(1874–1964). When United States voters elected Herbert Hoover 31st president in 1928, the country was enjoying an industrial and financial boom. Within seven months of his taking office, however, the country was swallowed up in a depression that swept the entire world. He devised emergency measures in both the domestic and the foreign fields. Conditions, however, grew worse steadily until by the end of his term more than 12 million people were unemployed. Blamed for the hard times, he was defeated in the 1932 election.
Herbert Clark Hoover was born in West Branch, Iowa, on August 10, 1874. The Hoovers were Quakers of Swiss origin who had lived in America since 1740. His parents, Jesse Hoover, a blacksmith and farm implement dealer, and Huldah Minthorn Hoover, died before he was ten years of age. He and his brother and sister were welcomed into the homes of relatives.
Hoover’s Memoirs describes a typical country childhood. It relates happy memories of Aunt Millie’s fine cooking, of coasting, shooting wild turkeys, trapping rabbits, and fishing with a hook and worm. Once he and his cousins made a mowing machine from an old saw and other odds and ends. The machine did not last long after they hitched it to a calf. On a visit to his Uncle Laban Miles, government agent for the Osage nation in Indian Territory, he learned campfire cooking and other outdoor skills from Indian playmates.
In 1884 he went to Newberg, Oregon, to live with his uncle, Dr. John Minthorn. Herbert attended the Quaker academy in which his uncle taught. When he was nearly 15, the Minthorns moved to Salem. He worked as office boy in the land-settlement business of his uncle and attended night school. A prospecting trip with a mining engineer inspired the youth to study engineering. He determined to attend the new Leland Stanford Jr. University (now Stanford University) at Palo Alto, California. He was one of the first to enroll in 1891.
He worked his way through college by operating a newspaper route and a laundry agency, and doing clerical work in the department of geology. He managed to find time to play on the freshman baseball nine and to help organize student activities. He worked on geological surveys in the summer.
A favorite story deals with his job as disbursing officer for a United States Geological Survey party. When a pack mule was found dead, the rules required Hoover and two witnesses to investigate the cause of death. They found a loose hind shoe caught in the animal’s neck halter. So they reported that it had broken its neck while scratching its head with a hind foot. The bureau in Washington refused to accept this “tall story,” and charged the party $60 for the lost animal. From that time on Hoover watched mules to confirm the fact that they could scratch their heads with a hind foot.
When Hoover was graduated in 1895, engineering jobs were scarce. He found work pushing a car in a gold mine. For this he received $2.00 a day for a ten-hour night shift seven days a week. He next got work in an engineer’s office by offering to do typing. Once hired, he proved his ability on jobs in Colorado, New Mexico, and Arizona.
He received his first great chance before he was 24, when his employer recommended him to a British engineering firm. He introduced American mining methods in the hot, dry Coolgardie gold fields of Western Australia for them. One mine whose purchase he recommended produced 55 million dollars in gold during the next 50 years.
When he was offered a position organizing a national department of mines and railways in China, he cabled Lou Henry, his Stanford sweetheart, proposing immediate marriage. They sailed for China on their wedding day, February 10, 1899. In Asia Hoover’s exploring journeys took him into Manchuria and Mongolia. The Chinese were disappointed that no vast gold veins were discovered, but Hoover found immense coal fields and valuable industrial minerals.
When the Boxer Rebellion broke out, the Hoovers were among the 200 foreigners who were besieged in Tientsin (now Tianjin) for a month. Hoover helped strengthen fortifications and procure food and pure water. His wife served as a volunteer nurse.
Hoover was a partner in a British engineering firm from 1902 to 1908. He traveled all over the world to work out engineering problems in the mines his company managed. The properties included coal mines in China, Wales, and the Transvaal; a tin mine in Cornwall; and gold mines in Western Australia, New Zealand, South Africa, and West Africa. There were also copper mines in Queensland and Canada, a lead-silver mine in Nevada, and a turquoise mine in the Sinai Peninsula of Egypt. His wife and children shared the hardships and adventures of these journeys. The Hoovers’ sons were born in London—Herbert, Jr., on August 4, 1903, and Allan on July 17, 1907.
In 1908 Hoover opened his own engineering firm, with offices in New York City, San Francisco, London, Petrograd, and Paris. The firm served as technical adviser and as reorganizer of failing companies.
In his leisure time, he wrote the textbook Principles of Mining, which was used for many years in college classrooms. Assisted by Mrs. Hoover he translated Agricola’s medieval Latin treatise on mining, De Re Metallica. (The couple had studied geology together in college.) Hoover’s technical achievements were many and notable. His work brought him handsome fees and interests in profitable mines.
When World War I broke out Hoover was in London seeking exhibits for the Panama-Pacific Exposition. At the request of the American ambassador, he undertook to help 200,000 stranded American tourists return home. His organization cashed checks, made reservations, and raised funds.
Next Hoover was persuaded to undertake the task of Belgian relief. The German armies had occupied Belgium and northern France. In the grip of the Allied blockade, these countries faced starvation. Hoover turned his business duties over to others and gave his entire time to the relief project.
The first task was to overcome the objections of both the Germans and the Allies. Then Hoover and his colleagues organized the Commission for Relief in Belgium. They sought and obtained funds from charitable people everywhere and from the governments of France, England, and the United States. By the end of the war the Commission had sent a total of 5 million tons of food and clothing to occupied Belgium and France. After the United States broke with Germany, Hoover turned the work over to Dutch and Spanish neutrals.
Hoover drew no salary for his years of work and paid his own expenses. Later, even as president, he continued to live on his private means. He used his salary to hire able associates or for public or charitable purposes. He kept none for himself.
When the United States entered the war President Woodrow Wilson appointed Hoover food administrator. Fourteen million families pledged themselves to his program for producing and saving food. The word Hooverize was coined to mean “saving, substituting, practicing self-denial, and thus helping win the war.”
At the end of the war Hoover was named head of the Supreme Economic Council by the Peace Conference. He directed the distribution of food to the starving peoples of Europe. His organization helped to open railroad traffic, administered fuel supplies, fought typhus epidemics, and started the wheels of commerce. Hoover headed the American Relief Organization, which provided meals for undernourished children. In three years between 14 and 16 million children were restored to strength and health. At Hoover’s suggestion the Friends Service Committee (Quakers) carried on this work in Germany. He continued to extend the relief work, assisting over 30 countries, including the Soviet Union in the famine of 1921.
Hoover served as secretary of commerce from 1921 to 1928, in the administrations of Presidents Harding and Coolidge. He greatly expanded the activities of the department. Called “consulting engineer to the nation,” he sought to increase national efficiency. Under him the Bureau of Standards adopted standards and sizes for hundreds of items. He reorganized the Bureau of Foreign and Domestic Commerce to provide businesses with information on export opportunities. In a continued drive to improve the use of water resources he laid the groundwork for irrigation and power developments in the Colorado and Columbia rivers and in California. He pushed flood control and navigation improvement in the Mississippi system. These projects were expanded during his term as president.
Hoover worked out the principles and methods of public ownership and control of wave channels for radio broadcasting. He helped establish government aid and regulation of civil aviation.
Hoover was nominated for the presidency on the first ballot at the Republican convention in Kansas City, Mo., in 1928. Charles Curtis of Kansas received the vice-presidential nomination. The party promised to maintain prosperity, to assist the farmer, and to make stronger attempts to enforce the prohibition amendment and law in general.
The Democrats made an issue of the scandals of the Warren G. Harding administration. They nominated Gov. Alfred E. Smith of New York, an avowed wet and a Roman Catholic. The South, largely Protestant and dry, turned against Smith. He carried only eight states. Three of every five votes went to Hoover in this his first candidacy for elective office.
When the new president took office the country was riding the crest of a wave of prosperity. Recounting the economic progress of the decade Hoover had called attention to a 45 percent increase in national income and a 25 percent increase in production and consumption, with an 8 percent growth in population. He pointed to 3,500,000 new homes, 9,000,000 houses equipped with electricity, 6,000,000 more telephones, 7,000,000 radio sets, and 14,000,000 additional automobiles. He told of an 11 percent increase in grade-school enrollment; 66 percent more students in the high schools; and 75 percent more in institutions of higher learning. He expressed the hope that “we shall soon with the help of God be in sight of the day when poverty will be banished from this nation.”
Hoover’s seven years in the Cabinet had permitted him to see the needs of the government and to shape his policies. His years abroad had given him a world outlook. To develop good neighbor relations with Latin America, he and Mrs. Hoover paid a visit to the Latin capitals on the battleship Maryland before his inauguration. Following this trip Hoover helped to settle the long-standing Tacna-Arica dispute between Peru and Chile. He later withdrew all the troops which had been stationed in the Latin American countries to protect United States interests.
The president’s scientific training called for a thorough study of any problem he faced, so he appointed many fact-finding commissions. The Wickersham commission studied law enforcement. It recommended a stricter enforcement of prohibition and opposed repeal of the 18th Amendment.
Public opinion turned against prohibition during Hoover’s administration. At the end of his term the 21st Amendment, repealing the 18th, went to the states for ratification.
An important commission on social and economic trends analyzed the great changes in the American economy since World War I. A study of the organization of government offices preceded numerous changes to improve efficiency. The Veterans’ Bureau and the Bureau of Pensions, for example, were reorganized and merged.
Hoover tried hard to carry out his campaign promises. He signed the Agricultural Marketing Act in June 1929 to keep promises of farm aid, although he did not believe in supporting commodity prices. American farmers had not shared the widespread prosperity of the 1920s. Sales and prices of farm products had fallen. Many farmers had lost their land by mortgage foreclosure, and two fifths of the farms were operated by tenants.
Under the marketing act, a Federal Farm Board was furnished with a 500-million-dollar revolving fund to establish marketing co-operatives. They lent money to farmer members, who pledged their crops as security. The co-operatives could hold products off the market to await a price rise. The depression made this plan unworkable, for prices quickly fell below the loan rate. When the federal government bought the holdings of the co-operatives to maintain prices, crops increased. Prices continued to fall.
Tariff revision had been promised as an aid to farmers. The Hawley-Smoot Tariff Act of 1930 failed to serve this purpose. Its rates were the highest in history. Foreign nations raised their tariffs to create export balances for debt payments.
The stock-market crash of October 1929 is usually regarded as the beginning of the Great Depression, though there had been a slump in industry earlier. Prices of securities had reached their high point in September, as people in all walks of life had begun speculating on a continuously rising market. Many bought “on margin.” Their investments were wiped out as stock prices fell. Despite occasional rallies, the market continued downward throughout Hoover’s term. In 1932, for example, stocks sold at about 10 percent of their 1929 value.
The market collapse was the signal for a widespread economic breakdown. Trade fell off as credit tightened, and people with cash feared to spend it. Overstocked merchants and manufacturers were forced to close down or to discharge employees. Workers displaced by new laborsaving machinery swelled the army of the unemployed. Widespread bank failures took the savings of hundreds of thousands. Mortgage foreclosures swept away people’s businesses and homes. A severe drought occurred in 1930 and added to the suffering of Middle Western farmers. The unemployed were forced to turn to public or private charity when their savings were gone.
At first leaders believed that the slump was temporary. Hoover quickly called meetings of key men in industry and received assurances that they would avoid laying off labor and cutting wages. He urged the states to create jobs through public works. He encouraged drives by local community chests and other charities. He took the position that direct aid to the unemployed was the duty of the localities and of private charities. Federal relief, he felt, would be subject to political control and graft, while a direct dole would weaken individual initiative.
It was his belief that the economic system could best be quickened by expanding credit. Thus businessmen could start activities that would improve trade and employment. His critics called this aid to the men at the top the “trickle down” system. They expressed doubt that the unemployed at the bottom could wait for the remedy to work a cure.
In 1932 banks were on the verge of collapse and unemployment was approaching 25 percent. At Hoover’s urging, Congress created the Reconstruction Finance Corporation (RFC) to lend money to banks, loan associations, insurance companies, and railroads. During his term the RFC lent more than 2 billion dollars.
The Emergency Relief Act of 1932 provided for RFC loans to states for use in direct relief. The act also permitted Federal Reserve Banks to lend to small businesses. Home Loan Banks were established in 1932, and the capital of Federal Land Banks was gradually increased.
Hoover at first looked to public works construction to supply jobs. More was spent on public works in his term than in the preceding 36 years. Later he decided that the number of jobs provided by nonproductive public works was too small for their high cost. He opposed the congressmen’s “pork barrel” bills and recommended loans for projects that could later pay for themselves. Congress authorized loans for such projects—after it was too late to help employment in his term.
In the elections of 1930, Democrats captured the House of Representatives. The Senate was made up of 48 Republicans, 47 Democrats, and one Farmer-Labor party man. Republicans of the liberal wing failed to support the president. Hoover had trouble getting Congress to pass his legislation.
Congress rejected Hoover’s measures to reform the banking system and the stock exchange. The Senate’s inquiry relative to the need for this legislation, however, uncovered scandals in the securities market that weakened public confidence.
Hoover had difficulty dealing with Congress because he had not developed the skills of the professional politician. Somewhat shy, President Hoover was not completely at ease in public and lacked the magnetic power to charm and persuade.
His position on the Soldiers’ Bonus Bill made him unpopular with veterans’ groups. This bill, which raised the maximum loans on veterans’ insurance certificates to 50 percent of the face value, was passed over his veto. In 1932 he aroused resentment by ordering out of Washington the “bonus army” which had come to demand immediate payment of the bonus. He called out federal troops under Gen. Douglas MacArthur to burn their camp and then to send them home.
After 1931 Hoover saw the deepening depression as part of a world depression having its origin in Europe. He took international leadership in efforts to prevent ruin when banks failed in Austria and Germany and their economies collapsed. He asked the nations to agree to a one-year moratorium on intergovernmental debts. Agreement came too late to save the sagging foreign economies. Great Britain was forced to stop gold payments in September and other nations soon followed. Foreign trade slumped and American farm prices tumbled further.
Hoover sought international co-operation in other matters. In 1930 he called the London Conference on Naval Armament. Here the nations agreed to limit the size and number of war vessels. He sent a delegation to the League of Nations disarmament conference in 1932. He was organizing a world economic conference when his term ended.
The depression continued to deepen as the election campaign of 1932 got under way. There were more huge business failures, some of them scandalous, involving banks and utilities companies. An estimated 12 to 13 million people were unemployed.
Hoover and Curtis were renominated by the Republicans. The Democrats named Gov. Franklin D. Roosevelt of New York, with John N. Garner of Texas as vice-president. American voters made Hoover the scapegoat for their troubles. He was crushingly defeated.
No administration had begun more happily than Hoover’s. None ended in such despair. More and more banks closed. States declared bank “holidays” to save the remainder. The lame duck session of Congress was dismal. The Democratic house put off remedial legislation. Hoover tried to find a basis on which the president-elect would cooperate with him; but Roosevelt refused to become involved in the president’s policies. The 20th (Lame Duck) Amendment was proclaimed in effect February 6. It advanced the date for the meeting of a new Congress to the January 3 following its election, and the president’s inauguration date from March 4 to January 20.
Retiring to his home in Palo Alto, California, on the campus of Stanford University, Hoover made little comment on public affairs for two years. Then in books, articles, and speeches he criticized Roosevelt’s New Deal as socialistic. After 1939 he frequently differed with the administration’s policies on the war and on peace aims. In 1940 he offered a plan for food distribution in occupied countries. The British refused a test of the plan in Belgium on the grounds that this country was a base for Nazi attacks on Britain. Poland and Finland named him director of American relief efforts on their behalf. The Hoover Institution on War, Revolution, and Peace houses priceless historical records. It was built in Stanford in 1940.
In 1946, as honorary chairman of the Famine Emergency Committee, he flew to Europe, Asia, and South America to survey food needs and supplies. In 1947 President Harry Truman appointed him to recommend changes that would make federal agencies more efficient and economical. His money-saving changes included the creation of the General Services Administration to centralize buying and distribution of government supplies (see Hoover Commission). Hoover served as elder statesman and adviser to the Dwight D. Eisenhower Administration and headed a new economy commission. In 1962 the Herbert Hoover Presidential Library in West Branch, Iowa, was dedicated. (See also presidential libraries.)
Hoover died in New York City on October 20, 1964, at the age of 90. He was buried near his birthplace in West Branch.
Clinton, Susan. Herbert Hoover: 31st President of the United States (Childrens, 1988). Hilton, Suzanne. The World of Young Herbert Hoover (Walker, 1987). Kane, J.N. Facts About the Presidents: A Compilation of Biographical and Historical Information, 5th ed. (Wilson, 1990). Nash, G.H. The Life of Herbert Hoover, 2 vols. (Norton, 1983–88). Smith, R.N. An Uncommon Man: The Triumph of Herbert Hoover (High Plains, 1990).