Herbert Hoover and Civil Rights
The other day I finished watching the Ken Burns three- part documentary called Prohibition and in the last episode Burns wasn't very kind to Herbert Hoover. He suggested that Hoover ran a dirty campaign against his opponent, New York Governor Al Smith, and also that Hoover dodged the issue of prohibition as much as he could. Earlier I had read how Hoover's predecessor Calvin Coolidge had said that when Coolidge was in the White House, Hoover would always offer him unsolicited advice, "all of it bad" according to Silent Cal. So how was Hoover when it came to civil rights?
Well, Hoover wasn't afraid of mixing with other cultures. He and his wife Lou lived in China at the end of the 19th century and they even learned to speak Mandarin. He also had a good record as a humanitarian. Hoover led the effort to provided aid to the defeated German nation after the first world war, as well as relief to famine-stricken Bolshevik-controlled areas of Russia in 1921, despite the opposition of Senator Henry Cabot Lodge and other Republicans. When accused of helping Bolshevism, Hoover retorted, "Twenty million people are starving. Whatever their politics, they shall be fed!"
The Great Mississippi Flood of 1927 broke the banks and levees of the lower Mississippi River in early 1927, resulting in flooding of millions of acres and leaving one and a half million people displaced from their homes. At the time Hoover was Secretary of Commerce under President Coolidge. Although such a disaster did not fall under the duties of the Commerce Department, the governors of six states along the Mississippi specifically asked for Herbert Hoover in the emergency. Coolidge sent Hoover to mobilize state and local authorities, militia, army engineers, the Coast Guard, and the American Red Cross. With a grant from the Rockefeller Foundation, Hoover set up health units to work in the flooded regions for a year. These workers stamped out malaria, pellagra, and typhoid fever from many areas. His work during the flood brought Herbert Hoover to the front page of newspapers almost everywhere, and he gained new accolades as a humanitarian. The great victory of his relief work, he stressed, was not that the government rushed in and provided all assistance; it was that much of the assistance available was provided by private citizens and organizations in response to his appeals. "I suppose I could have called in the Army to help," he said, "but why should I, when I only had to call upon Main Street."
But the treatment of African-Americans during the disaster hurt Hoover's reputation as a humanitarian. Local officials brutalized African-Americans and prevented them from leaving relief camps. Aid meant for African-American sharecroppers was often given to the landowners instead, and African-American males were conscripted by locals into forced labor, sometimes at gun point. Hoover struck a deal with Robert Moton, the prominent African-American successor to Booker T. Washington who was president of the Tuskegee Institute. In exchange for keeping the suffering of African Americans out of the public eye, Hoover promised unprecedented influence for African Americans if he was elected president. Moton agreed, and worked actively to keep information about mistreatment of blacks from being revealed to the media. Following election, Hoover never kept this promise, leading to an African-American backlash in the 1932 election that shifted allegiance from the Republican party to the Democrats.
In the election of 1928, to gain Republican votes in southern states, Hoover used a "Southern Strategy" in which he appealed to white voters and used the support of the Ku Klux Klan against his Catholic opponent Smith. He won victories in Tennessee, North Carolina, Florida, Virginia, and Texas. It marked the first time a Republican candidate for president carried Texas. This outraged the black leadership, who broke from the Republican Party, and began seeking candidates who supported civil rights within the Democratic Party.
Hoover seldom mentioned civil rights while he was President. Hoover believed that African-Americans and other races could improve themselves with education and wanted the races assimilated into white culture. Hoover attempted to appoint John J. Parker to the Supreme Court in 1930 to replace Edward Sanford. The NAACP claimed that Parker made many court decisions against African-Americans and fought the nomination. The NAACP was successful in lobbying senate support and the nomination was defeated in the Senate.
First Lady Lou Hoover defied custom and invited an African-American Republican, Oscar DePriest, a member in the House of Representatives, to dinner at the White House. Booker T. Washington was the last previous African-American to have dined at the White House, with Theodore Roosevelt in 1901.
Hoover's Vice President Charles Curtis was the nation's first Native American Vice President. Curtis was from the Kaw tribe in Kansas. But Hoover's Quaker upbringing influenced his views that Native Americans needed to achieve economic self-sufficiency. As President, he appointed Charles J. Rhoads as commissioner of Indian affairs. Hoover supported Rhoads' commitment to Indian assimilation and sought to minimize the federal role in Indian affairs. His goal was to have Native Americans acting as individuals, not as tribes, and to assume the responsibilities of citizenship granted with the Indian Citizenship Act of 1924, contrary to the approach taken by his predecessor Calvin Coolidge, who tried to give individual citizenship while maintaining tribal customs.
During the great depression, thousands of World War I veterans and their families demonstrated and camped out in Washington, D.C., during June 1932, calling for immediate payment of a bonus that had been promised by the World War Adjusted Compensation Act in 1924 for payment in 1945. Although offered money by Congress to return home, some members of the "Bonus army" remained. Washington police attempted to remove the demonstrators from their camp, but they were outnumbered and unsuccessful. Shots were fired by the police in a futile attempt to attain order, and two protesters were killed while many officers were injured. Hoover sent U.S. Army forces led by General Douglas MacArthur and helped by lower ranking officers Dwight D. Eisenhower and George S. Patton to stop a march. MacArthur, believing he was fighting a communist revolution, chose to clear out the camp with military force. In the ensuing clash, hundreds of civilians were injured. Hoover had sent orders that the Army was to not move on the encampment, but MacArthur chose to ignore the command. Hoover was incensed, but refused to reprimand MacArthur. The entire incident was another devastating negative for Hoover in the 1932 election.
Hoover's overall mixed reputation is a negative one on the subject of civil rights. Despite false promises to the contrary, Hoover did nothing to better the conditions for African-Americans. He was not above using racial tension and prejudice to his electoral advantage and whatever his legacy may be, he will not be remembered as a president who advanced the cause of civil rights.
Well, Hoover wasn't afraid of mixing with other cultures. He and his wife Lou lived in China at the end of the 19th century and they even learned to speak Mandarin. He also had a good record as a humanitarian. Hoover led the effort to provided aid to the defeated German nation after the first world war, as well as relief to famine-stricken Bolshevik-controlled areas of Russia in 1921, despite the opposition of Senator Henry Cabot Lodge and other Republicans. When accused of helping Bolshevism, Hoover retorted, "Twenty million people are starving. Whatever their politics, they shall be fed!"
The Great Mississippi Flood of 1927 broke the banks and levees of the lower Mississippi River in early 1927, resulting in flooding of millions of acres and leaving one and a half million people displaced from their homes. At the time Hoover was Secretary of Commerce under President Coolidge. Although such a disaster did not fall under the duties of the Commerce Department, the governors of six states along the Mississippi specifically asked for Herbert Hoover in the emergency. Coolidge sent Hoover to mobilize state and local authorities, militia, army engineers, the Coast Guard, and the American Red Cross. With a grant from the Rockefeller Foundation, Hoover set up health units to work in the flooded regions for a year. These workers stamped out malaria, pellagra, and typhoid fever from many areas. His work during the flood brought Herbert Hoover to the front page of newspapers almost everywhere, and he gained new accolades as a humanitarian. The great victory of his relief work, he stressed, was not that the government rushed in and provided all assistance; it was that much of the assistance available was provided by private citizens and organizations in response to his appeals. "I suppose I could have called in the Army to help," he said, "but why should I, when I only had to call upon Main Street."
But the treatment of African-Americans during the disaster hurt Hoover's reputation as a humanitarian. Local officials brutalized African-Americans and prevented them from leaving relief camps. Aid meant for African-American sharecroppers was often given to the landowners instead, and African-American males were conscripted by locals into forced labor, sometimes at gun point. Hoover struck a deal with Robert Moton, the prominent African-American successor to Booker T. Washington who was president of the Tuskegee Institute. In exchange for keeping the suffering of African Americans out of the public eye, Hoover promised unprecedented influence for African Americans if he was elected president. Moton agreed, and worked actively to keep information about mistreatment of blacks from being revealed to the media. Following election, Hoover never kept this promise, leading to an African-American backlash in the 1932 election that shifted allegiance from the Republican party to the Democrats.
In the election of 1928, to gain Republican votes in southern states, Hoover used a "Southern Strategy" in which he appealed to white voters and used the support of the Ku Klux Klan against his Catholic opponent Smith. He won victories in Tennessee, North Carolina, Florida, Virginia, and Texas. It marked the first time a Republican candidate for president carried Texas. This outraged the black leadership, who broke from the Republican Party, and began seeking candidates who supported civil rights within the Democratic Party.
Hoover seldom mentioned civil rights while he was President. Hoover believed that African-Americans and other races could improve themselves with education and wanted the races assimilated into white culture. Hoover attempted to appoint John J. Parker to the Supreme Court in 1930 to replace Edward Sanford. The NAACP claimed that Parker made many court decisions against African-Americans and fought the nomination. The NAACP was successful in lobbying senate support and the nomination was defeated in the Senate.
First Lady Lou Hoover defied custom and invited an African-American Republican, Oscar DePriest, a member in the House of Representatives, to dinner at the White House. Booker T. Washington was the last previous African-American to have dined at the White House, with Theodore Roosevelt in 1901.
Hoover's Vice President Charles Curtis was the nation's first Native American Vice President. Curtis was from the Kaw tribe in Kansas. But Hoover's Quaker upbringing influenced his views that Native Americans needed to achieve economic self-sufficiency. As President, he appointed Charles J. Rhoads as commissioner of Indian affairs. Hoover supported Rhoads' commitment to Indian assimilation and sought to minimize the federal role in Indian affairs. His goal was to have Native Americans acting as individuals, not as tribes, and to assume the responsibilities of citizenship granted with the Indian Citizenship Act of 1924, contrary to the approach taken by his predecessor Calvin Coolidge, who tried to give individual citizenship while maintaining tribal customs.
During the great depression, thousands of World War I veterans and their families demonstrated and camped out in Washington, D.C., during June 1932, calling for immediate payment of a bonus that had been promised by the World War Adjusted Compensation Act in 1924 for payment in 1945. Although offered money by Congress to return home, some members of the "Bonus army" remained. Washington police attempted to remove the demonstrators from their camp, but they were outnumbered and unsuccessful. Shots were fired by the police in a futile attempt to attain order, and two protesters were killed while many officers were injured. Hoover sent U.S. Army forces led by General Douglas MacArthur and helped by lower ranking officers Dwight D. Eisenhower and George S. Patton to stop a march. MacArthur, believing he was fighting a communist revolution, chose to clear out the camp with military force. In the ensuing clash, hundreds of civilians were injured. Hoover had sent orders that the Army was to not move on the encampment, but MacArthur chose to ignore the command. Hoover was incensed, but refused to reprimand MacArthur. The entire incident was another devastating negative for Hoover in the 1932 election.
Hoover's overall mixed reputation is a negative one on the subject of civil rights. Despite false promises to the contrary, Hoover did nothing to better the conditions for African-Americans. He was not above using racial tension and prejudice to his electoral advantage and whatever his legacy may be, he will not be remembered as a president who advanced the cause of civil rights.