#32 Franklin Delano Roosevelt (1882-1945)

“Three presidents dominate American history: George Washington, who founded the country; Abraham Lincoln, who preserved it; and Franklin Delano Roosevelt, who rescued it from economic collapse and then led it to victory in the greatest war of all time” (Jean Edward Smith, p. xi).

Fortunately (or unfortunately if you don’t like musical theater), the picture of FDR that my mind conjures is the jolly, yet careworn polio-victim portrayed in Annie. When he busts out with the second chorus of ‘The Sun Will Come Out Tomorrow,’ something about it makes me smile and by the time FDR chides Daddy Warbucks to lighten up, I’m singing along too. I can’t help it. Besides, Annie’s been stuck in my head since Hoover.

I decided that since FDR was a Big Deal (after all, he was elected 4 times!) I would have to get a bigger than normal bio on him. But after trolling through the mountains of informational books on this man, I realized that it would be a very hard task narrowing it down to just one book. In the end, I went for a relatively large (an 845-pager) and relatively new (2007) book. Not to mention, the author, Jean Edward Smith, had written tons of scholarly tomes devoted to WWII and the people of that time. I felt safe and comfortable to have Mr. Roosevelt in his hands. So I happily embarked on FDR by Jean Edward Smith (New York: Random House, 2007).

Franklin Delano Roosevelt was born to Sarah Delano and James Roosevelt on January 30, 1882 in New York. Although he and Teddy were from separate sides of the family and both would take wildly divergent paths to the White House, they both grew up in affluence. “FDR grew up in a privileged, carefree environment of comfort and security” (p. 19). He spent much of his childhood traveling and being instructed by tutors. “Learning at home deprived FDR of the rough-and-tumble of public schools but it saved him from inept or mediocre teaching” (p. 20). Each summer the family vacationed at Campobello (off the coast of Maine) and little Franklin spent time collecting stamps and engaging in ornithology.

In 1896, FDR was educated for several years in Germany at the school, Bad Nauheim. This form of public education was to get him ready for entrance to Groton, a glorified, prestigious high school for boys in New England. He enjoyed himself hugely in the academic environment of Groton, excelling in the classic education provided and participating in the various sports on campus. “In his final year Roosevelt won a school letter as equipment manager of the baseball team. He also won the Latin and Punctuality Prizes and was a dormitory prefect and a member of the school choir and the debating society” (p. 28). By 1900, he was enrolled at Harvard where he studied economics, government, and history. He was also president of the famous Harvard newspaper, the Harvard Crimson. FDR did well at Harvard; the only blight during this time was the death of his much-loved father.

Franklin met Eleanor in 1902. Even though they were cousins, so to speak, they had never met before. On March 17, 1905, they were married. (Since Eleanor’s father had died, Teddy agreed to give his niece away.) FDR was now a very busy man. Not only was he a married man but the year before, in 1904, he was accepted to Columbia Law School, where he struggled. He was not very fond of the law but in 1907 he passed the bar and simultaneously dropped out of Columbia.

He tried practicing law briefly but he was never very happy with it and so his interest switched to politics. Cousin Teddy was in the White House and had so taken some of the stigma away blue-bloods from engaging in politics. In 1910, FDR ran for the state senate in which he traversed the state using a car. He was elected and went headfirst into party politics. While in the state senate, he voted on the 17th amendment and dealt with the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory fire debacle.

With the 1912 presidential election on its way, FDR campaigned heavily for Wilson. Thus when Wilson won the election, he promoted FDR to the position of Assistant Secretary of the Navy (the very same position that Teddy had occupied!) “FDR cut a splendid figure as assistant secretary: tall, athletic, well spoken, enthusiastic” (p. 104). It was during his tenure as assistant secretary that FDR learned some very valuable political lessons, including how to handle Congress. “FDR learned that informal favors granted graciously often counted for more on Capitol Hill than cogent arguments and party loyalty” (p. 114). FDR even tried to run for the Senate, during this time, but lost.

Then WWI hit and FDR couldn’t go anywhere; Wilson needed him at his post. FDR devised a plan for a Council of National Defense and aided the country by promoting a Naval Reserve. “His most notable wartime achievement was the laying of a North Sea antisubmarine mine barrage—a chain of underwater high-explosive charges stretching 240 miles from the Orkney Islands to the coast of Norway” (p. 143). It was during the war that Franklin began a long-running affair with the wife of a friend, Lucy Mercer. This affair would last almost to Franklin’s time as President of the United States.

After the war, things weren’t going well on the domestic front, especially in New York. There were race riots, bombings and the Palmer Raids, which became a Communist witch hunt. FDR was rather uncertain as to where his political future was headed, since Wilson had suffered a stroke and it was uncertain whether he would live or not. It was then that the Democratic National Convention called upon FDR to run on the 1920 Democratic ticket as the vice presidential candidate, along with James Cox as president. Although FDR felt it was a hopeless cause (the Republicans had all the momentum), he still campaigned vigorously. “In the next three months he would crisscross the country twice, delivering nearly one thousand speeches and countless impromptu addresses—the most extensive campaign ever conducted by a candidate for national office” (p. 181). Even with a loss to Warren Harding, FDR’s political stock was higher than ever.

Unfortunately, at this point, FDR had no job in sight. Thankfully he was able to work on Wall Street for a while. “And the opportunity came when Van Lear Black, a wealthy Democratic contributor who owned the Baltimore Sun, asked FDR to become vice president of his Fidelity & Deposit Company of Maryland, the fourth largest surety bonding company in the United States. Roosevelt’s responsibilities would be to oversee the firm’s operations in New York and New England and to serve as rainmaker, bringing in new clients through his connections in government, labor, and industry” (p. 184). Basically they purchased his name. FDR also spent his time doing speaking engagements, heading foundations, and spearheading philanthropic activities. It was as chairman of the Boy Scouts of America that FDR was invited to the annual Boy Scout Jamboree on Thursday, July 28, 1921.

It was at the Boys Scouts Jamboree that FDR contracted polio. FDR became seriously ill in August at Campobello where he could not move anything below his neck. Eventually movement returned to his hands and torso but he would have trouble with his legs for the rest of his life. Due to this enforced confinement, Eleanor took over the political duties by giving speeches and attending events on behalf of her husband. FDR’s health slowly returned—through prolonged sailing and the use of special waters at Warm Springs, GA (he purchased Warm Springs in 1926 to specifically aid polio victims)—and by 1924, he was able to walk up to a podium to give the nominating speech for Al Smith for president.

1928 was the year that saw FDR back in the political spotlight. He was nominated for governor of the state of New York and won! FDR faced many problems as governor, such as electric power controversies and agriculture reform, but he enjoyed a good fight and powered through. He was reelected through a major campaign in 1930 and he took that as a sign that his New York constituents agreed with his policies, especially his newest idea of ‘social duty.’ “But the idea that government had the definite responsibility—a ‘social duty’—to use the resources of the state to prevent distress and to promote the general welfare was first suggested at that time” (p. 251).

To promote his case for president in 1932, FDR collected a group of professors from various colleges to become his ‘brain trust’ and tackled the Republican Party for the mess they had made of the Great Depression. “FDR’s administrative style was a legendary mixture of straightforward delegation, flowchart responsibility, Machiavellian cunning, and crafty deception” (p. xii). While he was campaigning in Miami, there was an assassination attempt at his life; the bullet barely missed him and hit Mayor Cermak instead. FDR would go on to win the presidential election in a huge sweep.

Term One: The New Deal (1932-36)
During his first term and especially during his first one hundred days, Roosevelt and a very amenable Congress pushed through tons of New Deal legislation. First there was a major banking bill that helped stabilize banks after the Great Depression. Next FDR turned to economize the national budget, while he then had Prohibition repealed and amended an agriculture bill for those in need. There was a newly instituted Public Works Associatio, while FERA aided those who were unemployed and the TVA and the CCC put people to work. FDR passed bills to regulate railroads and the securities markets. And once and for all, he took the US off the gold standard. “In retrospect it seems incredible, but in less than a month, and aside from rescuing the banking system, FDR had taken on and defeated three of the most powerful special interests in the nation: veterans (with the economy bill), temperance (with the beer bill), and organized labor (with the CCC)” (p. 321).

But FDR was not done yet. Next came the National Industrial Recovery Act (NIRA), the FDIC bill, the FCA, a Railroad Coordination Act, the Glass-Stegall Act, and the Fair Labor Standards Act. He also recognized Russia (which the US had failed to do since 1917) and passed the Social Security Act of 1935. What he failed to do was to tackle any sort of civil rights issues. “During the twelve years FDR was president not one piece of civil rights legislation became law” (p. 401.)

Term Two: Political Errors (1936-1940)
On such a tide of legislative initiative and sheer gumption, FDR was the clear favorite for the 1936 campaign against Republican, Alfred Landon. In fact, he seemed unstoppable as the FDR and the Democrats won yet again in a landslide victory.

Unfortunately, FDR made a major mistake here. He assumed that the economy was doing so much better that in 1937 he drastically cut government spending. The fragile US economy plummeted again in what would be called the Roosevelt Recession. Another mistake that he made was his court-packing scheme which would severly backfire on him. The final bill, called the Bill to Reorganize the Judicial Branch of Government, basically stated that FDR could add additional federal judges to the payroll for every current judge over 70 years of age, Supreme Court included. Six of the nine judges were currently over 70 and in a masterly display of legal defense, Charles Evans Hughes, the chief justice, demolished the bill with one lengthy statement. Domestically FDR’s political ground was shaky.

In the foreign policy arena, FDR had done very little so far. “Until 1939 Roosevelt’s involvement in foreign affairs had been sporadic” (p. 416). But this attitude seemed to dovetail with the isolationist tendencies of the general public. With war erupting around the globe, FDR did not think that Americans would countenance the US being included. Thus he tried to steer a middle course between the belligerents. “Roosevelt moved to meet the crisis on two fronts: revision of the Neutrality Act to permit the sale of war materiel to Britain and France in case of war and a long overdue change of command in the Army” (p. 432). FDR replaced General Craig with General Marshall as chief of staff.

Term Three: Global Outlook (1940-1944)
As the campaign for the election of 1940 got swinging, FDR threw his hat in the ring with a Selective Service bill. With a lower margin of victory than before, FDR was reelected over Wendell Wilkie, the Republican representative.

Unfortunately, Great Britain was slowly going broke paying hard cash for war materiel that was sold from the US. Therefore, FDR came up with a new plan: the Lend-Lease idea. Essentially the plan was that Great Britain should be lent the war materiel, instead of letting it sit around gathering dust, and then Britain would repay them in another form of materials. Here’s how FDR described the deal: “Suppose my neighbor’s home catches fire, and I have a length of garden hose four or five hundred feet away. If he can take my garden hose and connect it up with his hydrant, I may help him to put out his fire. Now what do I do? I don’t say to him, ‘Neighbor, my garden hose cost me fifteen dollars; you have to pay me fifteen dollars for it.’ No! I don’t want fifteen dollars. I want my garden hose back after the fire is over…What I’m trying to do is eliminate the dollar sign” (p. 485).

The United States joined the fray, however, on December 7, 1941 when the Japanese bombed Pearl Harbor. After that, the US fought the Battle of Midway, breaking the arm of the Japanese in the Pacific, and they also were engaged in North Africa. During this time, FDR and Winston Churchill held at least four meetings in various places to decide on war strategy. In November 1943, they even met with Joseph Stalin in Teheran to look ahead to the post-war era and later on, FDR and Churchill met with de Gaulle in Quebec in order to decide on France’s fate as well.

Term Four: Death (1944-45)
FDR’s health was seriously declining at this point. He had heart issues but since he would never ask his doctors what the prognosis was, the press was never able to find out how bad his health had gotten. In pictures of this time, you can see that he looks terrible but he went ahead anyway and decided to run for another term. In a last-minute decision, the Republican National Convention decided to scotch Henry Wallace as the incumbent vice president and replaced him with Senator Harry Truman. The decision rested on the fact that many people felt that FDR would not live out another term and so they did not want the radical Wallace inadvertently becoming president. The fourth term was a seemingly forgone conclusion; FDR and Truman beat Thomas Dewey handily.

FDR’s fourth term was mainly characterized by the Yalta Conference attended by Stalin and Churchill in February, 1945. This conference is where FDR got Stalin’s agreement to enter the war against Japan after Germany was defeated. Of course, FDR then had to turn a blind eye to Poland’s sovereignty at the hands of Russia. After returning to the US, FDR, looking ahead to war’s end, asked for a GI Bill of Rights; the US needed some way to provide for its veterans. FDR died on April 11, 1945 at Warm Springs, GA of sever hypertension and heart failure.

#31: Herbert Hoover Part 2

Really Cool Stuff about Herbert Hoover
1. Hoover was a member of the very first class at Stanford. “In late August 1891, Bert boarded a southbound train, and some weeks later Stanford welcomed him into its pioneer class—with the stipulation that he overcome his deficiency in English” (p. 6).
2. At Stanford, he was elected to the student government where he helped to make policy. “He also drafted a student constitution that was still in effect a half century later” (p. 8).
3. Hoover wrote a book, Principles of Mining, which would be used as a manual in mining schools. “Indifferent to its literary shortcomings, Hoover concentrated on conveying the substance of what he had learned about how to succeed in the industry. For years afterward, mine schools embraced Principles as a basic text” (p. 19).
4. Herbert and Lou teamed up to translate a Latin book into English. “Intellectual curiosity and a desire to enhance the prestige of the engineering profession led Hoover to collaborate with his wife in preparing an English edition of De Re Metallica, a 1556 treatise on mining and metallurgy by a German who adopted the pen name of Agricola” (p. 20).
5. In 1912, Hoover was named a trustee of Stanford. “Attachment to Stanford allowed Hoover to ease into community service when toward the end of 1912 he accepted election as a trustee of the university, a post he would hold for nearly half a century” (p. 22).
6. I thought this was an interesting fact—Hoover actually booked passage on the Lusitania but had to change his travel plans. “His task completed, Hoover packed his bags to sail home on the RMS Lusitania in mid-October, only to receive an urgent summons from the U.S. embassy” (p. 25). He couldn’t have known that this ship would sink in the Atlantic—the worst sea disaster since the Titanic.
7. As the chairman of the Commission for Relief in Belgium during the war, Hoover had his own special German passport. “Hoover secured from the Reich a passport reading ‘This man is not to be stopped anywhere under any circumstances,’ and when General von Bissing, the imperious governor-general of Belgium, became confrontational, Hoover hastened to Berlin and had him overruled” (p. 26-27).
8. As the food administrator during America’s foray into World War I, Hoover had a word coined for him in Webster’s Dictionary. “So pervasive were the food administrator’s messages that Webster’s gained a new entry: Hooverize, meaning to economize in the national interest. It became a household word” (p.35).
9. When Hoover was Secretary of Commerce, he worked hard to contribute to hydroelectric power in the United States. “Under his leadership, the agency worked out water sharing among seven quarrelsome states that made possible an ambitious project in Boulder Canyon that later bore the name Hoover Dam” (p. 59). During FDR’s administration, the name of Hoover Dam was changed to Boulder Dam but the name would not stick and be switched back years later.
10. Hoover was the first president to be born west of the Mississippi River. “The first person west of the Mississippi to be elected president, Hoover had won a resounding victory” (p. 76).
11. He was also the first president to mention crime in his inaugural address. “In May Hoover—the first president to refer to crime in an inaugural address—established a National Commission on Law Observances and Enforcement under former US attorney general George Wickersham” (p. 85). It was also due to Hoover’s influence that Scarface and Capone were captured. “Hoover also ordered the Department of Justice to move in on Capone, a project that led to the arrest and conviction of Scarface for tax evasion” (p. 85).
12. Ironically, Hoover decided to use the word ‘depression’ rather than ‘panic’ to describe the economic situation in 1929. “To calm nerves, he eschewed the familiar usage ‘panic’ and instead designated the downturn a ‘depression,’ an unfortunate choice that would be forever associated with him” (p. 104.)
13. The election of 1932 turned out to be a disaster for Hoover and the Republicans. “No president had ever suffered so great a turnaround from his first campaign to his second…Not for eighty years had there been such an avalanche of Democratic ballots. Franklin D. Roosevelt became the first Democrat to enter the White House with a popular majority since Franklin Pierce in 1853. Save for 1912, when the party divided, 1932 marked the worst defeat in the history of the GOP” (p. 142).
14. Herbert Hoover was the last president to deal with the long lame duck tenure of November through March. “Though the ratification in February 1933 of the Twentieth Amendment foreshortened the interregnum to January 20, it did not take effect until 1937—leaving Hoover America’s last lame-duck president of the old dispensation” (p. 142-43).
15. On one of his trips to Europe before World War II, Hoover had lunch with Adolf Hitler and was feted by several other Nazis. “While in Berlin on that trip [1938], Hoover received an invitation from an astounding source: Adolf Hitler. He resolved to decline, but the US ambassador urged him to meet the fuhrer…Yet Hoover permitted himself to be entertained sumptuously by Hermann Goering at his hunting lodge, and he showed no distress about the devouring of Austria. He even though that the Nazis could improve upon the government of Czechoslovakia” (p. 153).


I thought that the author, William Leuchtenburg, did a great job with Hoover because I found myself quite heartily disliking him. And something tells me that I’m not the only one either. “Is it conceivable that Hoover, despite these many tribulations, would have redeemed himself had he not been burdened by the albatross of the Great Depression? Unlikely” (p. 101). Ha! Pithy. Not to mention, Hoover was a not a very friendly or likeable guy.

Leuchtenburg gave a good account of Hoover, illustrating all his faults and virtues alike. For instance, Hoover was a major proponent of what he called ‘good deeds by stealth.’ “Though often greedy as an engineer and administrator to claim credit not due him, he went out of his way to make sure that his name was not publicly associated with charitable deeds—perhaps because of an ingrained Quaker sense that promoting oneself was unworthy” (p. 29). The Hoovers helped many people in this secretive manner and spent much of their money in this process. Also after the stock market crash in 1929, Hoover really did try to help but it was not easy because all presidential precedents up to that time had pointed towards nonintervention. “A number of Hoover’s predecessors had confronted financial crises, but none had left him a usable legacy. In previous depressions—from 1837 to 1894—Martin Van Buren, James Buchanan, and Ulysses S. Grant had done nothing, and Grover Cleveland had taken a hard line against aid to the unfortunate” (p. 103). The point was though that he did initially try to stem the negative economic downward trend. “Over nine days, starting in mid-November, the president summoned to the White House leaders of industry, finance, construction, public utilities, agriculture, labor, and the Federal Reserves system” (p. 104).

It was pretty clear as well that old Leuchtenburg had a subtle sense of humor. Several times I actually LOL’d over a sly comment of his. Here’s a comment on one of Hoover’s books. “As in his orations, however, most of American Individualism offered nothing that could not be heard at a weekly Kiwanis luncheon” (p. 66). Classic! Leuchtenburg again attacks Hoover’s pamphlet, American Individualism. “It is hard to fathom why this jejune screed, little more than a pamphlet, has been taken seriously as a meaningful contribution to social theory” (p. 67). Leuchtenberg also includes a rather hilarious parody on the 23 Psalm during the Great Depression. “Hoover is our shepherd/We are in want/He maketh us to lie/Down on the park benches/He leadeth us beside the still factories/He disturbeth our soul” (p. 140). Another funny episode occurred during the election of 1932 when Hoover received a telegram that said “Vote for Roosevelt and make it unanimous” (p. 141).

However, there is no real way to make Hoover into the good guy. “Though he had a brilliant career, he also revealed a troublesome tendency toward self-delusion. When something went wrong, he would either blame others or claim that the failure demonstrated his foresight. Self-righteous, he bridled at even mild criticism” (p. 18). Leuchtenberg also addresses the idea that Hoover is considered, by the American public, one of the worst presidents ever. “The bankruptcy of policy in Asia provides an important explanation for why a 2007 poll of more than one thousand international relations faculty across the United States and Canada ranked Hoover as the worst president of the twentieth century on foreign affairs. By failing to draw the line in Manchuria, historians have said, he gave aggressors in Berlin, Rome, and Tokyo a green light. He had floated into office on a sea of tranquility and departed with Adolf Hitler in power, the Reichstag in ashes, and the Japanese careening unhindered down the road that would dead-end at Pearl Harbor. Hoover has even been accused of paving the way to World War II” (p. 125).

After reading about both Coolidge and Hoover I believe that I have the lock on who is to blame for what in regards to the Great Depression. It was due to Coolidge’s laissez-faire attitude towards business that financial events spiraled completely out of control, culminating in the stock market crash. However it was due to Hoover’s myopic view of the nature of the depression which prolonged the madness longer than it needed to be. He refused to face reality and because he did not like to take the blame for things, he increasingly felt that the depression was someone else’s problem. This was detrimental to the nation at a time when people were looking to Hoover, as the president, for guidance.

#31 Herbert Hoover (1874-1964)

When I think of Hoover, I immediately think of Annie, the musical. In the musical, not the movie, there is a song called “We Want to Thank You, Herbert Hoover,” and it goes something like this:
Today we're living in a shanty
Today we're scrounging for a meal
Today I'm stealing coal for fires
Who knew I could steal?
I used to winter in the tropics
I spent my summers at the shore
I used to throw away the paper--
We'd like to thank you: Herber Hoover
For really showing us the way
We'd like to thank you: Herbert Hoover
You made us what we are today
Prosperity was 'round the corner
The cozy cottage built for two
In this blue heaven
That you gave us Yes!
We're turning blue!
They offered us Al Smith and Hoover
We paid attention and we chose
Not only did we pay attention
We paid through the nose.
In ev'ry pot he said "a chicken"
But Herbert Hoover he forgot
Not only don't we have the chicken
We ain't got the pot!
Hey Herbie
You left behind a grateful nation
So, Herb, our hats are off to you
We're up to here with admiration
Come down and have a little stew
Come down and share some Christmas dinner
Be sure to bring the missus too
We got no turkey for our stuffing
We'd like to thank you, Herbert Hoover
For really showing us the way
You dirty rat, you Bureaucrat, you
Made us what we are today
Come and get it, Herb!

So yes, I just included an entire song in my PRP. However, it’s not everyday that there’s an available song about a president so I’m excited. Also after reading the Coolidge bio, I was more interested than ever about getting to the bottom of the Great Depression debacle. Whose fault was it anyways? So I went to a rather reliable source: Herbert Hoover: The American Presidents Series by William Leuchtenburg (New York: Times Books, 2009). I was impressed because this author, Leuchtenburg, wrote a crapload of books on the Great Depression and the New Deal eras, giving him a fine insight, I felt, into Herbert Hoover.

Herbert Clark Hoover was born on August 10, 1874 in West Branch, Iowa to a family of
Quakers. “To a degree, the Society of Friends left lasting imprints on Hoover’s character and temperament—his self-reliance, his disdain for show, and his capacity for toil—and on his view of the world: his dutiful commitment to good works, his trust in a community of neighbors to sustain the needy, his pursuit of peace, and his conception of ‘ordered freedom’” (p. 3). Unfortunately, young Bert did not have a great childhood. When Bert was six years old, his father died which lead to him being shunted from uncle to uncle to live. Shortly after this, his mother also died leaving him and his two other siblings as orphans. They were split up between the family and Bert was sent to Oregon to live with another uncle.

His uncle, another Quaker, was quite a cold individual so Bert grew up striving to make his own way. “Bert engaged in hard labor—felling trees, splitting logs, clearing stumps—six days a week, with all of each Sabbath given over to religious observance” (p. 4). For schooling, he attended Friends Pacific Academy but in 1888, dropped out to become an office boy and hustler. “Hardworking and a quick study, he picked up bookkeeping and typing during the day and attended business college in the evening” (p. 5).

Although Bert was not a great scholar, he was eventually accepted (barely) to the new Stanford University in Palo Alto, CA. He began as a business major but eventually changed to geology instead. During his time at Stanford, he was known for being unfriendly and terse but he did have a core group of friends that would stick together for years. “By the end of his four years, Hoover had collected a number of life-long buddies who would one day count themselves loyal followers of the Stanford alum they were designate ‘the Chief’” (p. 8). It was at college that Hoover met and fell in love withLou Henry, a female geology major, although he would be too poor to marry her for many years.

In 1895, he graduated. He was dirt poor so he did whatever jobs he could find, including work in a gold mine. One year later he was confronted with an interesting opportunity—to work for a British firm and move to Australia as a mining scout. He accepted and left for Australia to manage the mines of the Sons of Gwalia (gold.) “Over the next eighteen months, he logged more than five thousand miles in the bush, probing strata for veins of gold” (p. 10). Despite his unpopularity with his coworkers, he did a great job and was promoted to junior partner in the firm of Bewick, Moreing.

By 1989, Hoover was quite wealthy and he took the opportunity to finally marry Lou Henry. It was after this event that Hoover was promoted to supervise the new engineering operations in China. The Hoovers arrived in China in 1900 just in time to be held under siege by the rebelling ‘Boxers’. The combined European forces won and Hoover was able to begin his work locating workable mines. His greatest discovery was the Kaiping mines. “By skillful administration and an infusion of capital, he turned the immense Kaiping coal deposits into a flourishing enterprise. He was duly rewarded” (p. 15). In fact, he was made full partner in the British firm. Due to this promotion, he was transferred to London where he and his family (including his two sons) lived while he traveled around the globe on business.

In 1908, he sold out his shares for a variety of reasons, such as the fact that he was being sued, he wanted a bigger fortune, and he was dealing with health issues. The Hoover family moved back to the northern California area where he began his own business of ‘consulting,’ i.e. he was hired by ailing mines and then help revive them. He also got involved in investing. “He owned shares in the Brazilian Iron Syndicate, Russo-Asiatic Consolidated, and the Inter-Argentine Syndicate, and he reorganized oil explorations in Peru and Trinidad. His most unpromising venture—in the forbidding terrain of Burma—would eventually become the main source of his income” (p. 17-18).

Hoover was in London in 1914 when World War I began which left him admirably placed to aid thousands of Americans caught in Europe at the start of hostilities. He immediately created the “Committee of American Residents in London for Assistance of American Travellers”(p. 24) and was promoted, unofficially, to chair the Commission for Relief in Belgium. “An organization with no legal standing and no stable source of funds, the Commission for Relief in Belgium crossed national frontiers in the midst of the world’s first global war, plunged into markets on two continents, and spent unheard-of sums” (p. 26). Hoover won world renown through his efforts on behalf of the starving Belgians. In fact, “’By the end of 1916,’ George Nash has written, Hoover ‘stood preeminent in the greatest humanitarian undertaking the world has ever seen’” (p. 30).

By 1917, his reputation had grown so large that Wilson brought him back to the United States to head the Food Administration department as America entered the war. He used PR to convince the public to conserve food while also lobbying in Washington for Congress to pass the Lever Act. When the war ended, he was placed in control of the American Relief Association in Europe. “He controlled traffic on the Danube, Rhine, Vistula, and Elbe; coordinated railways in eighteen countries; rebuilt bridges and highways; reordered currencies; combated typhus; and reopened mines” (p. 42).

Due to Hoover’s international popularity, it just made sense for Harding to include Hoover on his cabinet as Secretary of Commerce. As secretary, Hoover created three new departments: aeronautics, radio, and housing. He also wrote the pamphlet American Individualism which defined the new American form of individuality.

After Harding’s death, Coolidge kept Hoover on in the Department of Commerce. This was a very good move because Hoover was available to assist after the worst natural disaster (up to that time) hit: the 1927 Mississippi River floods. “He sparked a fundraising drive that brought in $17 million; gathered an armada of six hundred vessels; and put together 150 tent cities as havens for multitudes of evacuees” (p. 68).

Though not all Republicans liked Hoover, his popularity was such that he won the Republican presidential nomination in 1928 to run against the Democrat, Al Smith. In his acceptance speech, Hoover rashly promised to banish poverty from the United States of America. Economic prosperity was still booming and this helped Hoover become the 31st President of the United States with little problem.

During the initial days of his administration, he focused on crime, on penal reform, on the Veterans Administration, and on water power and conservation. He had passed the Agricultural Marketing Act through Congress, the Norris-La Guardia Act and the Hawley-Smoot Tariff, the highest tariff the United States had passed to date. The stock market was booming and the lax governmental controls on business were virtually nonexistent.

And then the bottom fell out. On Thursday, October 24, 1929, stock prices began to waver and by “Black Tuesday” stocks had plunged into a freefall. “October 29, ‘Black Tuesday,’ was far worse: $30 billion in securities self-destructed. The next morning, the New York Times reported: ‘Stock prices virtually collapsed yesterday, swept downward with gigantic losses in the most disastrous trading day in the stock market’s history” (p. 103). Faced with this enormous crisis, Hoover initially tried to help the situation but events soon spiraled out of control due to a combination of events: a serious drought, thousands of banks failing, and unemployment rising.

Hoover, however, refused to face reality. “When in June a delegation that included bankers as well as bishops arrived at the White House to alert him to the accelerating decline, Hoover, visibly annoyed, told them that the economy was on the upswing and the ranks of the unemployed were dwindling. ‘Gentlemen,’ he said, ‘you have come sixty days too late. The depression is over.’” (p. 107). Instead the economy worsened leaving millions of people homeless and living in shanty towns called Hoovervilles (the song at the beginning of the blog was set in a Hooverville) or empty freight cars named Hoover Pullmans.

The situations for famers had becoming increasingly dire. Crop prices had fallen to an all-time low while the drought produced horrible dust storms that swept across the Great Plains and the Midwest. Hoover did little to help. “Before Hoover’s term was over, one-fourth of American farmers lost their holdings—their fields, their stock, their barns, their homes—some of which had been in one family for generations” (p. 115).

The problems that the United States faced were soon affecting the rest of the world. Hoover had to deal with foreign issues that were slowly worsening as depression raged and world order broke down. Hoover had to deal with anti-American issues in South America and Asia and Hoover would be blamed for not confronting the Japanese and Chinese before the trouble began.

By 1932 found Hoover scrambling to try and rectify things as the next election loomed. The Revenue Act passed as did the Emergency Relief and Construction Act. It didn’t matter though. Hoover had become anathema to the American public and they resoundingly elected Franklin Roosevelt instead.Hoover was not happy about the election results. He hated FDR and thought that most Americans had been persuaded away from him by duplicitous means.

After the Hoovers retired to a suite at the Waldorf-Astoria, he spent most of his time writing books, memoirs, and articles in an effort to uphold his policies. Hoover also spent a lot of time traveling throughout Europe where he continued to be haled as the hero of World War I. Years passed and he continued to try to get back into politics, berating FDR for his New Deal practices and running roughshod over fellow Republicans.

His world changed in 1944 when Lou died but he himself was still alive and kicking. Only John Quincy Adams would live longer as a former president. Truman, as president, decided to use Hoover’s legendary managerial skills by placing him as a food ambassador around the world after the war ended. Hoover also helped begin UNICEF and was placed on the Hoover Commission. He published his final book, The Ordeal of Woodrow Wilson, in 1958 and died on October 20, 1964 of an upper intestinal tract hemorrhage.