Remembering Herbert Hoover
Herbert Hoover died on October 20, 1964 (60 years ago today.) His presidency seems like an unfortunate valley in a life otherwise filled mostly with peaks. Histories of the era before Hoover's presidency describe him as a whiz kid, a man with the Midas touch, the energetic genius who could tackle and fix any problem. The post-presidential Hoover is remembered as a great humanitarian and an elder statesman. But the Hoover presidency is remembered, rightly or wrongly, for the Great Depression and for Hoover's perceived laissez faire approach to the suffering which it caused his countrymen.
Herbert Clark Hoover was born in West Branch, Iowa on August 10, 1874, the son of a Quaker blacksmith. His parents died during his childhood, leaving the future president orphaned at age 9. In 1885 he moved to Oregon where he was raised by his uncle John Minthorn, a physician. Hoover enrolled at Stanford University when it opened in 1891, and graduated as a mining engineer in 1895.
In 1899 Hoover married his Stanford sweetheart, the former Lou Henry, and the couple went to China, where he worked for a private corporation as China's leading engineer. In June 1900 the Boxer Rebellion left the Hoovers to be trapped in Tientsin. For almost a month the settlement was under heavy fire. While his wife worked in the hospitals, Hoover directed the building of barricades, and even risked his life to rescue Chinese children. Hoover served as a guide to US Marines who came to the rescue of the Americans there.
During the First World War, Hoover was asked to help in getting stranded American tourists home from Europe. His committee helped 120,000 Americans return to the United States. Acquiring a reputation as a "can do" man, Hoover was tasked with the difficult job of feeding Belgian refugees after Belgium was invaded by the German army. After the United States entered the war, President Woodrow Wilson appointed Hoover head of the Food Administration, where he succeeded in cutting consumption of food at home that was badly needed overseas. After the Armistice, Hoover organized shipments of food for starving millions in central Europe. He extended aid to famine-stricken Soviet Russia in 1921. When a critic inquired if he was not thus helping Bolshevism, Hoover was quoted as responding "Twenty million people are starving. Whatever their politics, they shall be fed!"
Hoover served as Secretary of Commerce under Presidents Warren Harding and Calvin Coolidge. Without ever holding elected office, Hoover was chosen as the Republican Presidential nominee in 1928. As his running mate, he chose Senator Charles Curtis of Kansas, a man with three-quarter Native American ancestry. In that campaign, Hoover claimed "we in America today are nearer to the final triumph over poverty than ever before in the history of any land." But unfortunately he would be proven wrong in this prediction. His election seemed to ensure prosperity, but less than a year after his election, the stock market crashed, and the nation spiraled downward into depression.
After the crash Hoover's plan was to keep the Federal budget balanced, but to cut taxes and expand public works spending. Contrary to the false perception that Hoover did nothing about the depression, he presented Congress with a program asking for creation of the Reconstruction Finance Corporation to aid business, additional help for farmers facing mortgage foreclosures, banking reform, a loan to states for feeding the unemployed, expansion of public works, and drastic governmental economy. But he also maintained that caring for the suffering must be primarily a local and voluntary responsibility.
Like many presidents, Hoover had opponents in Congress, and he felt that they were sabotaging his program for their own political gain. Democrats and the media painted Hoover as a callous and cruel President. He was made to be the scapegoat for the Depression, with his name becoming an adjective for all manner of symbols of the depression. Shanties for the homeless were called Hoover Huts and collections of them were called Hoovervilles. When first world war vets protested for early payment of their war bonuses, General Douglas MacArthur fired on the protesters. Hoover was also blamed for this. He was badly defeated in the 1932 Presidential Election.
In the 1930's Hoover became a powerful critic of the New Deal, warning against tendencies toward public dependence on the state. He had a bitter relationship with his successor, Franklin Delano Roosevelt. He refused to speak to FDR on the ride the two men took to FDR's inauguration. But he got along famously with the next President, Harry Truman. In 1947 President Truman appointed Hoover to a commission to reorganize the Executive Departments. Hoover once again was called on to aid the starving in Europe following the Second World War. On Hoover's initiative, a school meals program in the American and British occupation zones of Germany was begun on April 14, 1947. The program served 3,500,000 children aged 6 through 18. A total of 40,000 tons of American food was provided during the Hooverspeisung (Hoover meals).
In 1960, Hoover appeared at his final Republican National Convention. Joking to the delegates, he said, "Apparently, my last three good-byes didn't take." Although he lived to see the 1964 convention, ill health prevented him from attending. In 1962, Hoover had a malignant intestinal tumor removed. Ten months later he had severe gastrointestinal bleeding and seemed terminally ill and frail, but his mind was clear and he maintained a great deal of correspondence. Although the illness would get worse over time, he refused to be hospitalized.
Hoover died following massive internal bleeding at the age of 90 in his New York City suite at 11:35 a.m. on October 20, 1964, 31 years, seven months, and sixteen days after leaving office. At the time of his death, he had the longest retirement of any President. Former President Jimmy Carter surpassed the length of Hoover's retirement on September 7, 2012. At the time of Hoover's death he was the second longest-lived president after John Adams.
There has been a recent resurgence of interest in the life of Herbert Hoover. In 2009 PBS produced an excellent documentary about Hoover entitled Landslide: A Portrait of President Herbert Hoover. He is also featured prominently in David Pietrusza's 2015 book 1932:The Rise of Hitler and FDR, reviewed here. Hoover is also the subject of two other recent biographies. The first, entitled Herbert Hoover in the White House: The Ordeal of the Presidency by Charles Rappleye, was reviewed here in this community. The second, by Glen Jeansonne, is entitled Herbert Hoover: A Life. It came out on October 4, 2016. In 2017 yet another Hoover biography was released, written by Kenneth Whyte, entitled Herbert Hoover: An Extraordinary Life in Extraordinary Times.