Herbert Hoover

On January 22, 1929, Hoover left for a Florida vacation at the home of J. C. Penney. Before an open fire at the island house on Biscayne Bay, a pensive Hoover remarked to the editor of the Christian Science Monitor: "I have no dread of the ordinary work of the presidency. What I do fear is the result of the exaggerated idea the people have conceived of me. They have a conviction that I am a sort of superman, that no problem is beyond my capacity ... If some unprecedented calamity should come upon the nation ... I would be sacrificed to the unreasoning disappointment of a people who expected too much."

• Herbert Hoover
  • pp. 210-211 (Easton Press, 1996)
• Watching The World Go By (Willis J. Abbot)
  • p. 345 (Little, Brown, and Company, 1933)

Dr. Minthorn had practically demanded that his sister's boy be surrendered to him. His only son had just died and it seemed to him right that one of Huldah's orphans be sent to fill that place in his home and heart.

• Herbert Hoover
  • p. 17 (Easton Press, 1964)

In Portland he was collected by a taciturn uncle in the familiar Quaker garb and conveyed to the new Friends' settlement called Newberg on the Willamette River, about twenty-two miles southwest of Portland.

• Herbert Hoover
  • p. 18 (Easton Press, 1964)

[Hoover] did not find it easy, however, to be the son of a woman who was an ordained minister.

• Herbert Hoover
  • p. 3 (Times Books, 2009)

Bert found out just how coldhearted strangers can be when at an Oregon depot he first looked up into the flinty eyes of Uncle John Minthorn.

• Herbert Hoover
  • p. 4 (Times Books, 2009)

He brought tremendous gifts to hundreds of millions of children on all continents, in bread and milk and new hope. But the greatest gift of all is the example of his own life and character. Youth craves and needs heroes. We who are no longer young can honor his memory best by helping a new generation to understand the shining integrity, the moral greatness, of Herbert Hoover.

• Herbert Hoover
  • p. viii (Easton Press, 1964)

"He is a simple, modest, energetic man who began his career in California and will end it in Heaven; and he doesn't want anybody's thanks," Ambassador Page reported to President Wilson at the start of the Belgian Relief.

• Herbert Hoover
  • p. 92 (Easton Press, 1964)

During a winter cold snap when he was two years old, Herbert fell victim to the croup, a viral infection that inflames the larynx and obstructs breathing... Jesse fetched Dr. Henry John Minthorn, Hulda's brother and one of two physicians in West Branch. Minthorn ministered to his nephew by lamplight through most of an icy night... When the patient seemed better, Minthorn left to make an urgent call in the countryside. The attacks resumed while he was away... [Herbert] turned blue, stopped breathing entirely, and was given up for dead... [Minthorn] dashed back to his sister's, where he was greeted at the door with the cry "Bertie is gone!"... [Minthorn] used either mouth-to-mouth resuscitation or his finger, or some combination of both, to clear Bertie's throat and coax another coughing fit. The child's breath was restored, and the doctor handed him over to his mother, saying "Here's your boy."

• Herbert Hoover
  • pp. 5-6 (Alfred A. Knopf, 2017)

Tact is not one of his many qualities.

• Herbert Hoover (David Burner)
  • p. 83 (Easton Press, 1996)
• Herbert Hoover (William E. Leuchtenburg)
  • p. 27 (Times Books, 2009)

In a communication to the State Department that October [1915], Bates charged Hoover with violating the century-old Logan Act that forbade any American to deal directly with belligerents. In a sense, the charge was valid; the CRB flew its own flag and made contracts with belligerents somewhat comparable to treaties.

• Herbert Hoover
  • p. 89 (Easton Press, 1996)

Sitting before a fire in the home on one of the islands in the harbor, Mr. Hoover talked frankly about his coming activities. "I am not at all apprehensive of the normal work of the Presidency," he said. "It is arduous and taxing, of course, but that is to be expected. What does somewhat disquiet me is the way in which I have been over-advertised. My friends have made the American people think me a sort of superman, able to cope successfully with the most difficult and complicated problems. They expect the impossible of me and should there arise in the land conditions with which the political machinery is unable to cope, I will be the one to suffer."

This forecast, expressed at a moment when the approach of heavy responsibilities naturally led to a searching of the mind was almost precisely fulfilled. Because he could not deal successfully and at once with a business depression which affected industry and finance all over the world, President Hoover four years later was rejected by the people.

• Watching The World Go By
  • pp. 344-345 (Little, Brown, and Company, 1933)

Few people appreciate the fact that when Presidents change, but not parties, there is no patronage at the disposal of the newcomer. President Roosevelt entered on his duties with one hundred and fifty thousand offices to distribute. Hoover had none.

• Watching The World Go By
  • p. 346 (Little, Brown, and Company, 1933)

No President, in my lifetime at least, had so burdensome and sorrowful an administration as did Herbert Hoover. Only Lincoln had graver problems to deal with. That Hoover should have failed of reelection was inevitable. The remorseless forces, for which he was not in any way responsible, that wiped out in two years two thirds of the fortunes of the United States, wrecked his political fortunes as well.

• Watching The World Go By
  • p. 347 (Little, Brown, and Company, 1933)

Great Britain, on the other hand, grew reluctant about the work of the CRB. Lord Kitchener—hero of the Boer War and the face on the famous recruiting poster—and Winston Churchill, whom Hoover would always intensely dislike, led a military faction that regarded feeding Belgians as "a positive military disaster," since it released the Germans from that obligation. Churchill called the stubborn Hoover a "son of a bitch."

• Herbert Hoover
  • p. 82 (Easton Press, 1996)

Kitchener, according to Whitlock, offered Hoover the post of Minster of Munitions in 1916 (probably it was the post of technical director of production under the minister), contingent on his becoming a British citizen. Page conveyed the offer of British citizenship. Hoover refused.

• Herbert Hoover
  • p. 82 (Easton Press, 1996)

Hoover believed that one good way to accomplish things was to go directly to the ultimate authority and state frankly what was needed.

• Herbert Hoover
  • p. 83 (Easton Press, 1996)

Where voluntarism, or the states, would not put adequate controls on economic waste or social injustice—here as in child labor and elsewhere—Hoover generally favored federal legislation.

• Herbert Hoover
  • p. 223 (Easton Press, 1996)

In August 1921, at the request of Secretary of Commerce Hoover, representatives of many social work agencies met in Washington to plan cooperation on the Russian appeal... At one point in the proceedings a woman raised doubts about the wisdom of the whole business.

"Mr. Secretary," she said, "aren't we going to help Bolshevism by feeding these people?"

Hoover's renowned calm broke down. He sprang to his feet and banged the table angrily. "Twenty million people are starving," he exclaimed. "Whatever their politics, they shall be fed!"

• Herbert Hoover
  • p. 146 (Easton Press, 1964)

Measured by accomplishment and ability, Hoover holds commanding rank. If five Americans were to be selected on the basis of merit and ability to devise remedies for the present condition of the world—Hoover's name would head the list.

• Herbert Hoover (Eugene Lyons)
  • p. 180 (Easton Press, 1964)

Keynes, whose pessimism toward the pace settlement had matched Hoover's, called him "the only man who emerged from the ordeal of Paris with an enhanced reputation"... Keynes's perspective was shared widely in Europe. When Woodrow Wilson won the 1919 Nobel Peace Prize for his work in Paris, a leading Austrian newspaper wrote that it would more appropriately have been awarded to Hoover, "who has earned the gratitude of mankind as no one else has done."

• Herbert Hoover
  • p. 225 (Alfred A. Knopf, 2017)

He viewed intense partisanship as an unprofessional waste of resources unlikely to lead to optimal managerial outcomes, and he thought the theater of retail politics foolish and inherently dishonest, a notion that permitted him to make a principle of having no skill at it.

• Herbert Hoover
  • p. 344 (Alfred A. Knopf, 2017)

He was chronically bad tempered—quick to take offense, primed to scent conspirators leagued against him, unwilling to control outbursts of rage.

• Herbert Hoover
  • p. 27 (Times Books, 2009)

Even someone who thought well of Hoover remarked, "He can express himself so accurately and so indignantly that his victim will go off nursing a grudge for the rest of his natural life."

• Herbert Hoover
  • p. 27 (Times Books, 2009)

However icy Hoover was, no one questioned that he was prodigiously effective. Lord Eustace Percy in the British Foreign Office regarded the American as "the bluntest man in Europe," but acknowledged that he was "able, without apparent effort, to handle a situation involving more irreconcilable elements than any other situation in this war [WWI]." On one occasion, a high-placed British official told him, "Men have gone to the Tower for less than you have done," but then acceded to demands that shortly before he had said were "out of the question."

• Herbert Hoover
  • p. 29 (Times Books, 2009)

The U.S. Ambassador to Belgium, Brand Whitlock, who had won renown as a reform mayor of Toledo, Ohio, started out with great goodwill toward Hoover but wound up loathing him. In the early days of the CRB, Whitlock wrote that Hoover "has a genius for organization and for getting things done, and beneath all, with his great intelligence, ... has a wonderful human heart." It did not take long, though, for the envoy to conclude that Hoover was a "fruste" (uncultivated) and "boorish," or to deplore his acting "in a brutal manner." After reading a domineering cable to the king of Belgium drafted by the CRB chairman, Whitlock commented that Hoover was "always trying to force, to blackmail, to frighten people into doing things his way ... What a bully! He would even bully a poor exiled King!"

• Herbert Hoover
  • (Times Books, 2009)

The New York Times said that it was only becoming apparent in retrospect how much power he had wielded during the peace talks: "He has been the nearest approach to a dictator Europe has had since Napoleon."

• Herbert Hoover
  • p. 225 (Alfred A. Knopf, 2017)
• VASTNESS OF HOOVER'S WORK REALIZED AS HE RETURNS
  • (New York Times, 1919)

Life is worth more, to, for knowing Hoover. But for him Belgium would now be starved... he's a simple, modest energetic little man who began his career in California and will end it in Heaven, and he doesn't want anybody's thanks

• Herbert Hoover
  • p. 30 (Times Books, 2009)