Son of a Quaker blacksmith, Herbert Clark Hoover brought to the Presidency an
unparalleled reputation for public service as an engineer, administrator, and
humanitarian. 

Born in an Iowa village in 1874, he grew up in Oregon. He enrolled at Stanford
University when it opened in 1891, graduating as a mining engineer. 

He married his Stanford sweetheart, Lou Henry, and they went to China, where he
worked for a private corporation as China's leading engineer. In June 1900 the
Boxer Rebellion caught the Hoovers in Tientsin. For almost a month the
settlement was under heavy fire. While his wife worked in the hospitals, Hoover
directed the building of barricades, and once risked his life rescuing Chinese
children. 

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. In six weeks his committee helped 120,000 Americans
return to the United States. Next Hoover turned to a far more difficult task,
to feed Belgium, which had been overrun by the German army. 

After the United States entered the war, President Wilson appointed Hoover head
of the Food Administration. He succeeded in cutting consumption of foods needed
overseas and avoided rationing at home, yet kept the Allies fed. 

After 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. He extended aid to famine-stricken Soviet Russia in
1921. When a critic inquired if he was not thus helping Bolshevism, Hoover
retorted, "Twenty million people are starving. Whatever their politics, they
shall be fed!" 

After capably serving as Secretary of Commerce under Presidents Harding and
Coolidge, Hoover became the Republican Presidential nominee in 1928. 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. Yet within months the stock market crashed, and the Nation spiraled
downward into depression. 

After the crash Hoover announced that while he would keep the Federal budget
balanced, he would cut taxes and expand public works spending. 

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. 

At 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. 

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.
Hoover became the scapegoat for the depression and was badly defeated in 1932.
In the 1930's he became a powerful critic of the New Deal, warning against
tendencies toward statism. 

In 1947 President Truman appointed Hoover to a commission, which elected him
chairman, to reorganize the Executive Departments. He was appointed chairman of
a similar commission by President Eisenhower in 1953. Many economies resulted
from both commissions' recommendations. Over the years, Hoover wrote many
articles and books, one of which he was working on when he died at 90 in New
York City on October 20, 1964.