American History: An Angry Nation Puts Its Hopes in President Roosevelt

16 March 2011

Herbert Hoover, left, and Franklin Roosevelt in Washington on Inauguration Day

STEVE EMBER: Welcome to THE MAKING OF A NATION – American history in VOA Special English. I'm Steve Ember with Shirley Griffith. This week in our series, we begin the story of President Franklin Delano Roosevelt.

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In nineteen thirty-two Americans were tired of the policies of Republican President Herbert Hoover. They thought Hoover had done too little to fight the depression that was crushing the economy.

They gave a big victory to Franklin Roosevelt and his Democrats in the elections that year. Roosevelt believed that the federal government should do more to help average Americans.

The election brought hope to many Americans in the autumn of nineteen thirty-two. But Roosevelt did not become president until March of nineteen thirty-three, four months after the election. And those months saw the American economy fall to its lowest level in the history of the nation.

SHIRLEY GRIFFITH: President Hoover tried to arrange a world economic conference. And he called on President-elect Roosevelt to join him in making conservative statements in support of business.

Roosevelt refused. He did not think it was correct to begin acting like a president until he actually became the president. He did not want to tie himself to policies that the voters had just rejected.