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.
