I'm no big fan of free trade, and I don't know whether free trade could have cured the Great Depression. Roosevelt's policies certainly didn't. But closing down markets with high tariffs was probably the wrong response to hard times.
Those who lived through the Depression and came to power after the war certainly drew that conclusion, and the argument that free trade makes recessions (and maybe inflation, too) milder is one that protectionists will have to take seriously.
There are many theories as to why the depression lasted as long as it did. Suffice to say the world wide depression came to the USA and there were a number of outstanding issues that seemed to agravate the problem including a Federal Reserve contraction of credit in the late 1920's that was not reversed until the mid 1930's but by that time the impact of German re-militarization was having an effect. one can argue that Smoot Haeley mitigated the effects of the depression as well as argue that it prolonged the depression. In fact there were/are insufficient measurements to prove anything regarding this point. In simple terms there had been other depressions in teh past that would have been classified as being as severe as the depression of the 1930's. There was the whole "Free Silver" debate of the 1890's with William Jennings Bryan arguing for free silver coinage and going off the Gold Standard. However, until Arizona was admitted to the Union there was still a frontier that allowed new starts nad the economy had not reached a level of national integration that came about after WWI so that provided some additional mitigation for prior downturns. I'm no big fan of free trade, and I don't know whether free trade could have cured the Great Depression. Roosevelt's policies certainly didn't. But closing down markets with high tariffs was probably the wrong response to hard times.
Again I am not arguing that the Smoot Hawley act was a great idea I am merely wquestioning it as the "Cause of teh Great Depression." Those who lived through the Depression and came to power after the war certainly drew that conclusion, and the argument that free trade makes recessions (and maybe inflation, too) milder is one that protectionists will have to take seriously.
Actually given the tariff policies of teh 1940's after WWII and the 1950's and 1960's I do not think this argument about the conclusions reacxhed by the generation that lived through the Great Depression is valid. The economic consensus academics of teh 1950's and 1960's was that John Maynard Keynes had the answers. I do not subscribe to that view merely restating what was current.
As to the argument that Free Trade might make recessions milder and maybe inflation milder that is an argment I will listen to and take seriuously but I will ask for evidence not theory. We have a couple of examples of nations running without tariffs in a world where otehr nations have in place protective tariffs and those examples do not support this thesis.