This is a sympathetic biography of the thirty-first president of the United States. Although forever associated with the Great Depression, Herbert Hoover was a wildly successful businessman, humanitarian, and secretary of commerce in the decades prior to becoming president. His handling of relief operations in Belgium during World War I, Germany and Europe after the war, and in the United States during the great Mississippi River flood of 1927 all earned him the moniker “Master of Emergencies.” In Hoover: An Extraordinary Life in Extraordinary Times (Alfred A. Knopf, 2017) Kenneth Whyte wants to remind readers of this part of Hoover’s career, the one often eclipsed by his unsuccessful presidency.
Whyte points out several ethical lapses in his subject that I found shocking. Hoover graduated at Stanford University because a professor wrote an essay on his behalf so he could pass the grammar competency. Hoover later lied about his age and degree to get a job. Hoover routinely played fast and loose with contracts, and often post-dated them. One of these transactions led to a lawsuit that dragged on for years, generating a controversy that reared its ugly head whenever his name came in public. Whyte does not fully engage in this aspect of his subject’s behavior but did not hide it either. In a similar vein, he does not shy away from Hoover’s quirky emotional character. He could be cold and distant. A serious workaholic, he spent very little time with his children or his wife. Like the other Quaker president from California, he could be paranoid, especially when stressed, spun conspiracy theories about his supposed enemies, and always thought the press was out to destroy him whenever it did not praise him. Yet, he did not like to be alone and needed to have dinner guests, even if he did not always engage them. He could be petty, prone to feel insulted, downright rude and dismissive, even though it does not seem that he intended to be so. To his credit Whyte does not attempt any armchair psychologizing.
After making a fortune in mining and business management, Hoover wanted to serve the public. His career change coincided with the start of the First World War in 1914. With such successes at Belgian relief, as Food Administrator in the United States, and later as European food Czar, Hoover emerged from the war with a reputation for competency that no other human could match in 1919. Driven by a need for acceptance, if not praise, unimpressed with the politicians he met, he was bitten by the political bug. After all, as someone who always thought he was the most competent person in the room – as he frequently was – why wouldn’t he have thought he could do a better job? But Hoover proved a poor politician. His half-assed non-campaign for the 1920 Republican nomination was a total flop. Senator Warren Harding of Ohio who got thenomination and won the election with 60 percent of the popular vote wooed Hoover into accepting a cabinet post as secretary of commerce. Hoover wanted to be secretary of state and drove a hard bargain for the lesser position.
With a very expansive view of his role and the full support of the president, the ambitious Hoover turned the Commerce Department into a buzzing hub of activity and the branch of the federal government synonymous with progress. He trod on the toes of the State Department in negotiating agreements with foreign governments to expand American business. More importantly and less dramatically, Secretary Hoover led a massive and consequential campaign of standardization across the economy. There really needs to be more on this. Everything from screw threads to the size of a brick was prescribed. Hoover worked well with Harding and had a close relationship with the president. In 1923 he was with Harding when he died on his western tour.
Harding is routinely ranked among the worst American presidents for the corruption of his administration, with Tea Pot Dome being the worst example prior to Watergate. It was interesting to read that Hoover was absolutely convinced that he would be dragged into the scandal, even though he had nothing to do with it. Hoover survived the tempest unscathed. The new president, Calvin Coolidge, and Hoover did not get along. Whyte paints an unfavorable view of “Silent Cal,” depicting him as an unpleasant, mean-spirited man who flew into bitter rages. Over the next two election cycles, Hoover and Coolidge engaged in a tense dance over the Republican nomination. Hoover did not want to openly challenge a standing president as Coolidge masked his own intentions, to former’s great discomfort. When Coolidge announced he would not run in 1928, Hoover immediately sought the nomination and secured it with little challenge. Defeating the Democratic candidate Al Smith with 58% of the popular vote, Hoover entered the White House with a popular mandate and booming economy.
Per Whyte, Hoover was one of those people long concerned about speculation fueling the Wall Street bubble. With the farm sector particularly hurting, the new president called a special session of the congress to pass farm relief and revise the tariff. Although the special session passed a farm relief bill, it failed at the more complicated business of tariff reform. Hoover didn’t demonstrate the leadership required to revise the tariff and the special session adjourned without passing a measure. The following year, Congress produced the (infamous) Smoot-Hawley Tariff, lifting rates to their highest point in the history of the United States. It was not the particular outcome that Hoover sought, but he obtained the ability for the president to adjust rates.
The tariff could be the third rail in presidential politics, and Hoover was not the first to be burned. It made me think of Grover Cleveland and William Howard Taft, two other presidents who failed at tariff reform; Theodore Roosevelt who was smart enough to never engage the issue but threatened to do so to keep the various Republican factions in line; and the spectacular success Woodrow Wilson had in the most thoroughgoing tariff reform of 1913.
Much of the section on the presidency, of course, focuses on the thirty-first president’s handling of the social-economic crisis known as the Great Depression. The idea that Hoover did nothing during the depression has long been discarded. As Whyte shows, workaholic Hoover put in very long days, met with numerous people, read many books and other items, and was very engaged in creating policy. What was lacking, however, was some sort of common touch. Although Whyte does not mention this point, the perception of what the president was changed in the minds of Americans in the early twentieth century. Theodore Roosevelt and Woodrow Wilson understood this, but William Howard Taft who occupied the White House between them did (see Peri Arnold, Remaking the Presidency). Similarly, Hoover did not realize that Americans wanted sympathy and empathy from their president, not just competency. This is something Franklin D. Roosevelt (and later Ronald Reagan) fully grasped.
As we all know the stock market crash in October precipitated the depression. Hoover responded by meeting business leaders and convincing them to not lay off workers. Within a couple of months, the situation stabilized and appeared to many, including the man in the White House, that the worst had passed. This was a cycle that would replay itself several times. Every time Hoover thought he had a handle on it something outside of his control triggered another downturn. Thus, Whyte’s account sounds as if Hoover was quite successful until the French screwed up the international payments by insisting on not cancelling reparations, Great Britain went off the gold standard, and the congressional Democrats messed up the Reconstruction Finance Corporation by requiring public disclosure of who received the money, each setting off another downward spiral. The Democrats receive harsh criticism in this account. They are portrayed as being more interested in prolonging the depression for political purposes than in solving it. Most of Franklin D. Roosevelt’s (FDR) famous “hundred days” is categorized as being essentially stolen from Hoover. Since Hoover, according to Whyte, was very concerned about the Nazis and wanted to save Europe from the twin threats of fascism and communism, it is implied that by abandoning his predecessor’s international economic policies, FDR directly contributed to the rise of Hitler and the start of World War II. In The Challenge to Liberty (1934), Hoover basically lumps the New Deal in with both communism and fascism. It’s not explained how the New Deal could have largely been pirated from Hoover when he equated these measures to the very worst authoritarian regimes.
Whyte covers the rest of Hoover’s long life, but I wish there would have been a full chapter on Hoover’s memoirs and their creation. Whyte consults the papers at the Hoover presidential library at West Branch, Iowa. The letters from his wife Lou Henry Hoover to their children Allan and Herbert Junior provide an intimate view into their family life.
