Hoover did far more than any previous president to alleviate economic suffering during a depression

See ‘Winter War’ Review: Hard Times for Hoover and FDR: The four months between Franklin Roosevelt’s election and his inauguration were one of the darkest moments of the American Century by John Steele Gordon (he reviews a book by Eric Rauchway). Excerpt:

"In fact, Hoover did far more than any previous president to alleviate economic suffering during a depression. As early as the spring of 1930, long before the Great Depression had begun to really bite, he proposed increasing federal construction spending by a whopping $140 million (more than 4% of the total federal budget) while urging state governments to increase their own construction spending. In 1931, he proposed a moratorium on both Germany’s payment of war reparations to the Allies and on loan repayments by the Allies to the United States. It was a politically brave thing to do, for while it was the right thing to do—easing budgetary pressures on hard-pressed European countries—it would inevitably be seen domestically as a move that would force America to bear more of the costs of World War I. In the event, Congress never acted on Hoover’s proposal, but the payments stopped of their own accord and never resumed.

Hoover also pushed for the Home Loan Bank Act, finally passed in the summer of 1932, which allowed banks to greatly increase their liquidity by using their mortgage portfolios as collateral. His Reconstruction Finance Corp. was empowered to make emergency loans to banks, farm mortgage associations, railroads and insurance companies to prevent their collapse. Fiorello La Guardia, then a New York congressman, called the Reconstruction Finance Corp. a dole for millionaires, but it would do much to prevent still greater economic collapse. Mr. Rauchway barely mentions the RFC, which in many ways was a precursor of several New Deal programs, and doesn’t even mention other Hoover efforts.

If Hoover and Roosevelt are to be compared, it should be noted that Hoover never had FDR’s political freedom. Hoover had to work hard to get his proposals through Congress, especially after Republicans lost the House in the election of 1930. Roosevelt had overwhelming majorities in both houses of Congress and sky-high public backing. The result, for FDR, was the remarkable “hundred days” when no fewer than 16 major bills passed Congress. Just consider: Roosevelt’s banking bill was presented to the House at 1 p.m. on March 9, 1933. It was signed into law that evening at 8:36. No member of Congress could have had time to read it. No president, and certainly not Hoover, had ever had such power (or would again, not even Roosevelt)."