Herbert Hoover failed through no fault of his own. The Crash of 1929 and the Great Depression were beyond his control, and every remedy he tried failed adequately to work.

Lyndon Johnson, his 44-state landslide in 1964 and Great Society notwithstanding, was by 1968 a failed president being repudiated in the primaries of his own party.

Consider trade protectionism. It's been tried - and found wanting - since the Great Depression.

The 24% unemployment reached at the depths of the Great Depression was no picnic.

As we learned after President Herbert Hoover signed the Smoot-Hawley tariff at the outset of the Great Depression, vibrant international trade is a key component to economic recovery; hindering trade is a recipe for disaster.

Raised by an irresponsible mother during the Great Depression in the Jim Crow south, my father was on his own from the age of 13.