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=Herbert Hoover= August 10, 1874- October 20, 1964 Political Party: Republican Terms: 1 term (March 4, 1929- March 4, 1933) Vice President: Charles Curtis

When Herbert Hoover became President he had high hopes that he would be able to positively change the country, improving the condition to possibly the best it had ever been. As shown in the Great Depression, he obviously did not do a very good job at this, and ended up leaving the country in a terrible state. President Herbert Hoover deserves a C minus for his presidency because he made very few positive decisions, which the negative clearly overpower.

President Hoover steeped into office with high spirits and hopes to make our country a better place for everyone in it. The most immediate group he saw that needed helping were the farmers. He partially achieved this goal of assisting them, but even with his help establishing a Federal Farm Board, they were not completely helped by him. He was also trying to continue the policies that he had established as Commerce Secretary. The other big thing that Hoover was focusing on was the issue of the tariff. He did eventually get his wanted reform, raising the tariff to the highest it had ever been in a peacetime. Hoover did a good job at keeping at it and getting this tariff reform established, although the actual reform was not very much of a help to the country.

In the first session of Congress where Hoover was president both houses had a Republican majority, and in the second session of Congress the House of Representatives had a Democratic majority and the Senate had a Republican majority. Hoover's relationship with Congress was nothing enviable, but not bad either. At the beginning of his term, they worked together to pass the Agricultural Marketing Act which helped farmers and established the Federal Farm Board. Around that same time they also established the Hawley-Smoot tariff which raised the tariff to sixty percent, the highest ever during a peacetime. This obviously was not a good decision, being that it helped add the the causes of the Great Depression. During the Great Depression, Hoover and Congress had some disagreements on what legislation to pass and how to proceed with this crisis. They did eventually establish the Reconstruction Finance Corporation which helped indirectly assist those in need of help, like banks, railroads and other organizations. Hoover and Congress worked relatively well together, but not well enough to prevent the Great Depression.

The decision that President Hoover made that had the most positive outcome was his "Good Neighbor" policy towards South and Central America. Although it did not have a big impact at the time this decision was one of the few that left a positive outcome and continued to be positive. By initiating this idea to be friendly towards our foreign neighbors, he got rid of the Roosevelt corollary, but it was still a good decision. It did not seem like a big deal at the time, but later on this proved to be a good decision made by Hoover. The decision that President Hoover made that had the most negative outcome was not realizing how big of a crisis that the stock market crash was right away and not being able to help the country out of the crisis either. It took President Hoover too long to address the crash as a problem, and as a result he was too late to be able to make much of a difference. Had he realized this right away he could have worked with Congress to bring the country back out of the Depression without causing it to be such a problem. This is obviously his most negative decision because it ultimately lead to the worst event in his entire administration, the Great Depression.

Most of the effect that Hoover left after his presidency was negative because many solely blamed him for the Great Depression. The major thing that he did that impacted future Presidents was his bad decisions on dealing with the Great Depression. He didn't realize quickly enough that he was the one who needed to make changes to better the economy, and when he realized this he didn't make may good decisions about it. He did try to improve the economical state of the country, but did not succeed. Hoover is remembered as the President who caused the Great Depression, and it is fair to say that his most long lasting impact on America and future administrations was the poor way that he dealt with this crisis and that he did not do a good job of improving it.

It is a fact to state that the country was in a much worse condition after Hoover's Presidency than it was beforehand. Before he was President, the country was moving smoothly along, but afterwards, they were left in the great Depression, clearly worse than a normal peacetime. Hoover made few positive advances for America, but they were clearly overlooked because of the many more negative decisions that he made. The Great Depression was not directly caused by President Hoover, but some of his decisions were causes of this terrible event. Because Hoover made few positive decisions but also made many more serious bad decisions that led America down a dark path, he earns a C minus for his Presidency.

Works Cited: "71st United States Congress - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia." //Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia//. N.p., n.d. Web. 2 Dec. 2009. <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/71 "72nd United States Congress - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia." //Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia//. N.p., n.d. Web. 2 Dec. 2009. <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/72 American President: Herbert Clark Hoover: Foreign Affairs."//Miller Center of Public Affairs//. N.p., n.d. Web. 2 Dec. 2009. <http://millercenter.org/academic "Herbert Hoover | The White House." //The White House//. N.p., n.d. Web. 2 Dec. 2009. <http://www.whitehouse.gov/abo Kennedy, David, Lizabeth Cohen, and Thomas A. Bailey. "The Politics of Boom and Bust." //American Pageant Complete, Twelfth Edition And Cobbs, Major Problems In American History Volume 1//. Boston: Houghton Mifflin Company, 2002. 766-776. Print.