Republican · 1929–1933
Herbert Hoover
Engineer of volunteerism who met the Depression with the Reconstruction Finance Corporation and held to orthodoxy too long.
Herbert Hoover was president 1929–1933. The party color on the chart is Republican. Early presidents are not forced into today’s party names. The placement note is: Engineer of volunteerism who met the Depression with the Reconstruction Finance Corporation and held to orthodoxy too long.
The dot is economics +30 and authority +22. That is right of center on economics. The other axis sits toward authority. Color and place are allowed to disagree. Theodore Roosevelt sits left of Grover Cleveland on economics.
What was said, and what the administration did, are filed separately. Said: Voluntary cooperation, not a federal dole, would meet a downturn. Done: He resisted direct relief, then signed the Reconstruction Finance Corporation. It was not enough, and it was late. Where those two sentences pull apart, the dot follows the governing record, not the slogan.
The nearest other presidents on these two numbers are George H. W. Bush (1989–1993, +34 / +26) and Benjamin Harrison (1889–1893, +22 / +22). A small distance can join people who would have disliked each other. The chart is a compression, not a claim that they were alike.
Presidents are not placed with the Voteview roll-call score used for the current Congress. Two axes cannot carry a war, a court, a tariff, and a civil-rights record as separate facts.