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In many cities across the nation, frustrated unemployed workers demonstrated and held marches and protests. In March of 1930, hundreds of thousands of these unemployed persons held marches in New York City, Detroit, Washington, San Francisco and other cities in a mass protest organized by the Communist Party's Unemployed Councils. In 1931, more than 400 relief protests took place in Chicago, with that number rising to 550 in 1932. The leadership behind these organizations often came from radical groups like Communist and Socialist parties, who wanted to organize "unfocused neighborhood militancy into organized popular defense organizations".
Organized labor gained some support in 1932, with the passage of the Norris-La Guardia Act. President Herbert Hoover was often portrayed as pro-business and laissez-faire on aid to the little guy. But on March 23, 1932, Hoover signed the Norris-La Guardia Act. It was the first of a number of pro-union bills that Washington would pass in the 1930s. Also known as the Anti-Injunction Bill, it made it more difficult for employers to obtain court injunctions against workers during labor disputes. The act only applied to federal courts, but it caused numerous states to pass similar legislation in their states. The act outlawed what were called "yellow-dog contracts". These were documents some employers forced their employees to sign to ensure they would not join a union. If employees refused to sign the agreements, the employer typically would fire them. This practice became illegal under this bill. The sponsors of the bill were two Republicans, Senator George W. Norris of Nebraska and Representative Fiorello H. La Guardia of New York. The passage of the Norris-La Guardia Act was a huge boost to the American Federation of Labor, which had been lobbying Congress to pass it for about five years.
In the days that had followed the stock market crash, Hoover had asked business and labor leaders to avoid wage cuts and work stoppages while the country recovered. Hoover also tried to improve employment prospects for Americans through the Mexican Repatriation program, which helped unemployed Mexican citizens to return home through a forced migration of approximately 500,000 people to Mexico. Hoover was afraid of running up huge budget deficits and so he was opposed to expansive projects such as the Muscle Shoals Bill, which sought to establish government production and distribution of power in the Tennessee Valley. His successor, Franklin Delano Roosevelt, would take a markedly different approach.
To help manufacturers, in June 1930, despite the objection of many economists, Hoover reluctantly signed into law the Smoot–Hawley Tariff Act. The legislation raised tariffs on thousands of imported items. The intent of the act was to encourage the purchase of American-made products by increasing the cost of imported goods, while raising revenue for the federal government. But because economic depression had spread worldwide, and because Canada, France and other nations retaliated by raising tariffs on imports from the U.S., the plan back-fired. International trade decreased and the depression became worse.
Hoover continued to oppose congressional proposals to provide federal relief. He created the National Credit Corporation, a voluntary association of bankers that Hoover had hoped would ease credit. It did not have the desired result as many banks continued to fail. He also vetoed a bill that would have allowed direct federal lending to individuals. In January 1932, Hoover signed a bill creating the Reconstruction Finance Corporation. Its goal was to provide government-secured loans to financial institutions, railroads, and local governments to continue relief programs. The RFC saved a number of businesses from failure, but failed to stimulate commercial lending because conservative bankers were unwilling to approve riskier loans. The RFC would see its powers greatly expanded as part of Franklin Roosevelt's New Deal.
Finally, in July of 1932, Hoover signed the Emergency Relief and Construction Act, a major public works bill. But it was too late to rehabilitate his chances for re-election. In the previous month of June 1932, thousands of World War I veterans and their families demonstrated and camped out in Washington, DC, calling for immediate payment of a bonus that had been promised by the World War Adjusted Compensation Act in 1924 for payment in 1945. Washington police attempted to remove the demonstrators from their camp, but they were unsuccessful. Shots were fired by the police in a futile attempt to attain order, and two protesters were killed while many officers were injured. Hoover sent U.S. Army forces led by General Douglas MacArthur (whose staff included Dwight D. Eisenhower and George S. Patton) to stop the march. MacArthur chose to clear out the camp with military force. Hundreds of civilians were injured. Hoover had sent orders that the Army was not to move on the encampment, but MacArthur chose to ignore the command. The incident was nail in the coffin for Hoover's re-election chances in the 1932 election.
By 1932, unemployment had reached 24.9%, more than 5,000 banks had failed, and Hoover's name was used pejoratively in association with the plight of the unemployed. Homeless people lived in shantytowns they called Hoovervilles. The public blamed him for the depression, a message that Franklin Roosevelt continued to reinforce during the election campaign. Roosevelt won 57.4 percent of the popular vote compared to Hoover's 39.7%. Roosevelt became the first Democratic presidential nominee to win a majority of the popular vote since the Civil War. The electoral vote was a landslide victor for Roosevelt, who won 472 electoral votes, compared to 59 for Hoover. Roosevelt won 42 states and Hoover won 6.