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To What Extent Was President Hoover A Liberal Or Conservative

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A liberal pursues change in the government whilst conservatives seek to preserve the status quote. The Great Depression redefined liberal and conservative policies. Herbert Hoover was deemed a liberal president at the start of his presidency and was considered a conservative when he left office. While by todays’ standards Herbert Hoover would be considered a conservative. His divergence from the public purpose oriented policies of Teddy Roosevelt, and support of laissez faire economics made him a liberal in his time. Therefore, to state that he was conservative throughout his presidency would be a false generalization. In contrast, FDR was considered liberal during his presidency as well as by modern day standards due to the shift in ideology …show more content…

This allowed new markets to open and helped businessmen like Henry Ford provide automobiles to the working class for the first time. Due to the increase in the standard of living and increased buying power people received during the 20’s, the liberal policies of president hoover were embraced. However even prior to the Depression, Herbert Hoover displayed some conservative tendencies. In his candidacy speech he showed contempt for liberalism because it would limit the liberties of people. He also believed that less government intervention would be in everyone’s best interest (Doc A). He believed in the personal and states rights which was shown in his lack of intervention during the Great Depression. He stated that the only way to pursue change was to promote people to do what was best in their communities (Doc B). One of Hoover’s goals during the Depression was to retain a balanced budget (Doc F). However his support of businesses made him reject the plea of the public to increase inflation so that they could pay of their debts because he believed it would stop businesses from investing money. This led to a large burden being placed on trading partners as well as american workers, although he did try to give money for the creation of public works jobs (Doc C). To help the economy Hoover passed the Hawley-Smoot Tariff, which was the highest tariff in US history. This resulted in higher public debt and deficit which reached 22.5 billion by the time FDR was in office (Doc

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