If you read the comment to my earlier post, you see exactly the phenomenon at issue. Despite evidence presented that Hoover was anything but a laissez-faire supporter who  cut federal spending (what Keynesians call “austerity” but which really means that the government consumes less of the economy’s limited resources, leaving more for production driven by voluntary, market action), the commenter insists that Hoover sat around inactive. That myth is evidently so useful to the proponents of the ever-expanding federal Leviathan that they’ll repeat it no matter what history shows.