Herbert Hoover
{hoo'-vur}
Herbert Clark Hoover was the 31st president of the United States.
During his first year in office the Wall Street crash of 1929 occurred. He
was blamed for the resulting collapse of the economy, and his unpopular
policies brought an end to a brilliant career in public office. After the
inauguration of Franklin Delano Roosevelt in 1933, however, Hoover remained
a leading critic of the New Deal and a spokesman for the Republican party.
Early Life
Born on Aug. 10, 1874, the son of a blacksmith in the Iowa village of
West Branch, Hoover was orphaned at the age of eight and sent to live with
an uncle in Oregon. The uncle became wealthy, enabling Hoover to study
mining ...
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London.
Hoover, who as a Quaker passionately believed in peace, was appalled by
the human costs of the war, and he determined to devote his life to public
service. He volunteered to direct the exodus of American tourists from war-
torn Europe and then to head (1915-19) the Commission for Relief in Belgium.
This position brought him public attention as the "great humanitarian," a
well-earned reputation that he lost only after the 1929 Wall Street debacle.
The commission fed 10,000,000 people during the war and left funds for
Belgian postwar reconstruction.
When the United States entered the war in April 1917, Hoover was called
to Washington to serve as food administrator. This was a special wartime
office, created to encourage American agricultural production and food
conservation and to coordinate a rational distribution of food. When the
war ended in November 1918, President Woodrow Wilson sent Hoover back to
Europe to direct the American Relief Administration, an agency ...
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the
virtues of science. Rational principles could point the way to
disinterested fairness in public policy, bring about greater efficiency in
the economy and in society, and, if applied dispassionately, cause an end
to the bitter conflicts in an America populated by persons of different
creeds, races, and social classes. In his belief that greater rationality
in public life could be combined with respect for the tradition of
individual rights, Hoover conformed to the mainstream of progressive social
thought in the early 20th century.
As secretary of commerce Hoover was concerned with applying rational
principles in order to end conflict between labor and business. But he was
mostly ...
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Herbert Hoover. (2005, February 4). Retrieved November 28, 2024, from http://www.essayworld.com/essays/Herbert-Hoover/21687
"Herbert Hoover." Essayworld.com. Essayworld.com, 4 Feb. 2005. Web. 28 Nov. 2024. <http://www.essayworld.com/essays/Herbert-Hoover/21687>
"Herbert Hoover." Essayworld.com. February 4, 2005. Accessed November 28, 2024. http://www.essayworld.com/essays/Herbert-Hoover/21687.
"Herbert Hoover." Essayworld.com. February 4, 2005. Accessed November 28, 2024. http://www.essayworld.com/essays/Herbert-Hoover/21687.
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