SAQ - America’s Debt and Hoover’s Presidency
Directions: Review the resources below and answer all parts of the question that follows.
Prompt:
Answer (a) and (b) and (c)
- Explain how the election of 1928 was a byproduct of the economic boom of the period.
- Identify the economic platform of Herbert Hoover.
- Explain how Hoover’s economic platform differed from Coolidge’s platform.
“Whistle-stop” campaigns, with candidates speaking from the rear platforms of trains, were a standard feature of American politics before the advent of television. Herbert Hoover here greets a crowd in Newark, New Jersey, during the 1928 campaign.
Smith, despite his defeat, managed to poll almost as many votes as the victorious Coolidge had in 1924. By attracting to the party an immense urban or “sidewalk” vote, the breezy New Yorker foreshadowed Roosevelt’s New Deal victory in 1932, when the Democrats patched together the solid South and the urban North. A cruel joke had the Catholic Smith cabling the Pope a single word after the election: “Unpack.”
