Herbert Hoover

Herbert Clark Hoover (August 10, 1874 – October 20, 1964) is best known as being the 31st President of the United States (1929-1933). However, prior to that, he was a successful mining engineer, humanitarian, and administrator. He had the longest retirement of any U.S. President and died 31 years after leaving office, during the administration of Lyndon Johnson — his fifth successor.

Hoover's humanitarian years

Bored with making money, the Quaker side of Hoover yearned to be of service to others. In August of 1914 he got his chance, when the assassinations in Sarajevo of the Austro-Hungarian Archduke Franz Ferdinand and his wife, Sophie, touched off long-simmering rivalries among the jealous nations of Europe. World War I was at hand, and few Americans were prepared. An estimated 120,000 of Hoover's countrymen, penniless and confused, were trapped on the wrong side of the Atlantic and needed help. The U.S. Ambassador to the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland, Walter Hines Page, sent an urgent request for assistance to Hoover on August 3rd.

Related Topics:
1914 - World War I - Atlantic - United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland - Walter Hines Page

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Within twenty-four hours, five hundred volunteers were assembled and the grand ballroom of the Savoy Hotel was turned into a vast canteen and distribution center for food, clothing, steamer tickets and cash. "I did not realize it at the moment, but on August 3, 1914 my engineering career was over forever. I was on the slippery road of public life." During the next few weeks Hoover assisted Chief White Feather of Pawhuska, Oklahoma, and dowagers in jewels to get home. When one woman angrily insisted on a written pledge that no German submarine would attack her vessel in mid-ocean, Hoover readily complied. Furthermore, Hoover, together with nine engineer friends, loaned desperate travelers a total of $1.5 million. All but $400 of this was returned, confirming the Great Engineer's faith in the American character. The difference between dictatorship and democracy, Hoover liked to say, was simple: dictators organize from the top down, democracies from the bottom up.

Related Topics:
Savoy Hotel - Canteen - White Feather - Pawhuska - Oklahoma - Dowager - German - Submarine - Dictator - Democracy

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Trapped between German bayonets and a British blockade, Belgium in the fall of 1914 faced imminent starvation. Hoover was asked to undertake an unprecedented relief effort for the tiny kingdom dependent on imports for 80 percent of its food. This would mean abandoning his successful career as the world's foremost mining engineer. For several days he pondered the request, finally telling a friend, "Let the fortune go to hell." He would assume the immense task on two conditions--that he receive no salary, and that he be given a free hand in organizing and administering what became known as the Commission for the Relief of Belgium (CRB).

Related Topics:
Belgium - Commission for the Relief of Belgium

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The CRB became, in effect, an independent republic of relief, with its own flag, navy, factories, mills and railroads. Its $12-million-a-month budget was supplied by voluntary donations and government grants. More than once Hoover made personal pledges far in excess of his total worth. In an early form of shuttle diplomacy he crossed the North Sea 40 times seeking to persuade the enemies in London and Berlin to allow food to reach the war's victims. He also taught the Belgians, who regarded cornmeal as cattle feed, to eat cornbread. In all, the CRB saved ten million people from starvation.

Related Topics:
North Sea - Cornbread

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Every day brought new crises. The British investigated charges that he was a German spy. Germans deported youthful CRB workers, including a major of The Salvation Army, on similar charges. At home, Senator Henry Cabot Lodge wanted to prosecute Hoover for dealing with the enemy. Theodore Roosevelt promised to hold Lodge at bay, informing Hoover that "the courage of any political official is stronger in his office than in the newspapers."

Related Topics:
The Salvation Army - Henry Cabot Lodge - Theodore Roosevelt

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Despite the obstacles put before him Hoover persisted, purchasing rice in Burma, Argentine corn, China beans and American wheat, meat and fats. Long before the Armistice of 1918 he was an international hero, in the words of Ambassador Page, "a simple, modest, energetic little man who began his career in California and will end it in heaven."

Related Topics:
Burma - Argentine - China - Armistice of 1918 - California

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After the United States entered the war, President Woodrow 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. The Armistice did not end Hoover's involvement with relief. After the end of the war, 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. To this end he employed a new formed Quaker organization, the American Friends Service Committee to carry out much of the logistical work in Europe. He extended aid to famine-stricken Bolshevist 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!"

Related Topics:
United States - Woodrow Wilson - Food Administration - Allies - Supreme Economic Council - American Relief Administration - Central Europe - American Friends Service Committee - Bolshevist Russia - 1921 - Bolshevism

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