8. Hoover signed Smoot-Hawley to help the agricultural industry
Hoover’s support of the Smoot-Hawley Tariff Act centered on his desire to provide relief to America’s farmers after the disastrous 1920s left them reeling. During the election campaign of 1928, Hoover announced his intention to provide relief to farmers through raising agricultural tariffs and increasing funding for the Federal Farm Board, which both subsidized loans to farmers and purchased goods. Hoover strongly believed the President should not be involved in Congressional debates and the creation of bills, and thus did not argue for his agricultural tariffs during the legislative process. His congressional supporters failed to get a clean agricultural tariff bill through either House.
As it so often does, Congress tied the agricultural tariffs into a broad package of additional legislation, which raised tariffs for hundreds of goods and products. When it passed and appeared on his desk, Hoover believed he had no choice but to sign it, still believing the economic downturn at the time would be short and relatively mild. The bill was almost universally unpopular among progressive Republicans, and severed the President’s relations with that wing of the party. The resulting contraction of global trade had an adverse effect across virtually all of the American economy, including the agricultural interests Hoover had hoped to aid. It was proposed with good intentions, but Congressional sausage-making rendered it an additional disaster.