Herbert Hoover

by Glen Jeansonne

  Although he was never invited to join the Roosevelt administration’s efforts to win the war, Hoover served his country in a variety of ways during the conflict. Following his presidency he had become a leader of the Boys Clubs of America (BCA) and by 1936 was already chairman of the board. The BCA appealed to Hoover’s sense of voluntarism, self-help, patriotism, and community service. Clubs operated in urban areas, offering wholesome recreation, vocational training, and the opportunity to bond with adult mentors and other boys. Hoover also viewed clubs as an alternative to street gangs bred by city slums, which generated juvenile delinquency. During World War II, the BCA was a leader in mobilizing the home front to win the war. It emphasized patriotism and physical fitness and showed the advantage that democracy gave boys for choosing their occupation and obtaining an education. It also trained teenage boys in skills needed by the armed services and by war industries. Most clubs had an indoor swimming pool, offered a variety of team and individual sports, and provided free, regular physical and dental examinations. They offered classes in carpentry, woodcraft, electrical skills, writing, painting, typing, radio operations, photography, and model airplane building. They also instructed boys in music, drama, and comedy, staged shows, and sponsored marching bands. They maintained libraries including fiction, nonfiction, newspapers, and magazines. Stories were read aloud to younger children. Their chief objective was to prepare boys from low-income families for the responsibilities they must face. During the war a large number of members left the BCA to enter the military, and many returned afterward. Hoover quickly became the BCA’s most visible promoter and most prolific fund-raiser, tapping his network of wealthy friends, corporations, and foundations, delivering speeches nationwide, and sending out thousands of personal letters. Despite a shortage of resources during the war, the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation donated $10,000 in 1943, and that year the W. K. Kellogg Foundation gave $25,000. Hoover also assisted the organization with generous bequests from friends. He frequently spoke at the annual banquet. Hoover operated primarily at the national level, but he also delivered speeches to help clubs in major cities raise money for large capital expenditures, such as buildings and equipment. He later became an important fund-raiser for a building in New York City, named after him, to house the national headquarters.34

  FIFTEEN

  The Truman Years

  Herbert Hoover’s relationship with Harry S. Truman was more complicated than his association with Roosevelt. Truman was a professional politician, a product of the notoriously corrupt Pendergast machine of Kansas City who believed, as do most politicians, that survival came first, which meant winning. A political realist, he was not above hyperbole to win votes, and, as Hoover discovered, party loyalty sometimes came ahead of personal loyalty. He was politically expedient and willing to cut expeditious deals.1

  Yet by the standards of politics, Truman was an honest man. For Hoover, the new president’s temperament was a refreshing change after Roosevelt. He lacked FDR’s conceit, vindictiveness, and unquenchable thirst for power. Competent and decisive, though not brilliant, the former Missouri senator was an average speaker who did not dominate Congress as FDR did. He was kind, yet hardheaded and practical, less idealistic than Hoover, and more liberal. Basically fair, usually modest, he had never ambitiously sought the presidency. Like Hoover, he could be blunt, had simple tastes and a happy marriage, and was religious, yet occasionally profane. The product of small-town, rural America, Truman, like Hoover, had experienced poverty and had worked with his hands. Both men were individualists, sometimes pugnaciously so.

  Self-educated, Truman was the last president without a college education. He was reasonably well-read, though he lacked Hoover’s erudition and philosophical depth. Still, Truman and Hoover enjoyed a mutual respect that deepened to affinity. As the only two living ex-presidents for a time, they developed a relationship that blossomed into empathy and friendship. Though they belonged to opposing political parties, their political ideologies were anchored primarily in common sense. Each man was suspicious of the liberal intellectuals who had gravitated to the New Deal and influenced FDR. Both men could identify each other’s inconsistencies perhaps more easily than they could see their own foibles. “One day I find in him a devoted public servant,” Hoover said of Truman, and “the next time I find him to be a Pendergast-machine politician who will do anything for a vote.” Truman could praise a Hoover speech as spellbinding in 1948 and a few weeks later accuse him of leading the nation into the Okefenokee Swamp of the Great Depression.2

  Hoover’s intuition told him Truman would be a change for the better. FDR had trampled his reputation after the 1932 campaign, but he now hoped that the new president would dam the stream of vitriol. Truman soon began to invite Hoover back into the fold of public service with incremental steps, overtures of respect that in time blossomed into a cordial friendship, though never a political alliance, comparable to the twilight correspondence of Thomas Jefferson and John Adams. Unlike Jefferson and Adams, Hoover and Truman went beyond expressions of mutual admiration to active, nonpolitical collaboration.

  Henry Stimson helped arrange the initial contact by inviting Hoover to meet with him, explaining Truman was amenable to befriending Hoover. The former president was wary at first, questioning the man’s motives. He wanted the invitation to originate with the president, he informed Stimson, partly because that was the only way to shield himself from the leftists in the Democratic entourage. They could hardly belittle the actions of their own leader. Several friends of Hoover talked with Truman, striving to set up a meeting. Truman was quite interested; he said the former chief executive would have his total attention and the visit would be substantive, not merely a formality.3

  After turning down several invitations to meet with Stimson, who had now served in the cabinet of two Republican and two Democratic presidents, Hoover finally met with his former secretary of state on May 13, 1945. Although Stimson had never been Hoover’s favorite cabinet member, he was always deferential and had great respect for his former boss. Despite his initial misgivings, Hoover was encouraged by what Stimson told him about Truman. He departed with the impression that Truman could prove to be a better president than Dewey might have been. He seemed to have more steel in his backbone.4

  In May, Hoover began to flesh out some ideas for a compromise peace with Japan that would save American lives, preserve Japanese sustainability as an economic power, restore Chinese sovereignty, and stifle Soviet expansion. He believed the Japanese had given Korea a better government than it had before they occupied the peninsula. He did not know the timetable of the plan to use the atomic bomb, but if he had, he would have opposed it. He later complained that the A-bombs that scorched Japan needlessly killed women and children and opened opportunities for expansion to the Soviets. Hoover discussed his plan with his friend Joseph P. Kennedy, who agreed on the main points, including Hoover’s idea of making it appear that the overture for peace originated with Chiang Kai-shek and permitting the Japanese to retain Emperor Hirohito.5

  Hoover was concerned with Soviet expansionism in Asia, pointing out that Stalin had a ravenous appetite for swallowing smaller nations. To prolong the war against Japan, he observed, “we are likely to have won the war for Russia’s benefit just as we have done in Europe.” Hoover drew up a memorandum summarizing his plan for Stimson. He stated that Japan should be compelled to withdraw from China, including Manchuria, but retain Korea and Formosa. Japan would be required to fully disarm, but no reparations would be exacted. Hoover’s plan would preserve capitalism and free trade throughout the region and Japan would be spared an American military government. In many respects it might have produced a better outcome than the one that actually occurred. Because the terms were relatively generous and Japan would save face by keeping Korea and Formosa, as well as by surrendering directly to Chiang, it is reasonable to expect they might have accepted.6

  At the time FDR died, Hoover had written the
new president, “All Americans will wish you strength for your gigantic task. You have the right to call for any service in aid of the country.” Thus Hoover had already made himself available when Truman became interested in seeking the ex-president’s advice about food relief. Truman also believed it had been rude of Roosevelt to exclude Hoover from any service or recognition. When the opportunity occurred, however, Hoover wanted a personal invitation from the new president. After his long absence, he did not want to seem presumptuous, and he also considered it beneath the dignity of a former president to call upon a sitting president uninvited. Hoover also knew that some of the New Deal holdovers in the new administration opposed inviting him. His pride was another factor, and he wanted to be certain he was welcome. Finally, on May 24, 1945, Truman wrote, “If you should be in Washington, I would be most happy to talk over the European food situation with you. Also it would be a pleasure for me to become acquainted with you.”7

  When Hoover finally met Truman on May 28, he explained his plan for relief to the president, a plan he had already discussed with Stimson and with several of Truman’s emissaries. They had opposed some specific details, such as Hoover’s belief that the army was the institution best equipped to handle the logistics of relief. Hoover emphasized that the next ninety days were critical in averting famine. The two men discussed domestic food conditions, which Hoover said were entangled in red tape. Abroad, he urged Truman not to trust Stalin and to protect American interests. War would be folly, however. It might decimate the remnants of Western civilization. Truman listened carefully to a plan Hoover had earlier discussed with Stimson to make peace overtures to Japan through Chiang Kai-shek. Hoover’s plan would end the war quickly, before the Soviets could grab portions of the Japanese Empire. Truman asked his new friend to provide a detailed memorandum explaining the peace plan. Hoover hurried home to compose his memorandum and to summarize his thoughts on food relief. Though he liked Truman, Hoover did not seriously expect to be called to service. He speculated that his meeting was nothing more than a courtesy and assumed Truman might have political motives. In reality, Truman liked Hoover’s ideas, although he did not implement all of them. Further, he was impressed by the former president’s cogent presentation and the quality of his mind. Already, he respected Hoover at a distance.8

  Early in 1946, after the president had abruptly ended the war by the atomic bombing of Hiroshima on August 6, 1945, and Nagasaki on August 9, Truman invited Hoover to visit the White House again. In a productive meeting, the men laid explicit plans to maximize Hoover’s availability to the new administration and tap his residual reservoir of humanitarian instincts. It launched Hoover on a second career in relief, provided him a sense of purpose, and, he later commented, added ten years to his life. The common purpose marked the genesis of a bond between the president and the ex-president. It also furnished the opportunity Hoover had long sought: the opportunity to resurrect his reputation. On March 16, 1946, the Master of Emergencies delivered a nationwide radio appeal for food conservation in order to save 500 million people from famine, then departed on a special C-54 christened The Faithful Cow. Hoover traveled throughout Europe, gathering statistical data, unplugging bottlenecks, and interviewing presidents, prime ministers, and food experts, as well as collecting documents for his War Library. He was received by Pope Pius XII, whom he asked to intercede with Latin American leaders, especially Juan Perón of Argentina, who controlled a large surplus of beef. The former president, constantly on the move, took no time away from work. The Chief seemed to thrive on activity. His most important assignment was to collect data on the precise food needs of the malnourished countries and to identify others that had surplus food to export. Everywhere, he preached the gospel of conservation. At the beginning of his tour, the Great Humanitarian had estimated an 11-million-ton gap in cereal necessities, yet he trimmed that by 4 million tons by implementing stringent conservation pledges. He also proposed to expand a feeding program for 40 million undernourished European children. At the conclusion of his travels he spoke to an international radio audience from London about “hundreds of millions” of people waging a personal war against hunger. Badly undernourished children were prey to diseases such as tuberculosis, rickets, and anemia in their weakened condition. Part of Hoover’s itinerary included the Indian subcontinent, where he talked with the country’s leader, Jawaharlal Nehru, and Mahatma Gandhi.9

  In April President Truman feared the American voluntary food conservation program was faltering and asked Hoover to return to deliver a series of speeches inspiring his countrymen. Hoover dissented; he wanted to continue his mission through Asia. They compromised when Hoover halted in Cairo to deliver a radio broadcast distributed worldwide, calling for greater sacrifice to avert famine before the next harvest. The appeal seemed effective, and he continued his trek eastward. From Japan, Hoover distributed a press dispatch. The Japanese faced starvation. “Japan must have food imports,” he stressed. “Without them, all Japan will be on a ration little better than that which the Germans gave to the Buchenwald and Belsen concentration camps,” he pleaded. “Moreover, unless there are food imports the people will not have the stamina to work upon reconstruction or in the fields for the next crop.”10

  Hoover returned to America to find imminent rail and shipping strikes and a crippling coal stoppage frustrating food deliveries to the hungry nations. He warned that the coal strike might cause hundreds of thousands of deaths abroad. “If the railroad strike takes place it will mean death to millions,” he continued. “If the shipping strike takes place it will be a holocaust. . . . There is only 30 to 60 days’ supply of food in the famine area of 27 nations. They have five months to go until the next harvest.”11

  On May 13 Hoover summarized his eight-week inspection in the form of a yardstick of hunger. Two days later, President Truman responded that “the collection of basic facts had been an arduous and difficult task” and that the former president had “provided a great service to your country and to humanity in making possible for each of us to know better the extent of world distress and to measure the magnitude of our responsibilities.” Truman then asked Hoover to undertake yet another journey, to Latin America, to ascertain the prospect of obtaining food exports to the famished nations. Hoover quickly consented, urging the grain-producing nations to undertake conservation to furnish grain to the bread-starved nations. One day later Hoover and Truman discussed his trip personally and issued a request to Stalin to join the food-conservation effort, though Hoover considered the prospect dim. The ex-president explained to the sitting chief executive that only a truculent attitude toward the Russians made the slightest impression on Stalin. On May 25 Hoover complained about the selfishness of labor unions that incited strikes, which caused suffering to millions. Long a supporter of labor, he now felt that leaders of big unions had grown arrogant and threatened not only American transportation but also international trade. They should not take prosperity for granted, he cautioned. America had suffered severely from the war, and self-seeking attitudes could devastate the economy.12

  In late May, Hoover embarked on a trip of Latin America with a twenty-five-day itinerary. “Mr. Hoover’s willingness to undertake these arduous assignments underscores his deep patriotism and his high qualifications,” the Columbus (OH) Evening Dispatch wrote. Hoover elicited promises for the export of 2 million tons of food in the Southern Hemisphere. Argentina had been especially cooperative after President Truman’s emissary strove to patch up shaky relations with the southern nation. Hoover helped arrange the sale of the Latin American surplus, dispatching Liberty ships to transport the grain to European and Asian ports. The trip involved physical pain for the aging statesman. A fall in the bathtub caused a contusion in his back. Upon his return, Hoover’s friend the publisher John C. O’Laughlin informed him that the Truman administration was extremely gratified by his efforts. Truman was attempting to override resistance from holdovers from the Roosevelt administration to restore
the original name, Hoover Dam, to the massive structure near Las Vegas that Harold Ickes had spitefully renamed Boulder Dam. O’Laughlin also wrote that Truman planned to continue to consult Hoover about national policies.13

  On June 28, 1946, Hoover delivered his last major internationally broadcast speech about food relief at Ottawa via the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation. He thanked the Canadians for their contributions and explained that along with the United States, Australia, and Argentina, they had shouldered 90 percent of the burden of world relief. At Truman’s request, he had covered fifty thousand miles, including all nations experiencing food deficits and the major providers of surpluses, except for Australia and South Africa. He had “discussed crops, animals, calories, rations, stocks, ships, railroads, supplies and hunger with the Presidents, the Prime Ministers, the good officials of each of these nations.” The honorary chairman of the Famine Emergency Committee concluded that hunger had been arrested in every nation except China. He was still concerned about feeding the children and made recommendations that ultimately resulted in the creation of the United Nations International Children’s Fund.14