Hoover
in the White House: The Ordeal of the Presidency by Charles
Rappleye (Simon and Schuster, 2016, 576 pages, $32.50/16.99) details
the period (1928 – 1932) during which Herbert Hoover was running
for the Presidency or serving in the White House as America journeyed
from the prosperity developing in the aftermath of the first world
war to the Great Depression, which Hoover fought vainly to overcome,
and which ushered in the liberalism that emerged under Franklin D.
Roosevelt to dominate the country for a half century. He casts what
can only be seen as the disaster of the Hoover presidency as an
outgrowth of his personality, forged in childhood poverty and
abandonment. As a child of second half of the twentieth century,
raised as a New Deal Liberal, I had long dismissed the story of the
president who seemingly destroyed our economy which was saved by FDR.
I knew, however, that this wasn't the whole story, which had to be
more nuanced and complex. My reading of this detailed, extensively
sourced, biography helped turn a cardboard cutout into a real,
troubled human being, while confirming lots of conventional wisdom
that had influenced by own development. Hoover's life and the course
of his development, also mirrored in some eerie ways, elements we see
today in our current politics.
Herbert Hoover, the thirty-first
president of the United States, was born in 1874 in rural Iowa to a
Quaker family. His father died when he was young followed several
years later by his mother. He was shuffled between relatives for most
of his early years, eventually landing in Oregon, where he lived with
an uncle. He early learned values of hard work, dealing with
privation, along with Quaker practices and values. He grew up in a
frugal environment, but not deeply deprived. Rappleye claims that his
early trauma and loneliness were key developmental factors in the
ways he later conducted himself as president. After graduating from
Stanford University, in its first class, Hoover undertook a career as
a mining engineer, leading to establishing sufficient financial means
to enter government service, first overseeing wartime efforts for
relief in Europe and then assuming the role of Secretary of Commerce
under two presidents. By the time the 1928 election rolled around, he
was popular choice as the Republican candidate, winning handily
without campaigning.
During his campaign and after his
election, Hoover had demonstrated a marked reluctance to work closely
with Congress or to be forthcoming with the press. Soon after his
election, a prickly level of resistance began to emerge in his
unwillingness to work, even with members of his own party, or to
discuss publicly matters of policy with members of the press. Both of
these propensities began quickly to erode both his effectiveness and
his popularity. When, within months of his inauguration, the economy
began to collapse and banks to fail, Hoover reacted slowly to support
the banks or, as the depression deepened, to provide financial and
food relief to failing farmers and unemployed factory workers..
Often, when presented with evidence of the hardship that first
farmers and later urban people suffered, he often de-emphasized or
belittled the complaints. In other words, his relations with
Congress, with the Press, and with the public became increasingly
embattled as his term progressed. He responded by relying upon an
increasingly small and homogeneous group of advisers. Hoover
responded by working harder, seeking some approach that would work,
while relying on an increasingly small coterie of advisers. Once
having reached a decision, he would become stubbornly attached to the
outcomes.
After Herbert Hoover was resoundingly
defeated by Franklin Delano Roosevelt, he left public office for a
period of recuperation from years of stress. Later he returned to the
public eye as an opposition critic of Democratic policy. After WW II,
President Truman appointed him to a commission tasked with
re-organizing the Executive. He was a lifelong anti-communist. He
died in 1964, deeply respected despite his failure as president. This
deeply researched biography, which concentrates on Hoover's
conducting of himself, his legislative program, his hard work, and
futile political efforts explores new ground and throws light on an
important era in which America responded slowly and with little early
effect when facing the biggest economic crisis in our history up to
that time. It is a thorough, readable piece of work.
Charles Rappleye
Charles Rappleye is an
award-winning investigative journalist and editor. He has written
extensively on media, law enforcement, and organized crime. The
author of Sons of Providence: The Brown Brothers, the Slave
Trade, and the American Revolution; Robert Morris: Financier
of the American Revolution; and Herbert Hoover in the White
House: The Ordeal of the Presidency, he lives in Los Angeles.
Charles Rappleye has written a
thoughtful and intriguing portrait Herbert Hoover, a much maligned,
but little known beyond his record regarding seeking vainly to
alleviate the effects of the Great Depression. The book is
comprehensive within the limits defined by the author. The four years
Herbert Hoover spent in the White House are exhaustively detailed and
carefully balanced, often relying on heretofore unavailable
materials. Hoover in the White
House: The Ordeal of the Presidency by Charles Rappleye
(Simon and Schuster, 2016, 576 pages, $32l50/16.99) is well worth
reading as it describes with great care efforts Hoover made and his
inability to grasp the reins of government with enough vigor to have
a positive effect. I read Hoover
in the White House as an
electronic galley provided me by the publisher through
Edelweiss Above the Tree Line on my Kindle
app.
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