Herbert Hoover – Forever Forlorn

“Upon his individual head was wreaked the spirit of resentment and of vengeance for events which neither he nor any other man in public office could control…There is a tragic element in this closing of a political career.”

So wrote the New York Times of Herbert Hoover on November 9, 1932, the day after Hoover suffered the worst loss in American history by a President running for reelection.

Only 12 years earlier, a NYT poll ranked Hoover among the 10 greatest living Americans.  After making a fortune as a mining engineer, he became a world famous humanitarian.  As “The Great Engineer”, he was responsible for feeding millions of starving refugees in Europe during and after World War I and he administered the conservation of America’s food supply during that war.

“He is certainly a wonder, and I wish we could make him President of the United States.  There couldn’t be a better one.”  So said none other than Franklin D. Roosevelt in 1920.

Hoover served in the Cabinet of Presidents Harding and Coolidge in the 1920’s as Secretary of Commerce.  He had such a reputation as a progressive and activist that he was also referred to as “the Under Secretary of everything else.”  Known as Cautious Cal, President Coolidge’s standard response to Hoover’s stream of ideas in Cabinet meetings was, “Waaall, that might be a good thing; might not.  We’ll see about that lateh.”

Hoover was easily elected President in 1928.  That was at the apex of the Roaring Twenties.  Hoover had warned Coolidge earlier in the decade that the prosperity of the times was built on risky investment policies, but he was ignored.  Only eight months after Hoover’s inauguration, the stock market crashed.  For the rest of his term as President, the nation sank into the Great Depression.

“Democracy is a harsh employer,” admitted Hoover after FDR defeated him in 1932.

Hoover’s reputation was somewhat rehabilitated in his later life.  President Truman brought him back into public life in 1946 by asking him to lead another humanitarian effort to feed post-World War II Europe. Nevertheless, Hoover’s life after his Presidency was mostly forlorn, and his Presidential Library in West Branch, Iowa (his birthplace) has the same air about it.

The building and grounds are tasteful.  However, there were almost no visitors while we were there (the nearby town of West Branch was nearly deserted, too).  The biographical film on Hoover playing in the Museum theater hasn’t been updated since 1992.  The gift shop is almost bereft of Hoover-specific merchandise (it’s mostly generic Presidential items).

Museum displays include poignant video testimonials by survivors of war-torn Europe whose lives were saved by Hoover’s administrative genius.  There are some fascinating artifacts, including the equipment used in the first public demonstration of television technology, which featured a speech by then-Secretary of Commerce Hoover. 

The exhibits don’t run away from the economic calamity that scarred Hoover’s Presidency.

But while acknowledging Hoover’s shortcomings as a communicator – “I would that I had the words to say what is in my heart,” Hoover was quoted as saying as he witnessed the suffering of millions during the Depression – the Museum avoids the reality that his cold persona amounted to a fundamental leadership flaw, making him utterly unable to inspire and reassure the American public as the economy melted down (the national unemployment rate hit 25% by 1932).  By comparison, FDR had the innate ability to communicate with average Americans in their time of need, which made him beloved.

All Presidential Museums engage in spin, but this one ignores serious policy errors made by Hoover as the Depression deepened.  He signed federal legislation imposing tariffs on foreign goods, triggering a trade war with Europe that artificially inflated the costs of goods at the time consumers could least afford to buy them (ahem).  He increased taxes and insisted on balanced budgets, instead of using deficit-spending for stimulus.  He largely resisted federal-level recovery programs (with a few notable exceptions such as the Reconstruction Finance Corporation, which provided government-secured commercial loans), leaving most relief efforts to the already-financially-strapped states.

The Museum also paints a rosy picture of Hoover’s retirement…when in fact Hoover was something of a recluse workaholic after his wife, Lou, died in 1944.  He was a relentless critic of FDR’s domestic and foreign policies (“I outlived the bastards,” he said with some grim satisfaction, referring to the creators of the New Deal).  On the other hand, he was the first ex-President to write a best-selling book about another President – The Ordeal of Woodrow Wilson.  He also was a generous fundraiser and supporter of the Boys Clubs of America and other charitable causes.

He also may have been the last man in America to fish while wearing a tie.

“He was an enigma,” concluded Gene Smith, author of the aptly-named Hoover biography, The Shattered Dream.

Fun fact – from 1933, when he left office, until the end of Harry Truman’s second term in 1953, Hoover was America’s only living ex-President.  By comparison, we now have five (Carter, Bush 41, Clinton, Bush 43 and Obama).