Son of a
Quaker blacksmith, Herbert Clark Hoover brought to the
Presidency an unparalleled reputation for public service as an
engineer, administrator, and humanitarian.
Born in
an Iowa village in 1874, he grew up in Oregon. He enrolled at
Stanford University when it opened in 1891, graduating as a
mining engineer.
He
married his Stanford sweetheart, Lou Henry, and they went to
China, where he worked for a private corporation as China's
leading engineer. In June 1900 the Boxer Rebellion caught the
Hoovers 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 once risked
his life rescuing Chinese children.
One week
before Hoover celebrated his 40th birthday in London, Germany
declared war on France, and the American Consul General asked
his help in getting stranded tourists home. In six weeks his
committee helped 120,000 Americans return to the United
States. Next Hoover turned to a far more difficult task, to
feed Belgium, which had been overrun by the German army.
After
the United States entered the war, President Wilson appointed
Hoover head of the Food Administration. He succeeded in
cutting consumption of foods needed overseas and avoided
rationing at home, yet kept the Allies fed.
After
the Armistice, Hoover, a member of the Supreme Economic
Council and head of the American Relief Administration,
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 retorted, "Twenty million people are
starving. Whatever their politics, they shall be fed!"
After
capably serving as Secretary of Commerce under Presidents
Harding and Coolidge, Hoover became the Republican
Presidential nominee in 1928. He said then: "We in
America today are nearer to the final triumph over poverty
than ever before in the history of any land." His
election seemed to ensure prosperity. Yet within months the
stock market crashed, and the Nation spiraled downward into
depression.
After
the crash Hoover announced that while he would keep the
Federal budget balanced, he would cut taxes and expand public
works spending.
In 1931
repercussions from Europe deepened the crisis, even though the
President presented to Congress 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.
At the
same time he reiterated his view that while people must not
suffer from hunger and cold, caring for them must be primarily
a local and voluntary responsibility.
His
opponents in Congress, who he felt were sabotaging his program
for their own political gain, unfairly painted him as a
callous and cruel President. Hoover became the scapegoat for
the depression and was badly defeated in 1932. In the 1930's
he became a powerful critic of the New Deal, warning against
tendencies toward statism.
In 1947
President Truman appointed Hoover to a commission, which
elected him chairman, to reorganize the Executive Departments.
He was appointed chairman of a similar commission by President
Eisenhower in 1953. Many economies resulted from both
commissions' recommendations. Over the years, Hoover wrote
many articles and books, one of which he was working on when
he died at 90 in New York City on October 20, 1964.
-
Herbert
Hoover