Lydia Stafford
Use Source A and your knowledge of the period to explain why people supported Roosevelt in the 1932 election.
By 1932 unemployment in the USA had reached 13 million and was rising rapidly. The poor were without food and eating in soup kitchens. The depression was causing public disorder and when a group of 22,000 First World War veterans (The Bonus Army) marched to Washington because, like many other people, these veterans were poor and demanded to be given an immediate bonus which the government had promised to give them in 1945, tanks were sent in to disperse them. People were shocked by the violence and critical of the government’s response. The Republicans, lead by President Hoover did not believe in interfering in business to promote prosperity, he claimed that it was the government’s job to encourage rather than to spend. As a result he refused to set up relief programmes to help the unemployed and he argued that it was up to the individuals to turn around the economy.