industry response

• What group of people did Hoover summon, where, when & why?

  Hoover summoned a group of prominent businessmen to the White House to urge them to take measures which would reduce unemployment and help to restore confidence in the american economy.
• what did hoover want his prominent businessmen to invest in & was this fulfilled.

  • new plants for factories
  • new plants on all types of construction

  They promised to do this, yet did not. Investment of all types dropped & unemployment rose rapidly.

  Industry had little choice & laid off workers as demand for manufactured goods fell.
• While the smoot hawley tariff was originally designed to help agriculture, manufacturers persuaded congress to place high tariffs on any imports where this might protect their industries from foreign competition.
• Many european banks were failing in 1931, countries like germany could no longer afford to purchase US goods -> US suffered further, as they were the main source of manufactured goods & without their consumers their economy suffered. Business confidence collapsed & the reluctance to invest worsened the crisis.
• hoover stood for re-election in 1932, but it was not forgotten that he had cheerfully announced 'the depression is over' in 1930, and lost to Franklin D. Roosevelt taking office in March 1933.
• Although hoover was intelligent & able, he lacked charisma, often seemed uncaring & cold.
• Hoover's incompetence was highlighted in 1932, in the middle of the election campaign, when 17,000 army veterans from WW1 marched to Washington DC, to claim payment of their war bonuses.
• War bonuses

  A cash payment as a reward for the veterans service to the country. The veterans had been promised that they would receive the bonuses in 1945, but they wanted the cash paid in 1932.
• The veterans were driven off their campsites in the capital & some of their housing shacks were destroyed, they were treated very harshly by the US army.
• While some belived that these 'bonus marchers' were apart of revolutionary communist plot to seize power, most saw them as plain simple hungry men who had fought for their country & deserved better/decent treatment. This confirmed Hoover's lack of compassion & led many to switch to voting for the democrats, as Hoover was a republican.
• Roosevelt was elected by an overwhelming majority (57%), with 88 electoral college votes against Hoover's 59. He won all but six states.