The Great Depression, the New Deal, and World War II 219ment and promised a reduction of federal expenditures to balance the
budget and a removal of the federal government from all areas of pri-
vate activity “except where necessary to develop public works and natu-
ral resources.” It further promised to send money to the states in order
to provide relief for the unemployed, to reduce tariff levels, and to re-
form the banking system so as to maintain a sound currency.
The Republicans renominated Hoover on the first ballot, and Vice
President Charles Curtis; and they put forward a platform calling for a
balanced budget, reduced government spending, loans to the states for
relief, the repeal of the Eighteenth Amendment, and continuation of a
protective tariff, among other things. Except for the tariff, the two
platforms were exactly alike in many respects.
This election also produced an especially large number of political
parties offering candidates for the presidency and vice presidency, in-
cluding the Prohibition, Communist, and Socialist parties. The Pro-
hibition Party nominated William D. Upshaw and Frank S. Regan;
the Communist Party, William Z. Foster and James W. Ford; and the
Socialist Party, Norman Thomas and James H. Maurer. All told,
there were eight parties in this race.
Strangely, both major parties during the campaign seemed more
concerned about getting rid of Prohibition than about fi nding jobs for
the unemployed. Perhaps they felt that repealing the Eighteenth
Amendment would be easier than solving the nation’s economic prob-
lems. “Here we are, in the midst of the greatest crisis since the Civil
War,” sniffed the philosopher and educator John Dewey, “and the only
thing the two national parties seem to want to debate is booze.”
Actually, Roo sevelt gave any number of radio addresses in which he
outlined a program of social and economic reforms. With the assis-
tance of a group of Columbia professors, known as the “brain trust,”
and including such men as Adolph A. Berle, Raymond Moley, and
Rexford G. Tugwell, he said, it was the duty of government to adapt
existing economic organizations to the needs of the people, and to fi nd
the means by which the distribution of wealth and products would be
more equitable. Naturally, Hoover savaged FDR’s goals as a radical
departure from traditional American values and practices. He called
for the decentralization of government in order to allow private busi-
ness to expand. But his mood and tone sounded depressing, whereas