During the Great Depression the task of being President of the United States became even greater, due to the suffering of the economy. Herbert Hoover was one of the presidents who faced this challenge. In fact, he was president during the time of the stock market crash. During his time as president there were many controversies that surrounded him. Many people thought he would not reach his full potential as president because of some of the things he helped organize to help the struggling economy. He actually did more than others before him for the economy, but unfortunately it wasn't enough and what little help he gave came too late. Part of the reason he acted too late was because of his views and thoughts on the Depression and how the government should fix it. President Hoover's thoughts and opinions greatly influenced the economy and how it was managed during his presidency. “President Hoover was deeply concerned about suffering. However, Hoover did not believe that the government should be directly involved in helping to end the economic crisis. He feared that the government might become too powerful. According to him, it was up to businesses to put an end to the crisis." (Davidson 750) During his time as president, President Hoover had many thoughts about the economy. One thing he was very adamant about was that the government should not have too much power in fixing the economy. He was worried that it would have too much of a negative impact rather than a positive one. Instead, he thought businesses should work together and provide more jobs with reasonable pay to workers. He also did not agree with government relief programs. He thought these programs were… half paper… and many of them were out of work and suffering financially. This caused a lot of friction in Washington, because there was a lot of debate about whether or not they should give these men their bonuses right away or make them wait. It was finally decided that these men would have to wait and President Hoover said they would leave. When these men refused to leave, he had to use harsher tactics. He asked General Douglas MacArthur to do what was necessary to get these men to leave. And he did, bringing with him heavy military equipment such as tanks, tear gas and other military supplies. After this event many people were outraged and angry about this. They felt that what had happened was too harsh and should have been handled differently. Even though President Hoover might have handled things differently, he still did what he thought was best.