when he accepted the Democratic nomination for president. This included emergency aid for the unemployed, the creation of temporary jobs working on infrastructure projects, a series of labor reforms, and tougher regulation of financial institutions.

Franklin Delano Roosevelt is widely regarded as one of the greatest presidents, while Herbert Hoover is generally seen as a failure. It is true that the measures adopted by Roosevelt succeeded in stimulating the economy, paving the way for tremendous growth and success in the post-war years. However, Hoover was a one-term president who had to cope with the Great Depression in the middle of his administration. It is at least arguable that his policies did not have enough time to bear fruit before he was succeeded by America's only four-term president, who had the time and public support necessary for the New Deal to create real change in the economy and society.

It should be noted that Herbert Hoover did try to enact a government response to the Great Depression. Consider, for example, his administration's support of public works projects such as the Hoover Dam. In addition, the Reconstruction Finance Corporation was set up to provide loans to businesses in the hopes that this financial support would jump start the economy. Even so, under Hoover the government's role in fighting the Depression was largely indirect in nature. Roosevelt had a very different approach.

Roosevelt's administration envisioned a radical expansion in the role of government within the economy. This could already be seen even in the earliest history of his presidency: within days of taking office, he closed the country's banks and carried out a large scale government audit of the entire United States banking system. Such a direct intervention of the government into the private sector would have been seen as radical under earlier Republican administrations (including Hoover's). Under Roosevelt, the government intervened to create new jobs through federal programs, as well as to introduce substantial reforms to the economic system of the United States. For example, consider the creation of the SEC, which has the power to regulate stock market speculation, or the FDIC (which provides federal guarantees to bank deposits up to a certain value). In addition, Roosevelt's administration oversaw the first Social Security System enacted in the United States.

Thus, while Hoover did intervene and attempt to combat the Great Depression, his actions were limited when compared with Roosevelt's.

I would say that the biggest difference between Herbert Hoover and his successor, Franklin Delano Roosevelt, was that Hoover did want to intervene in the free market, while Roosevelt did.

One of the reasons why Hoover fell out of favor with voters was because he refused to intervene in the failing wheat market in the early-1930s by setting prices, which Roosevelt later did. The result of Hoover's policy was an overabundance of wheat, much of it going to waste at train stations, for it was not being transported east to markets due to a lack of demand. The collapse of the stock market during Hoover's term, in 1929, which led to the Great Depression, made people unable to afford the wheat products they needed. Wheat-growing regions, such as the Texas and Oklahoma Panhandles and southeastern Colorado, did not feel the Great Depression as swiftly as the Eastern states did and continued to benefit from the great profits they enjoyed during the 1920s. However, when the demand for wheat dropped, the West, too, joined in the suffering.

Roosevelt addressed this problem when he took office, not only by setting wheat prices, instead of allowing farmers to do so, but also by making the government the market for wheat. Wheat farmers would now be paid to stop growing wheat to avoid creating another surplus in the market that would hurt the supply chain.