Hoover: An Extraordinary Life in Extraordinary Times by Kenneth Whyte (Review)
Growing up in Iowa, it was a bittersweet lesson learning about Herbert Hoover. On one hand, he’s the only president from my home state. On the other, Hoover shows up frequently on worst-presidents lists. While this sentiment is largely overstated (and really, who can hold a candle to the ugly administrations of Andrew Johnson and Franklin Pierce?), it is safe to say that President Hoover’s time as president tends to swallow up his impressive accomplishments of service that took place before and after his time in office.
Because of my extra time studying Hoover during Iowa history, I put off reading a more comprehensive biography on my pursuit of studying every president. After reading Kenneth Whyte’s biography of Hoover, I can now check twenty-two out of forty-five presidents, and I’m glad I can more adequately defend the career of Iowa’s only U.S. President.
Whyte’s book checks in at 750 pages but is a quick read about the country’s only president/engineer. Hoover was immensely successful both as a miner and an appointed official, and Whyte tells his story with great intrigue along the way. While I won’t recommend this book as broadly as I do some, it is an excellent read for anyone who loves history, the American presidency, or happens to a native Iowan. Here are some of my observations from Hoover: An Extraordinary Life in Extraordinary Times.
I had not realized how sad Hoover’s youth was and at what a young age he was orphaned. When Hoover became a great success—professionally and financially—in his early 20s, he operated with recklessness toward his friends and family in a way that showed near indifference toward others. While it seems surprising to treat loved ones so caustically, Hoover’s lack of relational stability at an early age makes his conduct more understandable.
During WWI, when Hoover was overseeing Belgium’s humanitarian efforts to feed the nation, he saw how easily world leaders grew callused to humanitarian pleas—requests to England, Germany, and the United States bore no meaningful fruit. He quickly found that motivating the leaders through fear and to best enemies prompted more meaningful responses.
Hoover’s career as an executive makes it more understandable that Hoover never learned the art of consensus which is so critical in politics.
It is interesting—given Hoover’s later reputation—that the leading liberals of the day found Hoover so admirable. Hoover was part of a social group of leading thinkers of the day. Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes nicknamed the group, “The House of Truth,” and it included Felix Frankfurter, Walter Lippmann, and others who found Hoover to be erudite and a model for American liberalism during his time as U.S. Food Administrator. Hoover’s reputation pre-presidency and his reputation post-presidency highlights how narrowly history tends to remember people. One additional example that emphasized how popular and well-regarded Hoover was extends from Will Rogers: “When a man is sick, he calls a doctor. When the United States is sick, it calls Herbert Hoover.”
I don’t remember looking at the 1921 depression versus the 1929 depression. It is interesting how Secretary of Commerce Hoover handled the ‘21 depression versus President Hoover in 1929. In 1921, Hoover ushered in experts in economics, policy, and other fields to inform and shape government solutions. The picture of Hoover as stubbornly eschewing expertise is not a complete picture.
Whyte addressed the cultural bleakness that emerged after WWI. Hoover, however, expressed a distinct optimism. Hoover saw these groups like the new chambers of commerce and other civic groups as a representation of connection between individuals and community, the combination of self-interest with service. He appreciated the balance between individualism and community: “[Community groups] encouraged connections and reciprocity among individuals, the growth of community, and the accumulation of social capital. They offered individuals opportunities for self-expression and participation in things larger than themselves, and they trained the leaders of tomorrow.” If Hoover was correct, then it is concerning how precipitously these groups have declined in recent years.
After the Great Mississippi Flood of 1927, Hoover’s attention to African Americans in the south is interesting in that it seems to be years ahead of other efforts to address inequity in the south.
What I remember about Herbert Hoover and the Great Depression in high school is learning the concept of laissez-faire economics—that Hoover believed a hands-off approach was the only approach to a recession. Yet reading The Price of Peace: Money, Democracy, and the life of John Maynard Keynes by Zachary D. Carter and Kenneth Whyte’s biography of Hoover show someone who was both progressive and aggressive in stimulating economic activity and an optimistic attitude among Americans. History more accurately concludes that Hoover simply didn’t do enough, particularly when considering the comprehensive drought that exacerbated the nation’s economic woes.
Hoover’s speech commemorating Warren Harding is applicable today: “There are disloyalties and there are crimes which shock our sensibilities, which may bring suffering upon those who are touched by their immediate results. But there is no disloyalty and no crime in all the category of human weaknesses which compares with the failure of probity in the conduct of public trust. Monetary loss or even the shock to moral sensibilities is perhaps a passing thing, but the breaking down of the faith of a people in the honesty of their Government and in the integrity of their institutions, the lowering of respect for the standards of honor which prevail in high places, are crimes for which punishment can never atone.”
Hoover summed up what it means to be conservative in the following manner: “Being a conservative is not a sin. It means today ‘the conservation of representative government, of intellectual freedom, and of economic freedom within the limits of what does not harm fellow men. It means the conservation of natural resources, of national health, education, and employment. A conservative is not allergic to new ideas; he wants to try them slowly without destroying what is already good.”
JFK’s respect for Hoover and interest in bringing Hoover back into service is a fascinating sign of how Hoover’s reputation was rehabilitated as America moved further from his time in office. As Whyte’s book unfolded, it struck me that that Hoover’s reputation was sterling prior to his term as president. He hit his nadir during and shortly after his term in office, and then his reputation improved as he took on service roles like providing food in war-torn lands after WWII and leading the Hoover Commission, which pushed for new efficiencies in the federal government. Despite his improved reputation in the latter years of Hoover’s life, it is interesting that history primarily remembers Hoover as a failed president. It is a sad development to only be remembered for one’s worst moments.
It is Hoover’s poor reputation that makes me so happy to have read Kenneth Whyte’s most excellent biography. Hoover’s life is one undoubtedly worth exploring—both for his lessons of service but also for learning lessons on how critical it is to develop skills in consensus-building. Even if positions provide opportunity to unilaterally dictate decisions, the far superior path is to intentionally work with others to move organizations with others by your side. Hoover: An Extraordinary Life is a great handbook for leadership lessons and an interesting exploration of a true public servant.
