Liberal Franklin D. Roosevelt vs. Conservative Herbert C....

President Franklin D. Roosevelt is commonly thought of as a liberal and President Herbert C. Hoover as a conservative. To what extent are these characterizations valid? President Franklin D. Roosevelt is commonly identified as a liberal and President Herbert C. Hoover as a conservative. The validity of these characterizations, however, is conditional upon the definition of these labels. If one adopts the most conventional contemporary definitions of the terms â€Å"liberal† and â€Å"conversative,† then the characterizations of Roosevelt as a liberal and Hoover as a conservative are valid, but the definitions of liberal and conservative vary and change over time and place. At the beginning of the Great Depression, the meaning of the term†¦show more content†¦Rather than governmental identification of social problems and their solutions, conservations rely upon the market mechanics of supply and demand and the individual incentive of profit. Because government is exponentially larger today than it was before the Great Depression, conservatives today often critique the status quo and are resistant to further governmental expansion. Because of the different meanings associated with the terms liberal and conservative, neither President Hoover nor President Roosevelt can strictly be characterized as one term or another. Today, President Herbert Hoover would likely be characterized as a conservative. He believed in less government participation in the people’s daily life. In his 1928 election speech, Hoover stated that â€Å"Every step of bureaucratizing of the business of our country poisons the very roots of liberalism.† As government gets bigger, more offices, agencies, and rules are needed to allow the government to run its affairs. This bureaucracy, he said, would necessarily take away the American peoples freedom to rule themselves. He renounced the new liberalism because it set bounds to the liberties of the people. He wantShow MoreRelatedEssay on Hoover vs. Roosevelt629 Words   |  3 PagesMatt Stefanko APUS – Period 7 8 April 2010 Hoover vs. Roosevelt Herbert Hoover and Franklin Roosevelt were both presidents during one of the most difficult times in American history, the Great Depression. To try and ease the hardships that many Americans were facing, each President developed many different programs. The different actions that each took to lessen the blow of the depression classified them as either a liberal or conservative. If their actions focused on helping the economyRead MoreOne Significant Change That Has Occurred in the World Between 1900 and 2005. Explain the Impact This Change Has Made on Our Lives and Why It Is an Important Change.163893 Words   |  656 PagesE SSAYS ON TWENTIETH-C ENTURY H ISTORY In the series Critical Perspectives on the Past, edited by Susan Porter Benson, Stephen Brier, and Roy Rosenzweig Also in this series: Paula Hamilton and Linda Shopes, eds., Oral History and Public Memories Tiffany Ruby Patterson, Zora Neale Hurston and a History of Southern Life Lisa M. Fine, The Story of Reo Joe: Work, Kin, and Community in Autotown, U.S.A. Van Gosse and Richard Moser, eds., The World the Sixties Made: Politics and Culture