HERBERT HOOVER . 1929-1933

Son of a Quaker blacksmith, Herbert Clark Hoover brought to the presidency an unparalleled reputation for public service as an engineer, administrator and humanitarian.

Born in West Branch, Iowa on August 10, 1874, he grew up in Oregon. He enrolled at Stanford University when it opened in 1891, graduating as a mining engineer. He went to China, where he worked for a private corporation as China's leading engineer. In June 1900 the Boxer Rebellion caught Hoover in Tientsin. For almost a month the settlement was under heavy fire. While his wife worked in hospitals, Hoover directed the building of barricades, and once risked his life rescuing Chinese children.

When Germany declared war on France, the American consul general asked Hoover’s help in getting out stranded tourists. His committee helped 120,000 Americans return home. After the United States entered the war, President Wilson appointed him head of the Food Administration. He succeeded in cutting consumption of foods needed overseas and avoided rationing at home, yet kept the Allies fed. After the Armistice, Hoover led the American Relief Administration. In 1921, he aided famine-stricken Soviet Russia. Criticized for helping Bolshevism, he retorted, "Twenty million people are starving. Whatever their politics, they shall be fed!"

After serving as secretary of commerce under Presidents Harding and Coolidge, Hoover became the Republican presidential nominee in 1928. His election seemed to ensure prosperity. Yet within months the stock market crashed, and the nation spiraled into depression. After the crash Hoover announced that while he would keep the federal budget balanced, he would cut taxes and expand public works spending. He asked for the creation of the Reconstruction Finance Corporation to aid businesses, help farmers facing foreclosures, reform banking and feed the unemployed. He also said that while people must not suffer, caring for them must be primarily a local and voluntary responsibility.

His opponents in Congress unfairly painted him as a callous and cruel. President Hoover became the scapegoat for the depression and was badly defeated in 1932. Throughout the 30s he was a powerful critic of the New Deal, warning against tendencies toward statism.

In 1947 President Truman appointed Hoover to a commission to reorganize the Executive Departments. He was appointed chairman of a similar commission in 1953 by President Eisenhower. Many economies resulted from both commissions' recommendations. Over the years, Hoover wrote many articles and books, one of which he was working on when he died at 90 in New York City on October 20, 1964.

FRANKLIN D. ROOSEVELT . 1933-1945

Assuming the presidency at the depth of the Great Depression, Franklin D. Roosevelt helped Americans regain faith. He brought hope as he promised prompt, vigorous action, and asserted in his inaugural address, "the only thing we have to fear is fear itself."

Born on January 30, 1882, at Hyde Park, New York, he attended Harvard University and Columbia Law School. Following the lead of his fifth cousin, Theodore Roosevelt, he entered politics. By 1920 he was the Democratic nominee for vice president. In 1921, at age 39, he was stricken with poliomyelitis, and demonstrated an indomitable courage. He dramatically appeared on crutches to nominate Alfred E. Smith at the 1924 Democratic Convention. In 1928 he became governor of New York.

He was elected president in 1932. By early 1933 there were 13 million unemployed, and almost every bank was closed. He passed a sweeping program to bring relief to business, agriculture, the unemployed and those in danger of foreclosure. He created the Tennessee Valley Authority. By 1935, the nation was recovering, but businessmen and bankers had turned against Roosevelt's "New Deal." They disliked his concessions to labor and were appalled that he had taken the nation off the gold standard and allowed deficits in the budget. The president responded with heavier taxes on the wealthy, controls over banks and public utilities, a huge work relief program for the unemployed and a new program of reform: Social Security. Re-elected by a top-heavy margin in 1936, Roosevelt sought legislation that led to a revolution in constitutional law. Thereafter the government could legally regulate the economy.

He also sought through neutrality legislation to keep the United States out of the war in Europe, yet at the same time he pledged by a "good neighbor" policy to strengthen nations threatened or attacked. Thus when France fell and England came under siege in 1940, he began to send Great Britain all possible aid short of actual military involvement. The Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941, though, drove Roosevelt to quickly direct the organization of the nation's manpower and resources for global war.

Feeling that the future peace of the world would depend upon relations between the United States and Russia, the president devoted much thought to the planning of a United Nations, in which, he hoped, international difficulties could be settled.

As the war drew to a close, Roosevelt's health deteriorated, and on April 12, 1945, while at Warm Springs, Georgia, he died of a cerebral hemorrhage.