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U.S Presidents — Herbert Hoover

OVERVIEW Name: Herbert Hoover President: # 31 Term Number(s): 36 Term Length: 4 Took Office: March 4, 1929 Left Office: March 4, 1933 Age when Elected: 54 Party: Republican Also Known As: "The Chief" BIOGRAPHIC INFORMATION Education: Stanford University and George Fox University (undergratuate school) Occupation: Engineer (Mining, Civil), Businessman, Humanitarian Other Governmental Position: 3rd United States Secretary of Commerce. Military Service: None Religion: Quaker Spouse(s): Lou Henry Hoover (February 10, 1899) Children: Herbert Charles Hoover, Allan Henry Hoover Birthdate: August 10, 1874 Birthplace: West Branch, Iowa Deathdate: October 20, 1964 Deathplace: New York, New York Age at Death: 90 Cause of Death: massive internal hemorrhaging, bleeding from upper gastrointestinal tract; strained vascular system Place of Internment: West Branch, Iowa Signature FIRST ELECTION Election Year: 1928 Main Opponent: Al Smith Voter Participation: 56.90%   Electoral Popular States Click for larger image Winner 444 (83.50%) 21,427,123 (58.20%) 40 Main Opponent 87 (16.38%) 15,015,464 (40.80%) 8 total 531 36,807,012 48 CABINET AND COURT APPOINTMENTS Vice President: Charles Curtis Secretary of State: Henry L. Stimson (1929–1933) Secretary of the Treasury: Andrew Mellon (1929–1932), Ogden L. Mills (1932–1933) Secretary of War: James W. Good (1929), Patrick J. Hurley (1929–1933) Secretary of the Navy: Charles F. Adams (1929–1933) Secretary of the Interior: Ray L. Wilbur (1929–1933) Secretary of Agriculture: Arthur M. Hyde (1929–1933) Secretary of Commerce: Robert P. Lamont (1929–1932), Roy D. Chapin (1932–1933) Secretary of Labor: James J. Davis (1929–1930), William N. Doak (1930–1933) Attorney General: William D. Mitchell (1929–1933) Postmaster General: Walter F. Brown (1929–1933) Supreme Court Assignments: Charles Evans Hughes (1930), Owen Josephus Roberts (1930), Benjamin Nathan Cardozo (1932) PRESIDENT'S BIOGRAPHY Son of a Quaker blacksmith, Herbert Clark Hoover brought to the presidency an unparalleled reputation for public service as an engineer, administrator, and humanitarian. Born in an Iowa village in 1874, Hoover grew up in Oregon. He enrolled at Stanford University when it opened in 1891, graduating as a mining engineer. He married his Stanford sweetheart, Lou Henry, and they went to China, where he worked for a private corporation as China's leading engineer. In June 1900 the Boxer Rebellion caught the Hoovers in Tientsin. For almost a month the settlement was under heavy fire. While his wife worked in the hospitals, Hoover directed the building of barricades, and once risked his life rescuing Chinese children. One week before Hoover celebrated his 40th birthday in London, Germany declared war on France, and the American Consul General asked his help in getting stranded tourists home. In six weeks his committee helped 120,000 Americans return to the United States. Next Hoover turned to a far more difficult task, to feed Belgium, which had been overrun by the German army. After the United States entered the war, President 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. After the Armistice, 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. He extended aid to famine-stricken Soviet 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!" After capably serving as Secretary of Commerce under presidents Harding and Coolidge, Hoover became the Republican presidential nominee in 1928. He said then, "We in America today are nearer to the final triumph over poverty than ever before in the history of any land." His election seemed to ensure prosperity. Yet within months the stock market crashed, and the Nation spiraled downward into depression. After the crash, Hoover announced that while he would keep the federal budget balanced, he would cut taxes and expand public works spending. In 1931 repercussions from Europe deepened the crisis, even though the president presented to Congress a program asking for additional help for farmers facing mortgage foreclosures, the creation of the Reconstruction Finance Corporation to aid business, banking reform, a loan to states for feeding the unemployed, expansion of public works, and drastic governmental economy. At the same time he reiterated his view that while people must not suffer from hunger and cold, caring for them must be primarily a local and voluntary responsibility. His opponents in Congress, who he felt were sabotaging his program for their own political gain, unfairly painted him as a callous and cruel president. Hoover became the scapegoat for the depression and was badly defeated in 1932. In the 1930s he became a powerful critic of the New Deal, warning against tendencies toward statism. In 1947 President Truman appointed Hoover to a commission, which elected him chairman, to reorganize the executive departments. He was appointed chairman of a similar commission by President Eisenhower in 1953. Many economies resulted from both commissions' recommendations. Over the years, Hoover wrote many articles and books, one of which he was working on when he died at age 90 in New York City on October 20, 1964. FIRST LADY'S BIOGRAPHY Lou Henry Hoover Admirably equipped to preside at the White House, Lou Henry Hoover brought to it long experience as wife of a man eminent in public affairs at home and abroad. She had shared his interests since they met in a geology lab at Leland Stanford University. Lou was a freshman, Herbert a senior. He was fascinated, as he declared later, "by her whimsical mind, her blue eyes, and a broad grinnish smile." Born in Iowa, in 1874, Lou grew up there for ten years. Then her father, Charles D. Henry, decided that the climate of southern California would favor the health of his wife, Florence. He took his daughter on camping trips in the hills—her greatest pleasures in her early teens. Lou became a fine horsewoman; she hunted, and preserved specimens with the skill of a taxidermist; she developed an enthusiasm for rocks, minerals, and mining. She entered Stanford in 1894, and completed her degree before marrying Herbert Hoover in 1899. The newlyweds left at once for China, where Mr. Hoover won quick recognition as a mining engineer. His career took them about the globe—Ceylon, Burma, Siberia, Australia, Egypt, Japan, Europe—while her talent for homemaking eased their time in a dozen foreign lands. Two sons, Herbert and Allan, were born during this adventurous life, which made their father a youthful millionaire. During World War I, while Hoover earned world fame administering emergency relief programs, she was often with him but spent some time with the boys in California. In 1919 she saw construction begin for a long-planned home in Palo alto. In 1921, however, Mr. Hoover's appointment as Secretary of Commerce took the family to Washington. There Mrs. Hoover spent eight years busy with the social duties of a cabinet wife and an active participation in the Girl Scout movement, including service as its president. The Hoovers moved into the White House in 1929, and the first lady welcomed visitors with poise and dignity throughout the administration. However, when the first day of 1933 dawned, Mr. and Mrs. Hoover were away on holiday. Their absence ended the New Year's Day tradition of the public being greeted personally by the president at a reception in the executive mansion. Mrs. Hoover paid with her own money the cost of reproducing furniture owned by Monroe for a period sitting room in the White House. She also restored Lincoln's study for her husband's use. She dressed handsomely; she "never fitted more perfectly into the White House picture than in her formal evening gown," remarked one secretary. The Hoovers entertained elegantly, using their own private funds for social events while the country suffered worsening economic depression. In 1933 they retired to Palo alto, but maintained an apartment in New York. Mr. Hoover learned the full lavishness of his wife's charities only after her death there on January 7, 1944; she had helped the education, he said, "of a multitude of boys and girls." In retrospect he stated her ideal for the position she had held: "a symbol of everything wholesome in American life." MAJOR EVENTS 1929: Stock market crash marks the start of the Great Depression. 1930: Hawley-Smoot Tariff, an act signed into law raising high tariffs on imported goods to the U.S. This resulted in retaliation by U.S. trading partners on exports and contributed to the Great Depression. 1932: Bonus Army march: Hoover calls in the Army to break up this D.C. campsite protest by unemployed World War I veterans and their families. TRIVIA 1. Charles Curtis, Herbert Hoover's vice president, was a Kaw Indian. Curtis was the only nonwhite person to be elected vice president of the U.S. 2. While in the presence of White House guests, to speak privately, the Hoovers would speak in Chinese. 3. Hoover was the first president born west of the Mississippi River.