Yes, I know who enacted Smoot-Hawley. To say that Smoot was causative is oversimplistic, but that’s for another thread. The fact of the matter is that, labels aside, Roosevelt was a control freak who thought that competition and profit were evil. He dumped US commodities on foreign shores which resulted in tarrifs being levied against those products by those countries. Meanwhile, he was buring crops in the field to hold prices down which resulted higher prices. Why? Because his policies created shortages and made the United States - the breadbasket of the world - a net importer of foodstuffs.
So Democrats of the ‘20’s and ‘30’s may have marketed themselves as “free traders”, but what they really were was in love with the socialism that was taking root in Europe. He thought Uncle Joe Stalin was a prince and that Communist Russia was heaven on earth.
Some think that FDR’s “NewDeal” was the first implementation of the Randian Directive 10-289. The purpose was not to re-boot the economy so much as to freeze it in place to arrest the apparent downward spiral. How well did it work? Debatable, but not a lot of people know that there were actually two Depressions in the 1930s. The first was early on after the market crash and that’s the one everyone thinks of when the GD is mentioned. But there was a slow, gradual recovery until late in the decade, then another slump. Basically a double-bottom chart formation for the technical analysts out there. Who knows how long the second one would have gone? The war came along and changed things, and then the controls really set in (for justifiable reasons). Just as a leading indicator, the DJIA didn’t recover it’s pre-Crash levels until the mid-Fifties. Control freaks or not, these things, like the GD then and the recession now (although not as bad) take time to recover. There isn’t much government can do.
When you have a worldwide economic downturn, countries move towards protectionism...Roosevelt probably could not have done anything about this...you will see the same sort of reaction this time too-just watch.
As for crops, the burning of crops was an attempt to put a bottom on prices, stop the cycle of deflation. It was only done once because public outcry was so vehement that crops were donated to soup kitchens and other charitable organizations after that...the US did not import food except perhaps briefly due to the dust bowl...wrong about that. Trade was no way near as important during that time as it is now...only 6% of GNP.
Actually, there was a great deal of anger towards Wall Street, people believed they had caused the 1930’s depression-quite similar to what we have today. People wanted policies enacted so this could not happen again-punish Wall Street. Roosevelt largely resisted these calls but did institute some reforms...Too bad a Dem president and a GOP congress gutted those safeguards in 1999...we might not be here today...but the campaign donating banks lobbied for it.
However, I digress. In fact, Roosevelt protected the financial sector...he could have had a fair number of the top guys...like JP Morgan, Morgan Stanley big wigs, Prescott Bush etc tried for treason and probably executed had he chosen to...have you ever heard of the business plot? Top financiers got together and plotted to overthrow the government and install a fascist dictator (many admired Hitler). They needed the support of the military so they approached General Butler-Marine general-who would be installed as dictator in chief after he rallied the troops to overthrow a democratically elected president...can you imagine? But General Butler-a Marine-ratted them out to Congress. None were tried for their treasonable actions because Roosevelt (so the story goes) believed that this would destroy the public’s faith in capitalism forever. I see no evidence that the Democrats were ‘in love with communism’ at this time. This is a rewriting of history. It is apparent that the greatest risk to our Republic in the 1930’s was from those (I can’t consider them the ‘right’) who wished to install a fascist government similar to Germany in this country. Semper Fi ...the marines always save the day (military family).