Category Archives: Herbert Hoover

Herbert Hoover and the Belgian Humanitarian Crisis

Today marks the 100th Anniversary of Herbert Hoover’s great humanitarian work in the First World War. His great granddaughter, Margaret Hoover, shared this poster today on her facebook page.

Starting a hundred years ago, President Hoover spent the last half century of his life serving his country, as Commerce Secretary, President, and Humanitarian. Fifty years ago today, the State of Iowa was preparing for the late President’s State Funeral. You can read more at the Cedar Rapids Gazette. You can also read more posts about President Hoover on my blog.

References

Herbert Hoover at Wikipedia

Herbert Hoover National Historic Site

Herbert Hoover Presidential Library and Museum

Hoover Institution at Stanford University

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Death of Herbert Hoover, 1964

Herbert Hoover, 1874-1964.

Milwaukee Journal, Oct. 20, 1964.

On this day fifty years ago, President Herbert Clark Hoover died in New York. A native of Iowa and a graduate of Stanford University, he was a successful mining engineer. During and after both world wars, he was first and foremost a humanitarian. During the 1920’s as Secretary of Commerce, he was largely responsible for the regulatory scheme that allowed radio to flourish.

Hoover was involved in public life for half a century. Fifty years before his death, almost to the day, he was named chairman of the commission charged with the relief of Belgium. The Richmond (Virginia) Times Dispatch for October 22, 1914, carries the following report:

At last real action has been taken for the relief of the Belgians, upon whom has fallen the great burden of suffering from the war. An American commission, headed by Herbert C. Hoover, of California, and composed of Americans resident in London and Brussels, as the result of an agreement reached between Belgium, Great Britain and Germany, will take under its charge the care of hundreds of thousands of Belgians threatened with starvation in their own country.

And President Hoover continued to serve the country long after he left the Oval Office. Here’s what stated on his 85th Birthday, on Meet The Press, August 9, 1959:

Mr. Hoover: My feeling is that we have involved ourselves in too many crises and that our major job today is to clean up our own household, that we are in more imminent dangers from internal causes than we are from the cold war.

Mr. Wilson: Which are you referring to, sir?

Mr. Hoover: We’re fast drifting into inflation, unbalanced budgets, overspending by Congress, the huge growth of crime. There are half a dozen different things that infest the public mind with worry, anxiety, that need to be cleaned up at home.

Mr. Wilson: Have these things weakened us so much that we can’t stand out strong against Russia?

Mr. Hoover: No, I wouldn’t want anybody to think for a moment that the American people are not capable of solving any crisis. As a matter of fact, this nation is now in its 183rd year, and it has lasted longer than any representative government.

It has gone through seven wars, has gone through three great depressions. It has had some bad administrations in Washington; it has fallen on evil days in every one of the wars which we’ve fought, which produced a series of crises, and yet, after all that, we still have of the original heritage of the American people a very large part of what the forefathers established. We still have a freedom of religion, freedom of press, freedom of assembly, freedom of enterprise within the limits of some socialistic tack, freedom of speech within the limits of very mild laws on the subject. Generally, we possess today the same vitality, the genius, the initiative and the ability to solve these crises that we have in the past. We need to be more diligent on the job.

References

Herbert Hoover at Wikipedia

Herbert Hoover National Historic Site

Herbert Hoover Presidential Library and Museum

Hoover Institution at Stanford University

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Mister, We Could Use A Man Like Herbert Hoover Again, Part 3: Outbreak of War

Herbert Hoover in about 1920. Google Books.

A hundred years ago, the forces of war were relentlessly at work in Europe, but few other than heads of state and diplomats knew that the continent was about to erupt into conflict. Tens of thousands of Americans were in Europe, and the outbreak of hostilities caught them by surprise.

This article from the Liberal (Kansas) Democrat of August 14, 1914, reports the plight of those Americans who found themselves in Europe. Most found themselves stranded, food was scarce, and a great number of them found themselves penniless. One woman with two children, for example, was reported to be stranded in Prussia without cash but holding $2500 in checks.

The self-made millionaire mining engineer Herbert Hoover would later relate that this was the time that he ceased to be a private citizen. He became renowned for his relief efforts for Belgium, and later for the rest of Europe. And he began by assisting stranded Americans in London. The paper reports:

Herbert C. Hoover, a Californian, opened an office today in the American consulate and advanced amounts of $25 and upward to persons unable to get money by other means. Altogether Mr. Hoover gave assistance to 300 Americans who were absolutely without cash and announced that he would continue to aid them as long as his currency lasted.

As author Vernon Kellog later described this venture:

He gathered together all his available money and that of American friends and opened a unique bank which had no depositors and took in no money, but continuously gave it out against personal checks signed by unknown but American-looking people on unknown banks in Walla Walla and Fresno and Grand Rapids and Dubuque and Emporia and New Bedford. And he found rooms in hotels and passage on steamers, first-class, second-class or steerage, as happened to be possible. Now on all these checks and promises to pay, just $250 failed to be realized by the man who took a risk on American honesty to the extent of several hundred thousand dollars.

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Herbert Hoover Ponders Deputizing Hams

Radio Fan Getting the Time and Weather Observations Over the Wireless. It Will Not Be Long Before the Radiophone Will be One of the Necessities of the Home. Richmond Times-Dispatch, April 23, 1922, page 3.

92 years ago today, the Richmond Times-Dispatch of April 23, 1922, reported the possibility that amateur radio operators would serve as deputies of the Commerce Department in policing the airwaves. The paper reports that Commerce Secretary Herbert Hoover was favorably disposed to a recommendation that deputy radio inspectors be elected from the ranks of hams. Once deputized, these inspectors would endeavor to secure strict observance of the radio communications laws. If the law required compensation, then these deputies would serve for a payment of one dollar per year.

The paper pointed out that hams in the Richmond area had already voluntarily observed for a number of years rules of etiquette. For example, in Richmond, local stations had been observing a schedule described thus:

the hours from 6 A.M. to 6 P.M. as “free air,” that is, communications of any kind; 6 P.M. to 7:30 P.M., local communication; 7:30 to 11 P.M., standby for broadcast; 11 P.M. and on, long-distance amateur communication.

The article went on to include the following praise: “The average amateur works in a highly technical manner, particularly if he is a member of the American Radio Relay League, an organization of amateurs stretching all over the United States and permitting of constant communication at all times and places.” It concludes by stating that the “amateur promises to be the backbone of our national system of popular radio, now springing into being.”

Missing Baby Found In Herbert Hoover’s Hometown

The home where newborn baby Herbert Hoover grew up, less than a mile from the BP station where another baby was abandoned. National Park Service photo.

This bizarre story had its happy ending just down the road from the Herbert Hoover birthplace. When a newborn baby was discovered missing from Beloit, Wisconsin, police began calling people who had been in the house. Kristen R. Smith, 22, of Denver, was the mother’s half sister. Her facebook page had recently shown pictures of her being pregnant, and had announced the birth of a child, about the same time as her half sister gave birth to a real baby. When Smith called back from Interstate 80, she denied involvement in the kidnapping. A Beloit police officer instructed her to stop at the next town and find a police officer to search her car and confirm her story.

Smith dutifully complied with this request, and pulled into Herbert Hoover’s hometown of West Branch, Iowa. But before flagging down a local cop, she pulled into the BP-Amoco station and left the baby, wrapped up in blankets, in a grey tote box behind a dumpster.

She then drove to the Kum & Go on the other side of the freeway, where she waved down a passing West Branch police officer and handed him her phone. After talking with the Beloit officer, the West Branch officer performed a search of the car. He didn’t find the baby, but he did find a “prosthetic pregnancy belly”.

Fortunately, the courts will not need to grapple with the issue of whether possession of a prosthetic pregnancy belly gives probable cause for a kidnapping arrest. Lo and behold, Smith was wanted in Texas, and the West Branch officer arrested her under the Texas warrant. Smith was taken to a warm jail, where she denied any knowledge of the baby she had left in the subzero temperatures only hours before.

An all-out search began for the missing baby. Friday morning, thirty hours after the infant had been left outside in the cold, the West Branch Police Chief was searching behind the BP station. He opened the tote box, heard crying, and found the baby inside.

The baby was taken to the hospital, but was miraculously unscathed.

For more details:

Mister, we could use a man like Herbert Hoover again. Part 2: Good American Food for Your Folks in Europe

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One of the galleries of the Hoover Library and Museum is dedicated to his years as a humanitarian. Hoover was a self-made millionaire as a mining engineer. He was in London at the outbreak of the First World War, and essentially took it upon himself to repatriate many Americans who were there at the time. He was later called upon by the U.S. Government to organize relief for Belgium which he did, despite vehement criticism that he was aiding the enemy by bringing food to the citizens of of Belgium. Interestingly, one of the protests was that he was prolonging the war. The argument was that the Germans should have to deal with the inevitable food riots if the innocent civilians of the occupied country were simply left to starve.

After the war, Hoover continued his humanitarian work through the American Relief Administration. I’d never known much about the details of this work, and I was surprised to see this poster in the museum. It was a surprisingly good idea. Millions in Europe were facing starvation. But millions of them also had a glimmer of hope, in the form of relatives in America. The American Relief Administration merely put into place a mechanism by which these Americans could help their own family: Americans could go to a bank, and for $10 or $50 buy a food draft which could be sent to buy “good American food for your folks in Europe.”

These drafts could be purchased here, and redeemed at warehouses in Poland, Austria, Czechoslovakia, Hungary, and Germany. The system is explained in this memorandum to American bankers requesting their cooperation. As Hoover writes in that circular, “the sum total of food now available in Central Europe is insufficient to keep the population alive, and under these circumstances money thus becomes that much paper so far as nutrition is concerned. A hungry man wants food, not money, and under the arrangement outlined above, we can meet this need.” This advertisement from the Spokane Daily Chronicle from January 26, 1920, is from a bank where these vouchers could be purchased.

The scheme worked because it made use of existing institutions: Banking, postal, shipping, and, of course, American agriculture. The few bureaucrats necessary to carry out the program simply had to bring together these existing resources. And it was fueled by the natural generosity of the American people. This generosity wasn’t coerced, and it wasn’t procured through feelings of guilt. It was based upon pre-existing familial relationships. And it served even those Europeans without relatives in America, by increasing the overall food supply to one sufficient for the whole population.

It worked because Hoover knew it would work. He knew the American people were generous enough to help. He used their existing motivations and their existing resources.

Books by Herbert Hoover at Amazon

Mister, We Could Use a Man Like Herbert Hoover Again: Part 1

Secretary of Commerce Herbert Clark Hoover

On Thursday, I had the opportunity to visit the birthplace of the 31st President of the United States, Herbert Hoover in West Branch, Iowa. His birthplace is administered by the National Park Service, and the site is also the home of the Presidential Library and Museum, administered by the National Archives. The late President and First Lady are buried at the site, although I didn’t walk to the grave site in the chilly weather.

As Secretary of Commerce under President Coolidge, Hoover had a major positive impact upon the growth of radio, which I’ll discuss in future posts. The picture shows him listening to what certainly appears to be a one tube radio. His son, Herbert Hoover, Jr., was a licensed ham, and one of the exhibits contains a nice picture of the younger Hoover’s station. Herbert Hoover, Jr., went on to become president of the ARRL in the 1960’s. Herbert Hoover III was also a ham, and only recently became a silent key.

I suspect that the late President would be pleased to know that his birthplace and final resting place is the home of a nice radio beacon on 435 meters. As you approach the site at exit 254 on Interstate 80, there’s a sign announcing that information is available at 690 on the AM dial. This is a “travelers information station” which plays a continuous loop promoting the site. According to the FCC database, the station is licensed to the City of West Branch, and transmits with 10 watts. It appears to be maintained by Graybill Communications.

Anyone who knows me won’t be surprised to know what I did on the way back to Des Moines. I tuned the radio to 690 to see how well the little station was doing. I was able to copy it more or less solid for about 25 miles. When I got further away, there was occasionally some co-channel interference, but I was able to positively ID it as far as mile marker 215, a full 39 miles away. I think the former Commerce Secretary would be pleased at how well the 10 watts are getting out from his final resting place.

And the next time you’re driving east on Interstate 80 through the Hawkeye state, be sure to tune your radio to 690 when you get to milepost 215. And if you’re westbound, I suspect you should tune in at around mile 293. You’ll slowly start to hear a voice come out of the static. And when you get to mile 254, it’s worth a stop to learn about the man without whom this kind of experiment probably wouldn’t have been possible.