Total nonsense. The GD was a result of Fed policies which shrunk the money supply by 30% during the four years after the stock market crash in 1929.
The great depression and its offspring, the New Deal, could both have been avoided if the Federal Reserve had performed the task assigned to it. All the Federal Reserve had to do to avoid the Depression and the subversion of the American constitutional order was to purchase $1 billion in government securities during the 10-month period from December 1929 to October 1930. The result would have been an increase, instead of decrease, in high-powered money, and the banking crisis that began in the autumn of 1930 would not have occurred.
The Fed's "Depression" and the Birth of the New Deal
The Great Depression According to Milton Friedman
The Great Depression Could Have Been Avoided if the Fed Had Not So Badly Botched Its Monetary Policy
The Smoot-Hawley boogieman has been thoroughly debunked. It had little or nothing to do with the GD and isn't even mentioned in the above articles. Fed inaction caused the GD. Bernanke sure believes it and seems to be going to the other extreme by constantly increasing the money supply with easy money.
So how's that working for ya?