Devil Take The Hindmost by Edward Chancellor (pg. 223)

In other words, Mellon suggested that the market should be left to fall until it found its own clearing level when demand would return and the economy revive. Instead, Hoover’s policies prevented wages from falling at a time when asset and commodity prices were declining. This served to increase unemployment and reduce the returns on capital, thus preventing reinvestment. Rothbard concluded that the “guilt of the Great Depression must be lifted from the shoulders of the free economy, and placed where it properly belongs: at the doors of politicians, bureaucrats, and the mass of ‘enlightened’ economists.”