Herbert Hoover: March Toward Reactionary, Part Three/Final

While Herbert Hoover took the Federal government into the economy and into direct relief aid to the states, his words did not keep pace with his actions, as he spoke as if his America of old was still there all the same and unchanged, as such a great system would never need the programs he had just initiated. This was one of the reasons Hoover received little credit for his actions, since he himself denied they were changes to the system, although his limitations on his own programs left these programs far from achieving their potential to stabilize the economy, which was much more the reason for the lack of acknowledgement to Hoover. When smacked in the face by reality like bankers not wanting to make loans and charities being overwhelmed by impoverished citizens, Hoover did indeed change, but he could not bring himself to acknowledge that change. It is tough to tell what Hoover actually believed, as he later became one of the main critics of the New Deal; yet, later still, he admitted that he likely would have signed the same legislation that FDR signed; that is,  ... THE NEW DEAL! And the New Deal had its roots in many of Hoover's own policies.

Upon leaving the presidency, Hoover was one bitter man. He had shown signs of such during his time in office, as he seemed bitter at the terrible hand he had been dealt for the pinnacle of his career, the presidency. Hoover the humanitarian leader, Hoover the businessman and Hoover the Secretary of Commerce was used to giving orders and lecturing others, not having to garner votes from politicians or listen to their lecturing. He was very shy, but supremely self confident in his ideas to the point that when they failed, he kept going, almost contemptuous of others' ideas. Hoover, in my opinion, had a weak ego; that is, he was insecure to the point where a criticism of one of his plans was like a personal insult. In the rough and tumble world of politics, all of this took a toll on Herbert Hoover. He and FDR had been friends for years, but Hoover ended up detesting Roosevelt, partially because of Roosevelt's criticisms during the presidential election of 1932, when Roosevelt easily defeated Hoover, and Hoover took the criticisms  personally, as he had not come up in the give and take world of politics, and that insecurity of his was always there. When Roosevelt initiated the New Deal, taken in part from Hoover's ideas and policies, Hoover blasted it, in my opinion, because someone else came up with the necessary changes needed to make the ideas more successful. This created resentment in Hoover and it spilled out into the open as he bitterly attacked FDR and his administration and moved himself into the role of something of an arch conservative hero, a place he would pretty much hold until his death. Maybe someone should have tried to convince Hoover early on that the New Deal, at least in part, was really his idea and he might then have supported it, but in fact, Roosevelt and the Democrats didn't need Hoover's blessing, as the very mention of Hoover's name could draw highly negative responses at public events for many years, including when his image appeared in newsreels at theaters. As sensitive a man as he was, all of this negative use of his name embittered him all the more, and it wasn't until some Democrats began to feel a little guilty that Hoover mellowed a tad, and that first came when Harry Truman was president. Hoover, at Truman's request, helped to reorganize the federal government to save money, and he and Truman developed a friendship of sorts, but Hoover, ever hypersensitive to criticism, didn't trust Truman either, as old Harry was a politician, and he used Hoover's name to scare the hell out of some Americans at various political events. I'm sure Truman just saw it all as politics, but Hoover was furious at what he saw as personal insults.

Hoover has links to conservatives even today, except he was never as mean and nasty while in office as some of today's "take me back to the good old Stone Age" conservatives, and while he lived in something of a dream world about his policies and an idealistic America; in fact, he saw problems and at least he made an effort to solve them, albeit with limitations. The desire of today's conservatives to repeal the estate tax would have made Herbert Hoover furious, as he believed great fortunes should not be allowed to be passed on intact, with the biggest being broken up to give others a chance to share in the wealth, and his tax program was highly progressive, not regressive like that of Ronald Reagan, George W. Bush or Paul Ryan. Like today's conservatives though, Hoover wasn't too crazy about facts that disproved his own ideas, although he didn't have Fox News to cover for him. He did spout a lot of things along the line of today's conservatives about "America is the best at _______" (fill in the blank), although facts would contradict some of those things, just as today. Declaring that we're the best at everything was not a way to deal with problems and flaws in Hoover's time, nor today, but Hoover often eventually relented. Some modern conservatives have done everything they can to disavow Hoover, since they are NEVER wrong, just as their philosophy of deregulation had nothing to do with the financial meltdown in 2008. If you believe that, would you like to buy the Washington Monument? I'll sell it to you. Like today's conservatives, Hoover also tried to revise his role in history by continuing to advocate for his policies, pretty much stating they would have succeeded had the country stuck with him instead of turning to Roosevelt. The ultimate thing was, Hoover and his administration misjudged the severity of the economic downturn more than just at its beginning and therefore Hoover's  prescription of trying to restore confidence by helping banks, railroads, and business in general was inadequate to deal with it,* as too many Americans had little or no money left to up demand for goods and services. Confidence helps when people HAVE money, but are afraid to spend it, or even deposit it in banks. Even the larger expenditures by New Deal programs under Roosevelt couldn't quickly help the beleaguered economy to recovery quickly; that's how bad things were.

Over time Hoover's image did recover to some degree, but some people still detested him decades later. It bears repeating, Hoover was not a true progressive nor a true conservative during his presidency, but he most definitely took on the mantle of conservatism after he left office, accompanied by that delusional belief that he had not deviated from American individualism and by his extreme bitterness. The passing of time and the political atmosphere surrounding Hoover had progressives eventually discover (or perhaps rediscover) Hoover's progressive side, which then gave reactionaries something to point to, in the sense, "If progressives like some things about Hoover, he can't be a conservative."

The economic and financial meltdown in 2008 rekindled interest in Herbert Hoover, Franklin Roosevelt and the Great Depression, in general, as people wanted to see how that major historical event developed and was handled all of those decades ago. The problem is, in more recent times, many people obviously knew little or nothing about the Great Depression, as they seemed to want to experience such an event in their own lifetime; thus we had awful policies put into place, or policies that were not enforced, bringing instability and a virtual total collapse of the American and world economies. While most of the perpetrators have been Republicans, some Democrats seemed anxious to be a part of this "let's see what kind of a great depression we can create" philosophy. Throughout the build up to the 2008 meltdown lay the bizarre and troubling idea of "the country should be concerned with the plight of millionaires and billionaires; they've got it tough," instead of what had been happening to the middle class and the poor. These groups would suffer even more from the economic mess of what has been called "the Great Recession." While Republicans scoffed at President Obama's remedies (also often at Ben Bernanke's policies, the Federal Reserve Chief), the economic plunge of late 2008 and early 2009 was halted, and matters never got out of hand as they did in the early 1930s, but recovery has been slow, just as it was in the 1930s. The problem this time was, some of the structural problems were not corrected, like with the banking industry, which has made me think Democrats too haven't studied the policies of their own political icon, Franklin D. Roosevelt. In my opinion, while health care reform was a very important policy, financial reform should have been the first item on the agenda after the stimulus package, but it was not. By the time financial reform was put on the front burner, the political situation had changed drastically, with a resurgent, ideologically fire-breathing GOP, invigorated by the unpopular health care law debate at that time, able to get a substantial watering down of financial reform. We'll see if all of this comes back to haunt us.    

Almost all that I've written in this three part series about Hoover comes from memory, and over the years, I've read a lot of books (some many times over) and articles about him, including his own memoirs. With so much done from memory, it's tough to "credit" specific authors for the information I've put into these articles, and some might not want to be "credited," since it is given from the perspective I've developed on Hoover over the decades (I mean this both seriously and humorously). I guess the biggest compliment to any and all of the authors is that I read their material and retained a good deal of it, that's how good the information was. What I've decided to do is to list a number of books I've read over the years which dealt in large part with Herbert Hoover. Some were more specific biographies of Hoover, others were not just about Hoover, but they dealt with parts of his life, most especially his presidency and his attempts to halt the Great Depression. Some of these books I no longer have on hand, and this list will certainly not be complete, as I'm sure I've read some books or articles years ago, the names of which I no longer recall.

"Herbert Hoover" by William Leuchtenburg; "The Memoirs of Herbert Hoover," 3 volumes by Herbert Hoover (there may be abridged/condensed versions available, but I'm not sure); "American Individualism" by Herbert Hoover; "Herbert Hoover: Forgotten Progressive" by Joan Hoff; "An Uncommon Man-The Triumph of Herbert Hoover" by Richard Norton Smith; "Herbert Hoover-A Public Life" by David Burner; "The American Political Tradition" by Richard Hofstadter (has a very good chapter on Hoover: "Herbert Hoover and the Crisis of American Individualism"); "Herbert Hoover and the Reconstruction Finance Corporation" by James Stuart Olson; "The Great Depression" by John Garraty (obviously not just about Hoover); "The Great Depression-America 1929-1941" by Robert S. McElvaine (again, not just about Hoover, but with very good info and opinions on him-one of my favorite books on the subject); "Herbert Hoover and Harry S. Truman-A Documentary History" edited by Timothy Walch and Dwight M. Miller; "The Great Crash of 1929" by John Kenneth Galbraith; "The First New Deal" by Raymond Moley (has some info about the New Deal's ties to Hoover)

* To be honest, Democrats didn't know what the hell to do about the Great Depression either, thus they really didn't put forward many plans during Hoover's term, fearful they would then take part of the blame if the plans didn't work. FDR talked about "experimentation" in his inaugural speech, which tells you he wasn't exactly confident about specific plans either. 

WORD HISTORY:
Boor/Bower-These closely related words go back to Indo European "bu/bhu," which meant "dwell, live upon/on." They are closely related to the second part of "neighbor" (British spelling: "neighbour"), as neighbor simply means "a person (or people) who dwell(s) nearby," literally "nigh-dweller." The Indo European form gave its Old Germanic offspring "buraz," with the meaning "place where one dwells." This gave Old English "gebur," which meant "dweller, farmer," and also "bur," which meant "dwelling, cottage, hut, room for dwelling," but also meant "farmer, peasant," likely from the notion, "one who dwells in a hut/cottage in the countryside." This then became "bour," before "bower," by which time it also had taken on the meaning "lady's living quarter's in a palace/castle," as well as the "area in a garden sheltered by trees or leafy plants." "The Bowery" of New York City was simply a continuation of the Dutch term for what was then (the 1600s) an area with farms. As for "boor," it seems to have died out, but came back to English as a borrowing in the earlier 1500s from either Low German "bur," Dutch "boer," as England had much trade with northwestern Europe. It came into more prevalent usage in the late 1800s and early 1900s from contact and conflict with Dutch settlers in southern Africa who were called "Boers." The conflict between the Boers and British settlers and colonial authorities was termed "the Boer Wars" (there were two). The term "boorish," meaning "rude, ill-mannered or crude behavior," came from the notion of "behavior by farm/rural residents, as compared to the sophisticated behavior of city dwellers." The other Germanic languages have lots of relatives to English "bower" and "boor," some of which are: German has "Bauer" (pronounced very much like "bower"), which means both "farmer/peasant" and "birdcage" (from the sense "room, enclosed dwelling area"); Low German Saxon has "buur" (farmer); Dutch has both "buur" (neighbor) and "boer" (farmer);West Frisian has "boer" (peasant/farmer); Swedish, Danish and Norwegian have "bur" (cage); Icelandic has "búr" (cage).