How Far was Roosevelts victory in the 1932 Election due to President Hoovers Unpopularity?

Phoebe Armstrong

How Far was Roosevelt’s victory in the 1932 Election due to President Hoover’s Unpopularity?

There is a lot of debate over the 1932 election, which was a landslide victory for Roosevelt, as to whether Roosevelt won it or Hoover lost it. Both candidates had personalities and histories in politics, which contributed to the outcome, but it is difficult to calculate whose more so than the other

President Herbert Clark Hoover was elected in 1928 during the time of the economic boom in the USA. He was a rags-to-riches case himself, having been orphaned at a young age and gone into politics after becoming a multi-billionaire through the mining industry. Hoover himself had lived the iconic ‘American Dream’, which earned him respect not just in government but also from the electorate. However, in 1929 disaster struck as the Wall St. Crash plunged America into a state of economic depression. This was a serious misfortune for Herbert Hoover, as it meant he could be blamed for this and he could as early as the end of 1929 have been fighting a losing battle in the next election.

As the country sank further into the depression, unemployment and poverty grew worse – ‘over twelve million Americans were unemployed and the number of people out of work was going up by 12,000 every day. There was no system of unemployment pay in America, so people had to rely on charity to stay alive’1. And as unemployment figures increased, it became clearer to the suffering people in the USA that their president was not doing very much to help or offer relief. Many evicted from their homes due to failure of mortgage payments (in particular farmers) formed shantytowns nicknamed ‘Hoovervilles’. ‘They moved on to waste ground in the cities where they built huts with old wood, scrap metal and sacking, which they found on rubbish dumps. They called these untidy, unhealthy camps ‘Hoovervilles’ after Herbert Hoover.’2 This nickname was given to make light of the fact that Hoovers dependence on rugged individualism and ‘Laissez-faire’ had led to him providing no welfare or chance of recovery from the depression for his country. When he eventually did try to aid recovery, it was too little too late – for example, ‘he set up a reconstruction finance corporation whose job was to lend money to companies with financial problems, in order to stop them closing down. He also made small loans to farmers and created some new jobs in a road-building programme’3.

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These measures were ineffective and did nothing to reduce the resentment harboured against Hoover by the American people – Hoover had neglected them during the depression and had been next to useless at any attempt at recovery. Some Americans were homeless and starving, and had no means of survival because of Hoover’s belief that America would recover very soon from what he considered a minor and short-term period of economic difficulty. This depressed economic period was even more marked due to its comparison to the roaring economic boom of the ‘20s, where prosperity was taken for granted by the average American citizen. This made the depression a more miserable contrast to the life they had been leading before. For this reason, there was a lot of spite for Hoover and his Republican policies, pointing towards a likelihood that whoever the Democrat candidate may have been in the next election, a lot of people would have voted for them so as not to have Hoover as president for a second term.

Hoover also did a very undiplomatic thing just before the election (so it would have stuck in the voter’s mind) – he ordered the police to arrest the ‘Bonus Marchers’, who were veteran soldiers who wanted the pension they had been promised immediately because they were struggling with the depression. These men were heroes in the eyes of the people, and on Hoover’s orders two people were killed with tear gas and many others injured. This lost a lot of sympathy and therefore votes for Hoover.

Roosevelt’s election campaign was cleverly structured to diplomatically call out to the people who had been hit by the depression – he once summed up this belief in these words ‘These unhappy times call for the building of plans… that put their faith once more in the forgotten man at the bottom of the economic pyramid’4. Here he subtly references the idea that Hoover had neglected his people, and in particular the ‘forgotten man’. This clever technique shows that Roosevelt’s merits as a campaigner contributed to his victory, although you could argue that Roosevelt was merely playing off of Hoover’s failure at recovery, so that this is a branch of the argument that the result was all to do with Hoover.

One can by no means argue that Roosevelt was just a hasty replacement and not particularly popular – though he had not lived the ‘American dream as Hoover had, Roosevelt was well educated, having gone to Harvard university, and came from a prestigious and rich background. He had been confined to a wheelchair after having been struck by polio in 1921, and he had rejoined politics after fighting this disease. This was an inspiring story, and in Roosevelt’s campaign in 1932, he toured all over the country on a train and went out to greet the ordinary working people of the USA, treating them as equals. The fact that Roosevelt made such an effort to get out and meet his people showed that he really cared for them, and it would have entered the minds of the people going to meet him that their able-bodied president Hoover had never done anything like this, and that perhaps he didn’t care about them as much as Roosevelt would if they voted for him. And this showed – ‘It was America’s ‘forgotten’ people – the unemployed, the homeless and hungry – who voted Roosevelt into office in the election of 1932.’5 Many thought that if Roosevelt was capable of fighting polio, he was capable of fighting the depression.

Another aspect of Roosevelt’s personality and campaign that helped him win the election was his promise of taking action to help the people of America recover from the depression. He said at a Democratic Party Convention ‘Millions of our citizens cherish the hope that their old standards of living and thought have not gone forever... I pledge you, I pledge myself, to a New Deal for the American people’6. People in America were tired of no action being taken to help them, and a promise of action definitely would have won Roosevelt a lot of votes. He also promised to end prohibition, a measure introduced by Republicans, which was very unpopular. His optimism and spirit made him likable, and his kind treatment of his people also contributed to his image, and he promised to take an active role in the lives of ordinary citizens.

Hoover was extremely unpopular in America at this time, and I doubt that many people would have liked to see him as president for another term, but Roosevelt’s election campaign was skillful and structured, and I doubt any Republican would have done much better against him, as he reached out directly to the people and he was likeable and strong willed, two traits very important to the electorate. Although Hoover was undoubtedly very unpopular and this contributed to the result, I think that the main reason for his failure was Roosevelt’s popularity.

1 booklet page entitled ‘The Great Depression’ p.2

2 booklet page entitled ‘The Great Depression’ p.2

3 booklet page entitled ‘FDR and HH: the election of 1932’ p.5

4 booklet page entitled ‘FDR and HH: the election of 1932’ p.5

5 booklet page entitled ‘FDR and HH: the election of 1932’ p.5

6 booklet page entitled ‘The New Deal’ p. 32