer of 1932, they gathered in Washington to make their demands.

On July 28, U.S. Attorney General William D. Mitchell ordered the veterans removed from all government property. The Washington police met resistance as they tried to carry out their orders. Shots were fired and two veterans were wounded and later died.

President Hoover then ordered the Army to clear the veterans’ campsite. Army Chief of Staff General Douglas MacArthur commanded a force of infantry, cavalry, and six tanks. He and his troops drove the Bonus Army marchers, along with their wives and children, from their campsite and burned their shelters and belongings.

The Nominations

Nevertheless, Hoover had no problem winning the Republican nomination to run again for president. To challenge him, the Democrats nominated New York Governor Franklin D. Roosevelt, a wealthy American aristocrat and fifth cousin of former President Theodore Roosevelt.

FDR, as he was known, had been reelected governor in a landslide in 1930. He balanced the Democratic ticket with a leading Southern conservative as his running mate, House Speaker John Nance Garner of Texas.

In an effort to create an air of urgency and demonstrate that he was in command, Roosevelt broke with tradition and did not wait for formal notification of his nomination from the convention. Instead, he boarded a plane and flew to Chicago, where on July 2 he delivered an acceptance speech in which he pledged “a new deal for the American people.”

The Campaign

The Democrats were more united than they had been at any time in the century. Cultural issues that had dominated previous elections, like Catholicism in 1928 and the Ku Klux Klan in 1924, were nearly dormant as the Depression was of paramount concern to the American public.

FDR ran on an optimistic platform, symbolized by his theme song, “Happy Days Are Here Again.” Hoover was so unpopular that Roosevelt’s campaign adopted a cautious posture of blaming Hoover for the disastrous economic situation while also criticizing the president for the actions he did take to alleviate the crisis...