FDR was certainly controversial back in his day he was elected so many times because we were in the middle of freaking world war 2 hoover did some things like you mention the tariff , but he was very careful and hesitant about it america was still very capitalist and noninterventionalist back thenhoover came into office in 1929 , the VERY year that wallstreet imploded black tuesday up until then , america was in what was called the roaring 20 s which was a decade of unprecedented prosperity for america and calvin coolidge republican was president thenblaming hoover for the great depression is silly he just didnt do enough in his short tenure to change things , and FDR rose out of populism , and set america on its current path of massive debt management