HOOVER, HERBERT CLARK ), president of the United States, was born on Aug. 10, 1874, in the farming village of West Branch, Ia. He is the second of three children of Jesse and Huldah Minthorn Hoover, both Quakers with a long American Quaker ancestry. Jesse Hoover, the father, was the village blacksmith. He also sold farm ma chinery. He died when Herbert was six years old. Huldah, the mother, a woman of unusual mental gifts, was a Quaker preacher well known and admired not only in West Branch but in neigh bouring Quaker communities for her speaking talent. She died when Herbert was nine.
After the death of the mother the three orphaned children were divided among the Hoover and Minthorn families, Herbert joining the family of his uncle Allan Hoover, who lived on a farm a few miles from West Branch. Later he was taken to Newberg, Ore., with the family of his mother's brother, Dr. John Minthorn, a physician much interested in education. Here he attended a small Quaker academy. Later his uncle moved to Salem where he opened a real estate office. Herbert went along as office boy, at the same time attending night school. He thus prepared himself for college and in Oct. 1891 he entered the just opened Stanford university in California, where he specialized in geology and engineering. He largely earned his way during the four university years, acting as secretary, in term time, to Dr. Branner, the professor of geology, and working during the sum mer vacation for the Arkansas State and U.S. Geological Survey.
Graduating in 1895 with Stanford's "pioneer class" he found a first job, not as a geologist or mining engineering expert, but as a day labourer in the Mayflower mine in California. But he soon graduated also from this rough but informing mining school and began a career as an engineer and technical expert. His work began in Colorado, New Mexico, Arizona and Nevada, and car ried him on to western Australia, then (1897) experiencing an exciting development of gold mining. Here he rapidly made a name for himself which led to his being engaged in 1899 as chief engineer of the newly established governmental department of mines in China. He returned to America from Australia in and was married to Lou Henry of Monterey, Cal., who had just graduated from Stanford and with whom he had become ac quainted in Dr. Branner's geological laboratories.
Departing at once for China the young couple began a busy life of geological and mining expeditions and surveys which were effectively arrested in the next year when the Boxer Rebellion broke out. The Hoovers, with other foreigners, were besieged for four harrowing and dangerous weeks in Tientsin. In 1900 they returned to America and Europe, but soon departed again for China, remaining there until 1901. Hoover was now 27 years old and ready to go anywhere in the world that opportunity offered. The opportunities were abundant and his responses to them dur ing the next 12 years took him again to Australia, Russia, Burma, Italy, Central America and elsewhere. He became identified with more than a score of mining companies, for several of which he was managing director. During this period he maintained offices in San Francisco, New York and London. During this period also his two sons, Herbert, Jr., and Allan, were born. In 1909 appeared his book on Principles of Mining and in 1912 a translation by himself and his wife from the mediaeval Latin of Agricola's De Re Metallica, an exhaustive treatise on mining and smelting published in 1550.
When the World War broke out in 1914 thousands of travelling Americans, endeavouring to return home, found themselves stranded in London because of the impossibility of obtaining cash on checks and letters of credit. Hoover, also in London at this time on a mission for the Panama-Pacific Exposition, mobilized the resources of himself and a group of engineer friends, advanced cash on personal checks, arranged for hotel rooms and steamer accommodations and thus philanthropically assisted more than 150,000 of these stranded fellow countrymen, personally unknown to him, to return to America. Before he completed this useful work a much greater relief task called him. The immediate result of the occupation of Belgium and northern France by the Ger man armies was practically to establish an impassable ring of steel around 7,500,000 Belgians and 2,500,000 French men, women and children. The situation spelled starvation for the isolated people unless the ring could be broken and philanthropy allowed to pro vide food for them. The Belgian national relief committee called on Hoover who, with the approval of Walter Hines Page, Amer ican ambassador in London, organized the Commission for Relief in Belgium, and arranged with the warring nations to permit the passage through the blockade of food and clothing for distribu tion under the protection and guidance of the commission. He appealed to the charity of the world and arranged with the Governments of France, England and the United States to ad vance funds for the purchase of food. The commission, of which Hoover was the responsible and controlling head throughout the war, sent into occupied Belgium and France, during those four long and difficult years, about 5,000,000 tons of food and clothing of a market value of about $1,000,000,000. This huge work was accomplished in the face of great and continuing diplomatic and practical difficulties, and its success brought world fame to Hoover. (See RELIEF.) With the entrance of the United States into the war in April 1917, President Wilson called Hoover from Europe to be U.S. food administrator under the terms of the Lever Act. He at once developed an elaborate organization for stimulating production, checking hoarding and speculation and conserving food supplies. He had comparatively little authority in his hands, but he called on the people for co-operation and received almost universal backing for his requests. These even called for meatless and wheatless days and other personal food limitations. He extended the Food Administration to every State, city and hamlet and enrolled thousands of volunteer workers and local committee members. By the activities of the Food Administration he was able to meet the large food demands of the Allies who were hav ing difficulty in maintaining the morale of their people because of food shortage due to reduced production and to loss of cargoes by the U-boat destruction.
In connection with the Food Administration Hoover established the U.S. Grain Corporation, Sugar Equalization Board and Food Purchase Board, all for the purpose of a more centralized hand ling of food supplies during the emergency. He also served as chairman of the Interallied Food Council. After the Armistice, the terms of which, at his suggestion, provided for the furnishing of food supplies to enemy countries, he became chief executive officer of the joint Allied committee which later developed into the Supreme Economic Council and of which he was the head. This council exercised great authority in European economic affairs during the period of the Armistice.
When the Armistice came in Nov. 1918, and the dark curtain of war was lifted, revealing the terrible scene of disorganized and hungry eastern Europe, it was at once apparent that another great relief operation was necessary. The United States promptly took the first large-scale action by setting up, under Hoover's chair manship, the American Relief Administration, with a congres sional appropriation of $100,000,000 available for immediate use in getting food supplies to the suffering and panic-stricken coun tries. Later large loans were made by the American and Allied Governments to these countries. Altogether in eight months nearly 5,000,00o tons of food-stuffs of a value of $1,000,000,000 were sent into 23 countries. These supplies not only prevented starvation but aided largely in the economic reconstruction of the exhausted nations.
With the signing of the peace the American Relief Administra tion, as an independent agency acting for the U.S. Government, was liquidated, but as suffering from lack of food still persisted in parts of Europe Hoover and his associates formed a private charitable organization called the European Children's Fund to carry on the relief of millions of destitute and orphaned children in central and eastern Europe suffering from under-nutrition and disease. This organization continued its work until June 1922, and during its life it gave free meals to more than 8,000,000 children. In addition to this warm clothing valued at more than $8,000,000 was distributed to 2,000,000 children.
In 1920 some of Hoover's friends conducted an unorganized and unsuccessful campaign to secure his nomination as the Republican candidate for president. After Harding's election Hoover entered his cabinet as secretary of Commerce. With characteristic vigour and constructive capacity he began at once a reorganization and new development of the department based on the idea of changing the attitude of the Government toward busi ness from one of interference and control to one of co-operation. He held many conferences of manufacturers, distributors and consumers and suggested many opportunities for bettering busi ness methods by voluntary agreement. He gave special attention to the rapid development of means of collecting and distributing reliable information of business conditions abroad with the aim of revealing opportunities for expanding U.S. foreign trade. Through a division of simplified practice he took successful steps to effect a general reduction in the number of different varieties and sizes in which articles of commerce were manufactured (see STANDARDIZATION). The Patent Office and Bureau of Mines were transferred from the Department of the Interior to his department. He was offered at various times the secretaryship of the Interior and of Agriculture but preferred to continue his development of the Department of Commerce.
In addition to his governmental activities he accepted many other public responsibilities. In 1922 he organized the important American Child Health Association and became its first president. He became trustee of Stanford university, his alma mater, where he founded the famous Hoover War library and the Food Re search institute. He accepted the active chairmanship of the National Research Fund established by the National Academy of Sciences for the support of research in pure science. In 1922 he published American Individualism, a book devoted to setting out his interpretation of the basis and character of American democracy.
In the fall of 1921, only a few months after he had become secretary of Commerce, Hoover was called on in his private capacity to undertake another great relief operation. Ten million people in the valley of the Volga in Russia were threatened with starvation as the result of drought and economic disorganization. By appealing to American private and governmental charity he was able to distribute, in the famine-stricken regions, through an effective organization manned largely by associates in his earlier relief operations, nearly 1,000,000 tons of food and medical sup plies of a total value of about $65,000,000.
In 1927, as personal representative of President Coolidge, and with the support of the army and navy and the American Red Cross, he went to the rescue of the sufferers from the great Mississippi flood. Under his vigorous direction effective local and governmental measures of relief were promptly adopted and 700,000 refugees removed from danger of drowning, disease and starvation.
At the Republican national convention in 1924 he was put for ward, against his protest, for the vice-presidential nomination and 334} votes were cast for him, Gen. Charles G. Dawes being nominated with 682-'i. At the Republican convention in 1928 at Kansas City, Mo., he was nominated for president on the first ballot, with 837 votes out of a total of 1,089. In the ensuing election he received 444 of the S31 electoral votes and the over whelming popular vote of 21,500,000 as compared with 15,005, 000 (both figures are approximate) for Gov. Smith, the Demo cratic candidate. A notable incident of the election was Hoover's victory in the "Solid South"; he carried for the Republican Party, for the first time since the Reconstruction period, Florida, North Carolina, Texas and Virginia; on the other hand he lost Massachusetts and Rhode Island, which with one exception had gone Republican at every presidential election since 1860. Im mediately after his success at the polls (Nov. 19) he sailed from San Pedro, California, on a good will mission to the sister republics of Latin America returning Jan. 6, 1929. (V. K.)
