WI Hoover hadn't promised agricultural tariffs

Rush Tarquin

Gone Fishin'
What if Hoover had not promised agricultural tariffs during his 1928 presidential bid? Is it possible for Hoover to still win the election?

How would the stock market fair without a Smoot-Hawley Tariff Act? What would be the repercussions of Canada, France and Britain not retaliating preemptively to the tariff increase? Would Germany still move towards autarky without the act?
 
Well without Smoot-Hawley the Great Depression would not have been quite as bad, but if I recall correctly then Hoover called the tariffs "vicious, extortionate, and obnoxious," so without Hoover there would still be a Smoot-Hawley act.
 
Don't forget the Fed Reserve Ben Strong's quote of giving the economy a "coup de wiskey" in 1928! He died just before the crash, and no other knew the market as he did. The depression had a number of causes.
 
One of the big things was how Americans were producing so much in the way of agricultural output. It got to the point where there was more than the market could handle, prices dropped, farmers couldn't pay their oans, and similar things happened. And then there was the Dust Bowl where bad farming methods (think along the ine of why the Russians kept moving East or how King Cotton needed to keep moving west) drained the soil of nutrients and washed away the topsoil.
 
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