America has had depressions before. Always, it was the poorest workers who went hungry. This Great Depression is different. It hurts rich and poor and the middle class, too. And it goes on, and on, and on . President Herbert Hoover just doesn't seem to know what to do. He says, "I do not believe that the power and duty of the general government ought to be extended to the relief of individual suffering."

In 1932 Hoover states publicly that "no one in America is actually starving." But he is wrong. Things have gotten so bad that some people are getting themselves arrested, on purpose, just so they can eat. The president is out of touch. At the White House, he and Mrs. Hoover dress formally for dinner each night and sit down to seven-course meals .

Many head for the cities, where they hope to find jobs. But there are no jobs in the cities . The only thing you can do is build a shack with anything you can find—old boards and boxes will have to do. Lots of Americans are living like that, usually on land near a garbage dump or places nobody would ever want to consider home. Shanty towns spring up all over the nation. Eventually a million people will live in them. People call them Hoovervilles, blaming the president, who still doesn't seem to grasp the severity of the crisis . He keeps saying words like he said in the spring of 1930—that things are getting better in America: "I am convinced we have passed the worst and with continued effort we shall rapidly recover."

In the summer of 1932, President Hoover says the Depression is over. But if he looks out the windows of the White House, he will see he is wrong. Thousands of World War I veterans and their families are camped in the center of Washington. Congress voted them a cash bonus for their war service, but the bonus is not due until 1945. They need it now. They call themselves the Bonus Army , and they build a Hooverville within sight of the Capitol. They march through the streets waving American flags and singing freedom songs like "My country 'tis of thee." Hoover asks the army to intervene. Ignoring the president's orders that he not use force, General Douglas MacArthur sends in tanks and machine gun units and armed cavalry—soldiers on horseback with bayonets, tear gas, and billy clubs . The shacks are torn down and set on fire . Two babies die from the tear gas. War veterans are wounded. When it is all over, many Americans hang their heads in shame. Hoover later says, "I did not wish them driven from the camps. Our military officers pushed them outside the District of Columbia." But the United States does not need presidential excuses. It needs a strong leader, someone who will be open to new ideas, someone who will take charge. And in November 1932 that is what we get. He is one of the most dynamic men in U.S. history. His name is Franklin Delano Roosevelt .