Herbert Clark Hoover

When President Calvin Coolidge decided not to run again in 1928, Herbert Hoover received his party's presidential nomination, though his independent views alienated many Republican bosses. In the ensuing campaign, he held the traditional Republican vote while attracting many Southerners, who were reluctant to support the Democratic nominee, Alfred E. Smith.

Once in office, Hoover's hopes for a "New Day" geared to America's scientific potential were soon overwhelmed, when the stock-market crash in October 1929 propelled the country into the worst depression in its history. In accordance with his deeply felt philosophy of individual freedom, Hoover chose to depend mainly on private charity to ameliorate suffering. Failing to prod the business community into assuming leadership, he finally supplied a degree of federal relief to beleaguered farmers and financial institutions through the Federal Farm Board and the Reconstruction Finance Corporation. But he was adamant against federal aid to the unemployed urban masses, feeling such aid would lead to corruption and waste. He vetoed a bill that would have created a federal unemployment agency and he mobilized congressional opposition to another bill for public works and direct aid to the unemployed.

Renominated in 1932, he was overwhelmingly defeated by Franklin D. Roosevelt.