![]() ![]() Hoover became the scapegoat for the Depression and was badly defeated in 1932. His opponents in Congress, who he felt were sabotaging his program for their own political gain, unfairly painted him as a callous and cruel President. In 1931 repercussions from Europe deepened the crisis, even though the President presented to Congress a program asking for creation of the Reconstruction Finance Corporation to aid business, additional help for farmers facing mortgage foreclosures, banking reform, a loan to states for feeding the unemployed, expansion of public works, and drastic governmental economy.Īt the same time he reiterated his view that while people must not suffer from hunger and cold, caring for them must be primarily a local and voluntary responsibility. Yet within months the stock market crashed, and the Nation spiraled downward into depression.Īfter the crash Hoover announced that while he would keep the Federal budget balanced, he would cut taxes and expand public works spending. He said then: “We in America today are nearer to the final triumph over poverty than ever before in the history of any land.” His election seemed to ensure prosperity. Whatever their politics, they shall be fed!”Īfter capably serving as Secretary of Commerce under Presidents Harding and Coolidge, Hoover became the Republican Presidential nominee in 1928. When a critic inquired if he was not thus helping Bolshevism, Hoover retorted, “Twenty million people are starving. He extended aid to famine-stricken Soviet Russia in 1921. He succeeded in cutting consumption of foods needed overseas and avoided rationing at home, yet kept the Allies fed.Īfter the Armistice, Hoover, a member of the Supreme Economic Council and head of the American Relief Administration, organized shipments of food for starving millions in central Europe. Next Hoover turned to a far more difficult task, to feed Belgium, which had been overrun by the German army.Īfter the United States entered the war, President Wilson appointed Hoover head of the Food Administration. In six weeks his committee helped 120,000 Americans return to the United States. One week before Hoover celebrated his 40th birthday in London, Germany declared war on France, and the American Consul General asked his help in getting stranded tourists home. While his wife worked in the hospitals, Hoover directed the building of barricades, and once risked his life rescuing Chinese children. For almost a month the settlement was under heavy fire. In June 1900 the Boxer Rebellion caught the Hoovers in Tientsin. He married his Stanford sweetheart, Lou Henry, and they went to China, where he worked for a private corporation as China’s leading engineer. He enrolled at Stanford University when it opened in 1891, graduating as a mining engineer. Son of a Quaker blacksmith, Herbert Clark Hoover brought to the Presidency an unparalleled reputation for public service as an engineer, administrator, and humanitarian.īorn in an Iowa village in 1874, he grew up in Oregon. The biography for President Hoover and past presidents is courtesy of the White House Historical Association.īefore serving as America’s 31st President from 1929 to 1933, Herbert Hoover had achieved international success as a mining engineer and worldwide gratitude as “The Great Humanitarian” who fed war-torn Europe during and after World War I. ![]()
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |