Herbert
Hoover
Herbert
Clark Hoover (1874-1964) was born on August 10, 1874
in the Quaker community of West Branch, Iowa. Orphaned
at the age of ten, Hoover began an odyssey that would
make him a multi-millionaire, international humanitarian,
Secretary of Commerce, and the 31st President of the
United States.
After receiving a degree in geology from Stanford
University in 1895, Hoover amassed a fortune as an
international mining engineer over the next two decades.
By 1914, however, he yearned for more than wealth
and professional recognition, and World War I provided
him with an opportunity for public service. He established
the Commission for Relief in Belgium to feed the civilian
population of war-torn Europe and later, became the
U.S. Food Administrator after the U.S. entered the
war in 1917. In this capacity, Hoover rationed domestic
food supplies to feed the allied armies as well as
the American people. Following the war, he was director
general of the American Relief Administration, an
agency established to address the widespread famine
in Europe.
Hoover's work as an efficient administrator and a
compassionate humanitarian did not go unnoticed. In
1921, he accepted an appointment as Secretary of Commerce
under President Warren Harding. He remained at Commerce
through both the Harding and Coolidge administrations
and was widely credited with being the single most
important member of the cabinet. When Calvin Coolidge
declined to run for reelection in 1928, Hoover was
a logical candidate for the Republican nomination
and he defeated Alfred E. Smith, the Democratic governor
of New York, in a landslide.
Hoover had hoped to govern in the progressive tradition
of Theodore Roosevelt; he devoted the first eight
months of his presidency to a variety of social, economic,
and environmental reforms. However, following the
stock market "crash" of October 1929, the
president became increasingly preoccupied with the
collapse of the American economy. In response to the
crisis, Hoover established several new agencies and
also funded public works projects in the hope of stimulating
the economy and getting the nation back to work.
Hoover's attempts to solve the economic crisis were
mostly unsuccessful. Recession quickly became depression
and as the number of unemployed continued to grow,
so did the public's level of dissatisfaction. It came
as no surprise to Hoover, therefore, that he lost
to Franklin D. Roosevelt in the presidential election
of 1932. Hoover devoted a large part of the next dozen
years to the Republican fight against the New Deal
believing that Roosevelt would compromise the American
political system through excessive government programs.
In late May 1945, only six weeks after Roosevelt's
death, Hoover met with President Harry Truman and
the two men planned for the recovery of postwar Europe.
At Truman's request, Hoover traveled the world to
provide the president with a personal assessment of
world food needs. More importantly, Hoover lobbied
fellow Republicans to support Truman's food relief
programs. In the summer of 1947, Truman agreed that
Hoover should be chairman of the newly created Commission
on Organization of the Executive Branch, later known
as the Hoover Commission. As chairman, Hoover continued
to work closely with President Truman to enact the
commission's recommendations and to streamline post-war
government. Hoover and Truman's work together forged
a bond of friendship that lasted the rest of their
lives.
Hoover chaired a second reorganization commission
under President Eisenhower from 1953 to 1955 but was
frustrated by the lack of results. He also spent his
time promoting social causes such as the Boys Clubs
of America and the Hoover Institution, a research
center he had established on the Stanford campus in
1919. He died on October 20, 1964 after living thirty-one
years as former president of the United States. For
more information see: David Burner's Herbert Hoover:
A Public Life, Richard Norton Smith's An Uncommon
Man: The Triumph of Herbert Hoover, and Gary Dean
Best's two-volume Herbert Hoover: The Postpresidential
Years 1933-1964.
