Commerce Cabinet Crisis III
America’s third Secretary Commerce, Herbert Hoover, is the most distinguished by a longshot:
Hoover was born in 1874 in Iowa and oprhaned at age 9 after which time he lived with a grandfather and two uncles before entering Stanford University in 1891 as part of their first class. After graduation, Hoover worked in the mining industry in Australia, then China (where he and his wife are said to have learned Mandarin), then Australia again, and then as a mining consultant on a global basis. When the First World War broke out, he put his Quaker instincts for humanitarianism to good use and helped organize the orderly evacuation of American citizens from the war-affected countries. Success in that role pushed him to the creation of the Committee for Relief in Belgium which brought food and humanitarian aid to that semi-occupied nation. When the United States entered the war, Woodrow Wilson appointed him head of the American Food Administration and after the war he continued doing humanitarian work in Europe both through the American Relief Administration and the American Friends Service Committee.
In light of his broad popularity and non-political persona, there were efforts made to recruit him as a Democratic candidate for the presidency in 1920. Instead, Hoover revealed that he was a Republican—albeit of the progressive bent and a Theodore Roosevelt supporter in the 1912 presidential three-way—and tried to get support in the California GOP primary. He lost, and down went his short-term presidential ambitions.
Nevertheless, when Warren Harding became president he offered Hoover either the Commerce Department or the Secretary of the Interior job. Hoover took Commerce, believing he could turn the thus-far-undistinguished cabinet post into a kind of national economic policymaking hub. It’s a matter of some dispute how much policy impact he wound up having at the end of the day, but as Secretary he energetically promoted public-private partnerships, tried to help spread the gospel of business efficiency, and was an early promoter of the car-centric brand of urbanism that would come to define the country after the war. This, combined with his earlier humanitarian work, was good enough to leave him as a kind of national symbol of prosperity, can-do spirit, and the idea that a business orientation wasn’t antithetical to the general welfare. He resigned his post as Harding’s term [UPDATE: Should be Coolidge's term, Harding was dead] was nearing its end, captured the GOP nomination, and badly beat Al Smith in the 1928 general election.
49 Responses to “Commerce Cabinet Crisis III”
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January 26th, 2009 at 12:30 pm
you mean when coolidge’s term was up
January 26th, 2009 at 12:31 pm
Have I stumbled into an alternate universe where Calvin Coolidge was never President?
January 26th, 2009 at 12:34 pm
How many American History classes have you had? Harding died in 1922. Calvin Coolidge succeeded him; Ran again in 1924 and won. Then came President Hoover.
January 26th, 2009 at 12:36 pm
“Hoover worked in the mining industry in Australia, then China (where he and his wife are said to have learned Mandarin)”
as you can learn over at the edge of the american west, hoover was also present at the siege of peking during the so-called ‘boxer rebellion’.
January 26th, 2009 at 12:37 pm
Ah, you seem to have forgotten one interesting bit of Hoover’s career – his role in helping find support for one of the largest tariff increases in America’s history, the Fordny-McCumber tariff.
Here’s a nice table:
Payne-Aldrich (1909)
Average duty on all imports was 19.3 percent
Average on dutiable imports was 40.8 percent
Underwood-Simmons (1913)
Average duty on all imports was 9.1 percent
Average on dutiable imports was 27 percent
Fordney-McCumber (1922)
Average duty on all imports was 14 percent
Average on dutiable imports was 38.5 percent
This might have been Hoover’s major contribution as a commerce secretary. Come on, MY – if you are doing history, do it right!
January 26th, 2009 at 12:39 pm
Matthew’s just carrying the “Silent Cal” thing to its extreme … in which Coolidge, no longer content with mere silence, actually vanishes.
He’s like a WASP version of the 12th Imam. Coolidge is now officially “occluded”.
January 26th, 2009 at 12:39 pm
I’m trying to figure out if that would be a good place to be or not.
I’d say “not”. It would mean living in a country that would re-elect a man like Harding. That would be like re-electing …
Never mind.
January 26th, 2009 at 12:41 pm
Rising Tide by John Barry includes an illuminating discussion of Hoover’s role as Commerce Secretary during the great Mississippi River flood of 1927. My recollection is that he comes off as a self-promoter and a jerk.
This is a book that everyone should read. (The same author’s book about the 1918 flu epidemic has been discussed on another current thread.)
January 26th, 2009 at 12:43 pm
If we are going to talk up Hoover, why not mention how instrumental he was in rebuilding Europe after WW1 and WW2. He was called the great social engineer because he organized post-war reconstruction. It is sad that he was caught up in the great depression and so villified by history that bloggers condemn conservatives as “Neo-Hooverites”. Hoover simply followed the accepted economic principles of the time. Is it his fault that they didn’t work? Remember that FDR labeled him a big government spender during the 1932 campaign.
What exactly was the point of this post?
January 26th, 2009 at 12:47 pm
What exactly was the point of this post?
Matt’s doing one Commerce Secretary bio post per day until Obama picks one of his own.
January 26th, 2009 at 12:50 pm
I liked this. Let me add that after visiting the Hoover Presidential museum in West Branch, Iowa, I gained new respect for Hoover. Maybe it’s just very effective propaganda.
January 26th, 2009 at 12:59 pm
He was like Carter, a nice enough guy, just not a very good president.
Which is why I laugh when people think that GWB could be rehabilitated in a Hooveresque manner. GWB is not the kind of guy who will do the kind of work necessary to rehab his image.
January 26th, 2009 at 1:01 pm
Ah, you seem to have forgotten one interesting bit of Hoover’s career – his role in helping find support for one of the largest tariff increases in America’s history, the Fordny-McCumber tariff
no – you seem to be missing the point. Because Matt apparently has no idea what a Commerce Secretary actually does, he’s going with a meme that whatever they do isn’t really important or consequential – so he’s pretty much just ignoring what they actually do do in favor of superficial political biographries easily available on the internet (wouldn’t want to have to do actual research, now, would we?)
Sure the Commerce Secretary plays an important role in setting tariffs (a HUGE issue in 19th century America) and US Business and Commercial affairs and foreign trade – but Matt doesn’t think that anything about that stuff is important.
January 26th, 2009 at 1:03 pm
Sure the Commerce Secretary plays an important role in setting tariffs (a HUGE issue in 19th century America)
Hmm… but there were no Commerce Secretaries in 19th century America!
January 26th, 2009 at 1:11 pm
What exactly was the point of this post?
Didn’t the title song to All in the Family have a line, “Mister, we could use a man like Herbert Hoover again…”
So how many Commerce Department heads have had a song written about them-huh? I think that was the point.
January 26th, 2009 at 1:11 pm
This post brings me back to thinking of the Hoover Institution. It seems devoted to a minimal-government, militaristic-jingoistic type of Conservatism that Hoover himself might have repudiated. (I´m excepting some excellent scholars it has inside, safely away from the public view.)
January 26th, 2009 at 1:15 pm
What’s your point, right? Once the position was created, the Commerce Department became the executive branch responsible for tariff matters. Doesn’t mean that the tariff and tariff issues didn’t exist before then.
January 26th, 2009 at 1:15 pm
I also don’t know exactly the variety of responsibilities a Commerce Secretary might have had, but I believe that Herbert Hoover’s reputation was made by his skilled response to the Mississippi flooding in 1927, the largest river flooding in U.S. history. What I had read earlier was that his experience in mining made him knowledgeable in handling large technical operations and he became something of a hero. What the Wikipedia says is that Hoover responded quickly to Black criticism of the inferior condition of their refugee camps with strong pledges to them which may have won him the 1928 vote and, since he subsequently failed to fulfill them as president, lost him the Black vote in 1932, costing Republicans the Black vote permanently.
January 26th, 2009 at 1:32 pm
Re Matthew’s comment “Instead, Hoover revealed that he was a Republican—albeit of the progressive bent and a Theodore Roosevelt supporter in the 1912 presidential three-way”
—————
I didn’t know that Teddy was into that sorta thing.
Also, kinda amazing what one had to do to get the Republican nomination in those days.
January 26th, 2009 at 1:34 pm
But say what you will against Herbert Hoover, he would never have screwed 6.5 Million redblooded Americans out of their $40 DTV converter rebate.
January 26th, 2009 at 1:39 pm
It seems like every president either didn’t have a father or had one who was an alcoholic…
January 26th, 2009 at 1:41 pm
Actually, Hoover was at the siege of Tientsin, not Peking, and he wasn’t just “present” — he played a significant role in saving the international community from the Boxers, primarily by being quietly courageous and cool-headed, helping organize defenses.
Throughout the rest of his life, he and his wife would occasionally whisper Chinese phrases to each other, inside jokes about pompous people at parties, that sort of thing.
January 26th, 2009 at 2:07 pm
I also don’t know exactly the variety of responsibilities a Commerce Secretary might have had, but I believe that Herbert Hoover’s reputation was made by his skilled response to the Mississippi flooding in 1927, the largest river flooding in U.S. history
He had a very strong reputation before that thanks to his work in World War One. He’d become one of the most admired people around by 1920.
January 26th, 2009 at 2:10 pm
the Commerce Secretary plays an important role in setting tariffs
My understanding is that during the period in question, the lead executive branch role in tariff policy was played by an independent Tariff Commission (the predecessor to today’s International Trade Commission).
January 26th, 2009 at 2:15 pm
MY – your understanding can actually change. The way it changes is you look up things. Then you will see that Hoover, the one secretary with a national reputation in Harding’s cabinet, was innstrumental in setting up the terms of the tariff and promoting it.
My understanding is that the Treasury Secretary doesn’t run the American banking system. But that understanding was interrupted by what one Treasury secretary – Hank Paulsen – actually did. What happens trumps what should have happened on paper every time.
January 26th, 2009 at 2:16 pm
“Harding was dead”
How could you tell?
January 26th, 2009 at 2:30 pm
Although Smith lost in 1928, his 41% significantly improved Democratic performance over 1924 (29%) and 1920 (34%), which helped the party build toward Roosevelt’s victory in 1932. And Smith managed to improve performance while being attacked in much of the country as a city slicker and a Catholic.
January 26th, 2009 at 2:51 pm
tkd-The popular vote figures are a bit misleading because 1920 and 1924 both had significant third party candidacies. Also, the 1928 election saw the first significant splintering of the Solid South due to Smith’s religion and anti-Prohibition stance.
January 26th, 2009 at 3:10 pm
Ah, poor Herbert, the last engineer to hold the presidency. Fun fact about his career as secretary of commerce: he was big on standardizing products and among his achievements was the standardization of cutlery sets to the 11-piece form we use today. Before that, cutlery sets could rise into the hundreds of pieces and include exotic instruments like olive forks and tomato servers.
January 26th, 2009 at 3:55 pm
Hoover kinda resembles Leo Dicaprio a little bit.
January 26th, 2009 at 6:27 pm
Ah, poor Herbert, the last engineer to hold the presidency
Although he was technically a physics major, there’s a case to be made that Jimmy Carter, with his Naval Academy degree and nuclear power training & service was a de facto engineer. And was only slightly more sucessful in his presidency.
January 26th, 2009 at 6:59 pm
Don’t give Martin Scorsese any ideas.
January 26th, 2009 at 8:59 pm
It seems like every president either didn’t have a father or had one who was an alcoholic…
And then they marry whom who have their sh*t together more than they do, usually from a higher socio-economic level.
It’s weird.
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