basically unsound. The high tariffs of the Smoot-Hawley Act (1930) exacerbated the downturn. As business failures increased and unemployment soared--and as people with dwindling incomes.
nonetheless had to pay their creditors--it was apparent that the United States was in the grip of economic breakdown (Watkins 146). .
Most European countries were hit even harder, because they had not yet fully recovered from the ravages of World War I. The deepening depression essentially coincided with the term in office (1929-33) of President Herbert Hoover. The stark statistics scarcely convey the distress of the millions of people who lost jobs, savings, and homes (Watkins 146-8).
From 1930 to 1933, industrial stocks lost 80% of their value. In the four years from 1929 to 1932, approximately 11,000 U. S. banks failed (44% of the 1929 total), and about $2 billion in deposits evaporated. The gross national product (GNP), which for years had grown at an average annual rate of 3.5%, declined at a rate of over 10% annually, on average, from 1929 to 1932.
Agricultural distress was intense: farm prices fell by 53% from1929 to 1932 (Garraty 91). .
President Hoover opposed government intervention to ease the mounting economic distress. His one major action, creation in 1932 of the Reconstruction Finance Corporation to lend money to ailing corporations, was seen as inadequate. Hoover lost the 1932 election to Franklin D. Roosevelt (Garraty 12-3).
The depression brought a deflation not only of incomes but also of hope. In his first inaugural address (March 1933), President Franklin D. Roosevelt declared that "the only thing we have to fear is fear itself." Though his new deal grappled with economic problems throughout his first two terms, it had no consistent policy (Garraty 13).
At first, Roosevelt tried to stimulate the economy through the National Recovery Administration, charged with establishing minimum wages and codes of fair competition in every industry.
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