Herbert Hoover

[AllentownJake]

So in my reading on bad economic times I've decided to do some reading on Herbert Hoover.

Appears this guy supported some pretty progressive things. Nationalized oil fields, was pro-regulation, added to the national parks, closed tax loop holes for the wealthy, invested in major infrastructure projects(hoover dam Bay Bridge), built veteran hospitals, pushed tariffs and farm subsidies, Vice President was a Native American, tried to intiate a national volunteer intiative.

He was also a racist that forced African Americans into labor during a flood in Mississippi as commerce secretary and broke every promise he made to the NAACP prior to the 1928 election (African Americans were primarily Republicans till Hoover). Replaced African American party officials with white officials in Southern States and waged a war on Mexican Immigrants and Mexican Americans.

Hoover also had one of those pull yourself up American stories. Orphaned at 8, raised by relatives, graduated in the first class of Stanford. Worked to provide food to the starving after WWI and went to Russia in 1922 despite protest to help starving people there.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Herbert_Hoover

Interesting character in American history. His ideology against massive government interference or regulation ended up killing him during the Great Depression.

Under estimated the problem, over estimated the effect of his solutions.

Hardly the free-market boogeyman he was made out to be though in modern times.

[Warpy]

1. Hoover, unlike that last administration, cared deeply about the country

but his economic policies were GOP economic policies and he found it impossible to break free of that particular dogma.

He did do some of the right things, but too little and far too late.

Like all relatively decent Republicans we used to get pre Reagan, he was a prisoner of bad dogma, but he was a mixed bag who actually did some good along with the bad.

[AllentownJake]

5. I get that from reading about him

Outside of the horrible racism which is common for a White Protestant Male in the 1920s he seems like someone who tried to do right by his country. Just failed to do it because he was in capable of getting out of his belief system.

[Swamp Rat]

2. I wonder if he and Lou Dobbs are related.

[Ruby the Liberal]

3. Just goes to show you how far right our politicians have moved, motivated

by their Corporate donor base.

[AllentownJake]

4. Herbert Hoover is to the left of the democratic party

on some economic issues.

[WI_DEM]

6. Hoover did more than another president up to his time to combat economic depression

but didn't go far enough. He also did a lot to feed the hungry after both world wars. He tends to get a bum rap.

[Captain Hilts]

12. Yes, he does, BUT he did refuse FDR's offer to run the refugee board with ER.

And spent the '30s trashing FDR's policies.

Hell - a fly fisherman - he trashed the impatience of FDR's fishing technique - FDR used bait!

Eleanor: Everybody say 'cheese'!
Franklin: Cheeeesse!
Winston: Whaaa?

[Dogmudgeon]

7. Glad I'm not the only one

:thumbsup:

I posted about him some months ago.

Flawed, as all past presidents have been. The accounts of his racism are particularly unpleasant to read through. But he is still revered in Belgium and Holland, where the post-WWI famine hit hard; he single-handedly organized the early relief effort.

The Hoover Institute website has made a big chunk of his papers and academic writing available online. Sadly, it's been overrun by neo-cons.

H. L. Mencken was similar in many ways -- both were polymaths, both were well-self-educated before and after college. And like Hoover, Mencken trusted the "magic market" over human intelligence, though he lacked most of the racism, and trust of the upper class.

Conservatives fawn over both men, and merit the association with neither.

--d!

[AllentownJake]

8. I read the reason he chose the republican party

is because the only democrat he knew growing up was the town drunk. Outside the racism he is more progressive than Bill Clinton was.

[Captain Hilts]

14. Not a fair comparison to either man. But the allure of progressives like TR

as also really strong. Remember, the most liberal folks around FDR - Eleanor, Ickes, LaGuardia and Wallace were all former Republicans.

Republicans were not the right-wing cranks then that they are now.

But it's important to note that, overall, Hoover's response to the Depression reinforced existing power structures - which was probably the right response at that time. Whereas FDR's dispersed the power to make economic decisions. Aid was individualized and people were no longer tied to their factories, etc. to receive aid. The empowerment of unions - proposed through Sen. Robert Wagner of NY introduced a whole new power center in industrial relations.

[Captain Hilts]

9. Yes!!! Not a bad guy. But he had NO charm, and few communication skills, so charming FDR...

swamped him. Now, I think that is a Good Thing. But HH has been unfairly maligned.

That said, I can't feel sorry for him because he spent the '30s making anti-FDR speeches and refused to run a war refugee board with Eleanor when offered. That would have been a VERY good thing.

[Jack Rabbit]

10. You have him pretty well nailed

Hoover was a free market ideologue, but toward the end of his term he caught a case of the pragmatics. My parents both thought Hoover deserved more credit for some of the measures he took that foreshadowed the New Deal.

My high school American history teacher, although a staunch Republican, said that Hoover's measures such as those you name were "too little and too late."

[AllentownJake]

11. Seems like he had some ambitious goals.

We have not yet reached the goal but... we shall soon, with the help of God, be in sight of the day when poverty shall be banished from this nation.
Herbert Hoover

[Captain Hilts]

13. FYI: William Leuchtenberg, best known for writing about FDR wrote the mini bio of Hoover recently

published as part of a series. It's a Barnes and Noble.

It looks good. We need to re-think HH.

[lunatica]

15. To be fair he excelled in organizing massive food aid to Europe

When there were millions starving after World War 1. To say he did a lot is to understate what he did. He organized the delivery of food on a global level. He worked tirelessly doing it too.

He was not very good at communicating so he didn't talk much, especially to the public which made the public think he was cold and uncaring. He was not Presidential material but he was very good at managing and coordinating international programs.

[LTR]

16. But he was still drinking the Coolidge trickle-down Kool-Aid

And that was his downfall.

He tried to get the government involved, but it was too little, too late. Hoover still clung to the belief that it was best not to get too involved in the crisis. He was still a fiscal conservative.

Hoover was a great commerce secretary, but was too stubborn in his ways as president. He just wasn't flexible enough to deal with the crisis. Roosevelt was.

[rampart]

17. bibliography

jk galbraith " the great crash 1929" is a must read explaining the current troubles.

john barry's "rising tide" about the 1927 flood includes a few of hoover's greatest,
and worst moments.