Herbert Hoover

by Glen Jeansonne

  39. Clements, Imperfect Visionary, 39; Bertrand Patenaude, The Big Show in Bololand: The American Relief Expedition to Soviet Russia in the Famine of 1921 (Stanford, CA, 2002), 39; Burner, Hoover: A Public Life, 130–32.

  40. Patenaude, Big Show in Bololand, 6; Clements, Imperfect Visionary, 149.

  41. Clements, Imperfect Visionary, 155.

  42. Patenaude, Big Show in Bololand, 59, 67.

  43. Ibid., 1, 67, 75.

  44. Ibid., 264–68.

  45. Clements, Imperfect Visionary, 153–55; Patenaude, Big Show in Bololand, 60–61.

  46. Patenaude, Big Show in Bololand, title page to part 1.

  47. Ibid., 77, 81; Clements, Imperfect Visionary, 156. Haskell quote from Patenaude, Big Show in Bololand, 125.

  48. Patenaude, Big Show in Bololand, 102, 108–9. Quote on 102.

  49. Ibid., 104.

  50. Ibid., 107.

  51. Ibid., 72.

  52. Ibid., 127, 135.

  53. Clements, Imperfect Visionary, 157, 160; Sketch of Hoover, 1945, 10, Sketches of Hoover, 1940–49, Box 39, HHPL.

  54. Steinberg, Herbert Hoover, 189.

  55. Smith, An Uncommon Man, 95.

  56. Transcript, White Book 2, June 29, 1948, HHPL.

  57. Washington Post and Times Herald, February 25, 1959, White Book 2, HHPL.

  Chapter 6. Secretary of Commerce, Locomotive of the Economy

  1. See Kendrick A. Clements, The Life of Herbert Hoover: Imperfect Visionary, 1918–1928 (New York, 2010), 103, for quotation. See also Harris Gaylord Warren, Herbert Hoover and the Great Depression (New York, 1967), 26; Robert K. Murray, “Herbert Hoover and the Harding Cabinet,” in Ellis W. Hawley, ed., Herbert Hoover as Secretary of Commerce: Studies in New Era Thought and Practice (Iowa City, IA, 1981), 20–21.

  2. Murray, “Herbert Hoover and the Harding Cabinet,” 33–34; Hoover to Harding, November 29, 1921, Commerce Papers (hereafter cited as CP), Box 480, President Harding, 1921, October–November, Herbert Hoover Presidential Library (hereafter cited as HHPL); Hoover Memoranda to Harding, March–May, 1923, CP, Box 481, HHPL; George B. Christian to Hoover, March 17, 1921, CP, Box 480, President Harding, HHPL; Christian to Hoover, April 14, April 29, 1921, CP, Box 480, President Harding, HHPL; Harding to Hoover, March 11, 1929, CP, Box 480, President Harding, HHPL; Harding to Hoover, May 14, 1921, CP, Box 480, President Harding, HHPL.

  3. Clements, Imperfect Visionary, xi. For the best synopsis of Hoover’s philosophy see Herbert Hoover, American Individualism (New York, 1922), published while he was secretary of commerce.

  4. Clements, Imperfect Visionary, x–xii, 232–33; Ellis W. Hawley, “Herbert Hoover, the Commerce Secretariat, and the Vision of an Associative State, 1921–1928,” Journal of American History 61, no. 1 (June 1974): 117; David Hinshaw, Herbert Hoover: American Quaker (New York, 1950), 121–22; David Burner, Herbert Hoover: A Public Life (New York, 1979), 157.

  5. Murray, “Herbert Hoover and the Harding Cabinet,” 30–33. On tax policy see Hoover to Harding, November 28, 1921 (memo enclosed), CP, Box 480, President Harding, 1921, October–November, HHPL; Harding to Hoover, December 6, 1921, CP, Box 480, President Harding, 1921, December, HHPL.

  6. Clements, Imperfect Visionary, 105–6, 286–87, 314, 343; Hawley, “Herbert Hoover, the Commerce Secretariat,” 137; Harold Wolfe, Herbert Hoover: Public Servant and Leader of the Loyal Opposition (New York, 1956), 103–5.

  7. Clements, Imperfect Visionary, 143.

  8. Ellis W. Hawley, “Herbert Hoover and Economic Stabilization, 1921–1922,” in Hawley, Herbert Hoover as Secretary of Commerce, 44; Alfred Steinberg, Herbert Hoover (New York, 1967), 186–87.

  9. Craig Lloyd, Aggressive Introvert: Herbert Hoover and Public Relations Management, 1912–1932 (Columbus, OH, 1972), 134–38; Burner, Hoover: A Public Life, 164–66; George T. Odell, “Producing Half a Billion Dollars in Business,” Trade Winds (May 1925), 8–11, CP, Box 121, Commerce Department Achievements, HHPL; David M. Kennedy, Freedom from Fear: The American People in Depression and War, 1929–1945 (New York, 1999), 48.

  10. Burner, Hoover: A Public Life, 177; Hawley, “Herbert Hoover and Economic Stabilization, 1921–1922,” 55–56, 62–64; Clements, Imperfect Visionary, 117–18, 119–22, 251; Hoover to Thomas O’Neill, October 20, 1921, CP, Box 507, Railroads, Strikes, 1921, October 17–20, HHPL; Hoover to Robert A. Taft, September 25, 1922, CP, Box 593, Taft, Robert A, 1923–28, HHPL.

  11. Lloyd, Aggressive Introvert, 139–41; Wolfe, Hoover: Public Servant, 101–2. See the exchange of letters engineered by Hoover including Harding to Judge Gary, June 13, 1923 [ghosted by Hoover], CP, Box 481, President Harding, 1923, June–December, HHPL, and Hoover to Harding, April 8, 1922, CP, Box 234, Gary, Elbert H., 1920–26, HHPL.

  12. Richard Norton Smith, An Uncommon Man: The Triumph of Herbert Hoover (New York, 1984), 99; Wolfe, Hoover: Public Servant, 92; Hawley, “Herbert Hoover, the Commerce Secretariat,” 120–22.

  13. Hawley, “Herbert Hoover, the Commerce Secretariat,” 123–29; Clements, Imperfect Visionary, 110–11, 254–55; Congressional Record—House 69 (1928), 203, White Book 2, HHPL; CP, Box 120, Department Achievements, 1921–23, HHPL; CP, Box 191, Elimination of Waste in Industry, 1925, March–December, and 1927–28 and undated, HHPL.

  14. Clements, Imperfect Visionary, 221–24, 288, 322–23; Statement by Secretary Hoover to Christian Science Monitor on Housing, March 25, 1922, 1–6, CP, Box 89, Christian Science Monitor, 1922–25, HHPL; Analysis of Housing, #1, CP, Box 63, Building and Housing, 1921, HHPL.

  15. Clements, Imperfect Visionary, 240–46, 362–63; Herbert Hoover, The Memoirs of Herbert Hoover, vol. 2, The Cabinet and the Presidency, 1920–1933 (New York, 1952), 177–79; Lewis L. Strauss Memo on War Debts, 1–2, CP, Box 78, Strauss, Lewis L., HHPL.

  16. Burner, Hoover: A Public Life, 184–85; Clements, Imperfect Visionary, 242, 307–8; Hoover to Mr. R. W. Farr, August 31, 1921, CP, Box 208, Foreign Bond Speculation, 1921, HHPL; Hoover Memo to Harding Warning of Foreign Loans, November 30, 1921, CP, Box 480, President Harding, 1921, October–November.

  17. Hoover, Memoirs, 2:49; Clements, Imperfect Visionary, 265–68; Smith, An Uncommon Man, 102.

  18. San Francisco Examiner, August 1, 1923, CP, Box 481, President Harding, Illness, Tributes, Letters of Sympathy, 1923, July–August, HHPL; Hoover, Memoirs, 2:49–51; Steinberg, Herbert Hoover, 192–93.

  19. Statement of President Coolidge, CP, Box 476, President Coolidge, 1924, January; Steinberg, Herbert Hoover, 193–94; Hoover, Memoirs, 2:54.

  20. Hoover, Memoirs, 2:54–55.

  21. Eugene Lyons, Herbert Hoover: A Biography (Garden City, NY), 170; Wolfe, Hoover: Public Servant, 95; Hoover to Coolidge, November 3, 1924; Bascomp Slemp [Coolidge’s secretary] to Hoover, November 3, 1924; Hoover to Coolidge, November 11, 1924, all in CP, Box 477, President Coolidge, October–November, HHPL. For an example of a speech Hoover wrote for Coolidge see paragraphs of the president’s message on Muscle Shoals, November 19, 1923, CP, Box 476, President Coolidge, 1923–November, HHPL.

  22. Martin L. Fausold, The Presidency of Herbert Hoover (Lawrence, KS, 1985), 21.

  23. For Coolidge’s brief snubbing of Hoover, for which he apologized, see Los Angeles Times, April 16, 1920; Washington Star, April 20, 1920; New York World, April 20, 1920; New York Times, April 20, 1920, all in President Coolidge, Statements to the Press, News Accounts, April 16–20, 1920, CP, Box 479, Coolidge, Statements to the Press, HHPL.

  24. Radio Division, Department of Commerce, CP, Box 1, Accomplishments of the Department of Commerce, 1921–28, 1–2, HHPL; “Radio Talk by Secretary Hoover, Washington, DC, March 24, 1924, 1–9, CP, Box 489, Radio, Correspondence, Press Releases, Misc., 1924, January–March, HHPL; Hoover to Secretary of State, January 5, 1923, CP, Box 501, Radio-International Problems, 1923–27 and undated, HHPL; Ray Lyman Wilbur and
Arthur Mastick Hyde, The Hoover Policies (New York, 1937), 207–14.

  25. Interview given by former president Hoover in 1952—reminisces about radio, Hoover and Radio, 3, “Radio Gets a Policeman,” Post-Presidential Papers (PPP), Box 103, Campaign, 1952, HHPL.

  26. “Hoover Helps Transmit TV,” CP, Box 598, Television, 1926–27; Smith, An Uncommon Man, 100; Clements, Imperfect Visionary, 354.

  27. Wilbur and Hyde, The Hoover Policies, 216–19; Hoover, Memoirs, 2:133–34; Interview with Hoover published in Boston American, October 13, 1924, CP, Box 39, Aviation, 1922–24, 1–3; Summary on Civil Aeronautics, 1927, CP, Box 479, 1–2, President Coolidge, November–December, HHPL; Secretary of Commerce, Aviation 1926–28, CP, Box 40, 1–3, Aviation, 1926–28 and undated, HHPL; Summary, 1921–28, Activities in the Aeronautical Line, CP, Box 1, Accomplishments of the Department of Commerce, 1921–28 (summarized).

  28. Hoover, Memoirs, 2:72; CP, Box 120, Achievements, 1924, May–June, press release, June 26, 1924, 1–2, HHPL; Clements, Imperfect Visionary, 295.

  29. Kendrick A. Clements, Hoover, Conservation, and Consumerism: Engineering the Good Life (Lawrence, KS, 2000), 79.

  30. Clements, Imperfect Visionary, 371.

  31. Will Irwin, Herbert Hoover: A Reminiscent Biography (New York, 1928), 305; Clements, Hoover, Conservation, and Consumerism, 79.

  32. Wilbur and Hyde, The Hoover Policies, 255–59; Hoover, Memoirs, 2:112–16; Burner, Hoover: A Public Life, 178–82; Wolfe, Hoover: Public Servant, 105; Coolidge Appoints Hoover to St. Lawrence Commission, Coolidge to Hoover, March 10, 1924, CP, Box 477, President Coolidge, 1924–March, HHPL.

  33. Wolfe, Hoover: Public Servant, 105–6; Clements, Hoover, Conservation, and Consumerism, 132–33; Wilbur and Hyde, The Hoover Policies, 279–82.

  34. Clements, Imperfect Visionary, 125, 300–301; Hoover to Coolidge, March 14, 1925; Everett Sanders to Hoover, March 16, 1925, CP, Box 477, President Coolidge, 1925–March, HHPL.

  35. Clements, Hoover, Conservation, and Consumerism, 61–64.

  36. Clements, Imperfect Visionary, 274–75.

  37. Clements, Hoover, Conservation, and Consumerism, 66–71; Wilbur and Hyde, The Hoover Policies, 241–45; press release, June 30, 1924, Accomplishments in Fishing, CP, Box 120, 1924, May–June, HHPL; Summary of Accomplishments, Bureau of Fisheries, CP, Box 1, 1921–28, 1–3, HHPL.

  38. Joseph Brandes, “Product Diplomacy: Herbert Hoover’s Anti-Monopoly Campaign at Home and Abroad,” 191–203, in Hawley, Herbert Hoover as Secretary of Commerce; “Herbert Hoover’s Fight Against Raw Material Monopoly,” 1921–28, 1–11, CP, Box 1, Accomplishments of the Administration, HHPL; Hoover Statement to the House Committee on Interstate and Foreign Commerce on Monopolies of Raw Materials Imports to the U.S., January 6, 1925, 1–2, CP, Box 135, HHPL.

  39. Investigation of Raw Materials Controlled by Cartels, CP, Box 121, Commerce Department Achievements, 1924, August–December and undated, 11–14, HHPL; Hoover to Senator Arthur Capper, December 10, 1925, CP, Box 77, Arthur Capper, 1914–28, HHPL; Hoover, Memoirs, 2:79–84; Congressional Record—House 69 (1928), 203, White Book 2, HHPL.

  40. Lloyd, Aggressive Introvert, 139.

  41. Press release, December 31, 1925, Hoover, “Economic Prospects for 1926,” CP, Box 188, Economic Situation in the U.S., 1925–28, 5–6, HHPL.

  42. New York Evening Post, January 3, 1927.

  43. See the exchange of letters including I. L. Lenroot to D. R. Crissinger, November 23, 1925; Crissinger to Lenroot, December 10, 1925; Lenroot to Crissinger, December 23, 1925, all in CP, Box 199, 1925–33, HHPL. For a synopsis of the 1925 and 1927 negotiations, respectively, see Clements, Imperfect Visionary, 104, 305, and 368–69.

  44. Frederick Simpich, “The Great Mississippi Flood of 1927,” National Geographic Magazine 52, no. 3 (September 1927), 243–89. Quotes on 245.

  45. New York Times, April 26, 1927.

  46. Estimate of Damage, Mississippi Valley Flood Relief Work, Misc., January–April, 1928, CP, Box 397, 1–5, HHPL; Bruce Alan Lohof, “Hebert Hoover and the Mississippi Valley Flood of 1927: A Case Study of the Political Thought of Herbert Hoover” (PhD diss., Syracuse University, 1968), 131–32; Pete Daniel, The 1927 Mississippi River Flood (New York, 1977), 62.

  47. Lohof, “Herbert Hoover and the Mississippi Valley Flood of 1927,” 138–43; Daniel, The 1927 Mississippi River Flood, 93–98; Simpich, “The Great Mississippi Flood of 1927,” 269.

  48. John M. Barry, Rising Tide: The Great Mississippi Flood of 1927 and How It Changed America (New York, 1997), 321–23; New York Age: The National Negro Weekly, June 25, 1927; Hoover to Moton, December 23, 1927; Hoover to R. E. Malone, July 5, 1927, both in CP, Box 404, Mississippi Valley Flood Relief Work, Negroes, HHPL. In the letter to Malone, Hoover expresses gratitude for the loving cup.

  49. Simpich, “The Great Mississippi Flood of 1927,” 270, 287; Lohof, “Herbert Hoover and the Mississippi Valley Flood of 1927,” 81–82, 88–91; Barry, Rising Tide, 253–58.

  50. Smith, An Uncommon Man, 101.

  51. Lohof, “Herbert Hoover and the Mississippi Valley Flood of 1927,” 269, 272.

  52. Barry, Rising Tide, 288.

  53. For a summary of Hoover’s plans for a resettlement corporation see Burner, Hoover: A Public Life, 195–96. For correspondence relating to the conference with philanthropists see William Schieffen to Hoover, February 6, 1928, Robert Moton to Hoover, February 27, 1928, Hoover to Mr. Embry [first name missing], March 6, 1928, all in CP, Box 435, Negroes, Plan to Make Good Farm Land in South Available, 1927–28, HHPL.

  Chapter 7. Into the White House

  1. Donald R. McCoy, “To the White House: Herbert Hoover, August 1927–March 1929,” in Martin Fausold, ed., The Hoover Presidency: A Reappraisal (Albany, NY, 1974), 29–30.

  2. David Hinshaw, Herbert Hoover: American Quaker (New York, 1950), 138.

  3. McCoy, “To the White House,” 30.

  4. Ibid., 30–31; Hinshaw, Hoover: American Quaker, 137–39.

  5. New York Times, February 6, 1928, CF, HHPL; James J. Davis, Presidential Primaries: Road to the White House (Westport, CT, 1980), 295.

  6. Martin Fausold, The Presidency of Herbert Hoover (Lawrence, KS, 1985), 22–23; Maury Klein, Rainbow’s End: The Crash of 1929 (New York, 2001), 139.

  7. Grand Rapids Herald, October 9, 1927, CF, HHPL.

  8. Jackson (MI) Citizen Patriot, September 7, 1927, CF, HHPL.

  9. St. Louis Post-Dispatch, December 21, 1927, CF, HHPL.

  10. Springfield (MA) Republican, January 27, 1928, CF, HHPL.

  11. Harris Gaylord Warren, Herbert Hoover and the Great Depression (New York, 1967), 32.

  12. Orange (NJ) Daily Courier, January 6, 1928, CF, HHPL; telegram, Louis B. Mayer to Mark L. Requa, April 20, 1928, telegram, Cecil B. De Mille to Mark L. Requa, April 20, 1928, CP, Box 78, HHPL.

  13. Dale Carnegie to Hoover, December 15, 1927, CP, Box 78, Carnegie, Dale, 1927, HHPL; Ray Lyman Wilbur, The Memoirs of Ray Lyman Wilbur, ed. Edgar Eugene Robinson and Paul Carroll Edwards (Stanford, CA, 1960), 387–89; Joan Hoff, Herbert Hoover: Forgotten Progressive (Boston, 1975), 123–25.

  14. Chicago Tribune, February 23, 1928, CF, HHPL.

  15. Kendrick A. Clements, The Life of Herbert Hoover: Imperfect Visionary, 1918–1928 (New York, 2010), 404.

  16. David Burner, Herbert Hoover: A Public Life (New York, 1979), 197–98.

  17. Donald Lisio, Hoover, Blacks, and Lily-Whites: A Study of Southern Strategies (Chapel Hill, NC, 1985), 38, 48–49, 51–55.

  18. Clements, Imperfect Visionary, 401; Burner, Hoover: A Public Life, 198–200.

  19. Harold Wolfe, Herbert Hoover: Public Servant and Leader of the Loyal Opposition (New York, 1956), 117; McCoy, “To the White House,” 34–35.

  20. Burner, Hoover: A Public Life, 200; Chicago Tribune, June
7, 1928, June 8, 1928, CF, HHPL; Chicago Daily News, June 11, 1928, CF, HHPL; Helen P. Pryor, Lou Henry Hoover: Gallant First Lady (New York, 1969), 151.

  21. E. S. Rochester, Coolidge-Hoover-Work: An Intimate Review of an Epochal Campaign for the Presidency of the United States (Washington, DC, 1929), 48; Chicago Tribune, June 15, 1928, CF, HHPL; Chicago Daily News, June 15, 1928, CF, HHPL; McCoy, “To the White House,” 35–36.

  22. Fausold, The Presidency of Herbert Hoover, 25.

  23. Burner, Hoover: A Public Life, 200–201; Clements, Imperfect Visionary, 400.

  24. Alfred Steinberg, Herbert Hoover (New York, 1967), 200–201.

  25. Hubert Work Scrapbook, clippings from Toledo Times, June 29, 1928; Washington Post, July 1, 1928; New York Times, July 8, 1928; Chicago Tribune, July 3, 1928, July 5, 1928; Philadelphia Inquirer, August 26, 1928, Box 1, Hoover Institution Archives, Stanford University.

  26. Hal Elliott Wert, Hoover: The Fishing President, Portrait of the Private Man and His Life Outdoors (Mechanicsburg, PA, 2005), 160.

  27. Buffalo Evening News, July 20, 1928, Campaign and Transition Papers (hereafter cited as C&TP), Box 75, HHPL; Chicago Daily News, July 20, 1928, CF, HHPL.

  28. Fausold, The Presidency of Herbert Hoover, 26–27; Wilbur, Memoirs, 398–99; Buffalo Evening News, August 13, 1928, C&TP, Box 75, Subject: Anecdotes, HHPL.

  29. William Starr Myers and Walter H. Newton, The Hoover Administration: A Documented Narrative (New York, 1936), vi.

  30. Hoover, The New Day (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1928), 36.

  31. Ibid., 41.

  32. Ibid., 17–33; Chicago Daily News, August 13, 1928, CF, HHPL; Buffalo Evening News, August 12, 1928, C&TP, Box 75, Anecdotes, HHPL.

  33. Hoover, The New Day, 11.

  34. Ibid., 37.

  35. Chicago Daily News, August 13, 1928, CF, HHPL.

  36. Herbert Hoover, The Memoirs of Herbert Hoover, vol. 3, The Great Depression, 1919–1941 (New York, 1952), 343.