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In November of 1928, Herbert Hoover was elected president of the United States in a landslide Republican victory over Governor Alfred E. Smith of New York. In his inauguration speech, Hoover, a self-made millionaire who seemed a fitting leader for the prosperity of the times, declared, ''We have reached a higher degree of comfort and security than ever existed before in the history of the world.'' However, before the end of his first year in office, the bottom fell out of the American economy, and President Hoover, the man at the top, was readily held responsible for the worst economic depression in American history. Failing to use his executive power to stem the tide of closing banks and failing businesses, Hoover's name was routinely linked to Depression-era hardships. Shantytowns built by unemployed workers on the outskirts of cities were called ''Hoovervilles,'' and the newspapers the homeless used to stave off the cold were known as ''Hoover blankets.'' Only toward the end of his term did Hoover create emergency government programs such as the Reconstruction Finance Corporation to provide relief to the crippled U.S. economy. However, this progressive legislation failed to appease a bitter American electorate, and in the presidential election of 1932 he was soundly defeated by Governor Franklin D. Roosevelt of New York, a Democrat who carried all but seven states.