To What Extent Was Hoover Responsible For The Great Depression

If Herbert Hoover had not become President of the United States, he would be remembered as an exceptional man of his age. Even though he was orphaned at age nine, he was in the first class to graduate from Stanford University, and after that, he became a successful mining engineer, travelling all over the world establishing business enterprises until he became a multi-billionaire. Then in 1929, less than one year after Hoover became President, Black Tuesday happened and the United States was plunged into the Great Depression. While some people both at the time and since have blamed Hoover for the depth of suffering Americans experienced during the Great Depression, many economists and historians argue that Hoover was not really to blame. He should only be partially faulted because there were many other factors that greatly affected the Great Depression.
To bring back the prosperity of the 1920s, Hoover employed a Laissez-Faire economic model that he

believed would result in the economic betterment of all classes: in which wealth “trickles down” from the rich to the general public. Ultimately this “hands-off” approach failed, but this had been the prevalent philosophy of policy makers in the 1920s. However, these policies were not as useful as they believed them to be. Another important aspect of Hoover’s philosophy included the sense that it was important to balance the Federal Budget but people ignored his policy which only worsened the already suffering economy. However, there were also positive sides to Hoover. Hoover: he called up business leaders and asked them to not cut wages and lay off workers. He talked to neighbors and friends to help one another and work together to get through this hardships. He believed people working together without government intervention was fundamentally the correct method to use because government intervention gets rid of self-reliance.
Even though many people argue how Hoover’s programs were not effective, in reality, it actually had some positive impacts. Hoover believed the main issue was how Americans had lost confidence and he wanted Americans to restore this confidence and regain all that was lost. He continuously looked at the sunny side and stated how everything would become better. This positive attitude was ignored by almost all Americans because they already put judgement on Hoover and blamed him for everything. If Americans had given Hoover more time to adjust and heard him out, maybe the outcomes would have been different. Since not many people listened to him, Hoover realized that this method did not work and approved the creation of Hoover Dam and created jobs for people. Even though it seemed like Hoover did nothing to help to get out of the Depression, Hoover actually attempted many solutions to get Americans out of this harsh conditions.
The severe stock market crash occurred in October 29, 1929 led not only to a great drop in wealth, but also a severe loss of confidence among businesses and consumers.

The debts of WWI already left many nations bankrupt and obstructed the government to respond to all the demands. Hoover began his presidency at such a hard time and even if the president was someone else, it would have been difficult for him to clean up all the mess quickly and not get the full blame for the recession. On top of all this, banks were failing and people lost their whole savings within the day. Due to this, there was a huge reduction in purchasing across the board and businesses started to fail. The economy was not effective due to business fails and it was worsened when there were drought conditions in the Midwest region in 1930s and was known as the “Dust Bowl”. People moved to the West and many lands were abandoned. These factors were not all caused by Hoover so it is unreasonable for Hoover to get full blame for the

depression.
The Great Depression is a huge event that cannot be caused due to just one person. There were other causes that led to the Great Depression and the methods Hoover used was not correct. America should have tried to come together during this hardship instead of thinking of putting blame on one person. Yes, Hoover made mistakes, but any other president during this age would have made similar mistakes and American citizens would put the full blame on them.