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Herbert Hoover: President Eisenhower
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In 1928, when President Coolidge decided not to run for a second term of office, Herbert Hoover was called to become the Republican Party candidate. Hoover’s reputation, experience, and popularity together gave him the Republican presidential nomination. He ran against Al Smith and campaigned on efficiency and prosperity. Although Smith was the target of anti-Catholicism from the Baptist and Lutheran communities, Hoover avoided the religious issue. (Quakers were themselves under attack as pacifists.) He supported prohibition tentatively and called it a "noble experiment". Historians agree that Hoover's reputation nationwide and the economic boom, combined with the deep chasm among the Democrats over religion and prohibition, led to his landslide victory.
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Herbert Hoover had been given the nickname, "The Great Engineer," due to his managerial and coordinating skills. Expectations were high as he began his presidency. It soon became obvious... that his narrow interpretation of the president's constitutional role would prevent him from taking the necessary steps to advance even his most cherished programs. When the Great Depression hit, and millions were unemployed and needy, Hoover fell back on constitutional restraint as a reason for not allowing more forceful government intervention. Instead, he appealed to the private sector to come to the aid of the masses, while the federal government appeared apathetic and weak.
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Hoover was the first President born west of the Mississippi River. His father was a blacksmith and his mother a school-teacher; both died in his childhood, and he grew up in his uncle's house in Oregon. Hoover worked his way through school beginning at age 10. He studied geology and mining engineering at Stanford University, graduating in 1895, and he became a supervisor of mining operations in Australia and then in China. He and his wife, Lou, became fluent in Chinese and were active in the relief of foreigners trapped in the Boxer Rebellion. The Hoovers traveled all over the world on business.
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After the United States entered the war in April 1917, President Woodrow Wilson appointed Hoover head of the American Food Administration, with headquarters in Washington, D.C. Hoover believed that, "food will win the war." He established days to encourage people to not eat certain foods in order to save them for the soldiers: meatless Mondays, wheatless Wednesdays, and "when in doubt, eat potatoes." These days helped conserve food for the war. He succeeded in cutting consumption of food needed overseas and avoided rationing at home (dubbed "Hooverizing" by government propagandists, although Hoover himself continually - and with little success - gave orders that publicity should not mention him by name, but rather should focus entirely on the Food Administration itself). 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 millions of starving people in Central Europe. To this end, he employed a newly formed Quaker organization, the American Friends Service Committee to carry out much of the logistical work in Europe.
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Herbert Clark Hoover was a successful mining businessman before turning to political administration. A Republican, he defeated Democrat Alfred E. Smith in the presidential election of 1928. The stock market crash of 1929 and the ensuing Great Depression overwhelmed his presidency. In spite of a wide variety of successful reforms, Hoover was held accountable for the dire economic situation and was badly defeated in his bid for a second term by Democrat Franklin D. Roosevelt.
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There were few historical parallels for Hoover to draw on. By late-twentieth-century standards, Hoover reacted slowly to the crisis; by earlier guides he was a remarkable activist. His initial response was to persuade management to maintain wages and to urge a pooling of resources on the part of financial interests to prevent further deflation. Groups of industry and labor representatives came to Washington at the president's invitation, and both took action to try to avert serious trouble, but to no avail. Hoover and the American Economic Association both anticipated a healthy deflation to be followed soon by a business revival. When the depression reached worldwide dimensions toward the end of 1930, Hoover failed to respond freshly to the crisis. He relied principally on increased public works and a balanced budget—timid answers to what by 1931 was obviously a disaster.
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