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Herbert Hoover (August 10, 1874 – October 20, 1964), the 31st President of the United States (1929-1933), was a successful mining engineer, humanitarian, and administrator. He exemplified the Efficiency Movement component of the Progressive Era, arguing there were engineering-like technical solutions to all social and economic problems--a position that was challenged by the Great Depression that began while he was President.

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Hoover was born into a Quaker family of distant German (Pfautz,Wehmeyer) and Swiss (Huber,Burkhart) descent, in West Branch, Iowa. He was the first President to be born west of the Mississippi River. Both of his parents, Jesse Hoover and Hulda Minthorn, died when Hoover was young. His father died in 1880, and his mother in 1884.

In 1885, eleven-year-old "Bert" Hoover went to Newberg, Oregon to become the ward of his Uncle John Minthorn, a doctor and real estate developer whom Hoover recalled as "a severe man on the surface, but like all Quakers kindly at the bottom."

At a young age, Hoover was self-reliant and ambitious. "My boyhood ambition was to be able to earn my own living, without the help of any, anywhere," he once reported. As an office boy in his uncle's Oregon Land Company he mastered bookkeeping and typing, while also attending business school in the evening. Thanks to a local schoolteacher, Miss Jane Gray, the boy's eyes were opened to the novels of Charles Dickens and Sir Walter Scott. , the story of another orphan cast into the world to live by his wits, would remain a lifelong favorite.

In the fall of 1891, Hoover was a member of the first entering class of students at the new Leland Stanford Junior University in Palo Alto, California. Cutting a wider swath outside the classroom than in, Hoover managed the baseball and football teams, started a laundry, and ran a lecture agency. Teaming up with other students from less wealthy backgrounds against campus "swells," the reluctant candidate was elected student treasurer on the "Barbarian" slate, then wiped out a student-government debt of $2,000.

Hoover majored in geology and studied with Professor John Casper Branner, who also got him a summer job mapping terrain in Arkansas' Ozark Mountains. It was in Branner's lab that he met Lou Henry, a banker's daughter born in Waterloo, Iowa, in 1874. Lou shared her fellow Iowan's love of the outdoors and self-reliant nature. "It isn't so important what others think of you as what you feel inside yourself", she told college friends.

Hoover graduated in May 1895. In 1899, he married Lou Henry and they had 2 sons.

He worked as a mining engineer in Coolgardie and Kalgoorlie's gold mines in Australia for mine owners Bewick, Moreing and Company of London. They went to China, where he developed coal mines. In June 1900, the Boxer Rebellion caught the Hoovers in Tianjin. 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.

Between 1907 and 1912, Lou and Hoover combined their talents to create a translation of one of the earliest printed technical treatises: Georg Agricola's , originally published in 1556. At 670 pages, with 289 woodcuts, the Hoover translation remains the definitive English language translation of Agricola's work.

Bored with making money, the Quaker side of Hoover yearned to be of service to others. When World War I started in August 1914, he helped organize the return home of 120,000 American tourists and businessmen from Europe. Hoover led five hundred volunteers to distribute food, clothing, steamship tickets and cash. "I did not realize it at the moment, but on August 3, 1914 my engineering career was over forever. I was on the slippery road of public life." The difference between dictatorship and democracy, Hoover liked to say, was simple: dictators organize from the top down, democracies from the bottom up.

Invaded by Germany, Belgium, in the fall of 1914, faced a food crisis. Hoover undertook an unprecedented relief effort as head of the Commission for the Relief of Belgium (CRB). The CRB became, in effect, an independent republic of relief, with its own flag, navy, factories, mills and railroads. Its $12-million-a-month budget was supplied by voluntary and government grants. In an early form of shuttle diplomacy, he crossed the North Sea 40 times seeking to persuade the enemies in London and Berlin to allow food to reach the war's victims. Long before the Armistice of 1918, he was an international hero.

After the United States entered the war in April 1917, President Woodrow Wilson appointed Hoover head of the American Food Administration, with headquarters in Washington. He succeeded in cutting consumption of food needed overseas and avoided rationing at home, yet kept the Allies fed. After the end of the war, 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. To this end, he employed a newly formed Quaker organization, the American Friends Service Committee to carry out much of the logistical work in Europe. He extended aid to famine-stricken Bolshevist 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!"

In 1919, Hoover co-founded the The Hoover Institution on War, Revolution, and Peace at Stanford. The Institute is a conservativelibertarian public policy think tank and library that, over time, has amassed a huge archive of documentation related to Hoover, World War I, and World War II, specifically focusing on the root causes of these wars.

Hoover was touted as a possible Democratic presidential candidate in 1920, but he announced his support for Warren G. Harding. As Secretary of Commerce, Hoover became one of the most visible men in the country, often overshadowing presidents Harding and Calvin Coolidge. His major achievement was in pushing progressive ideals in the business world, especially in the areas of standardization and international trade. He led relief efforts in the wake of the Great Mississippi Flood of 1927.

Hoover won the Republican Presidential nomination in 1928. He campaigned against Al Smith on the basis of efficiency and prosperity. Although Smith was the target of anti-Catholicism from the Baptist and Lutheran communities, Hoover avoided the religious issue. (Quakers for that matter were under some attack as pacifists.) He supported prohibition tentatively (calling it a "noble experiment"). Historians agree that Hoover's national reputation, and the booming economy, combined with the deep splits in the Democratic party over religion and prohibition, guaranteed his landslide victory.

On poverty he promised: "We in America today are nearer to the final triumph over poverty than ever before in the history of any land." Within months, the Stock Market Crash of 1929 occurred, and the nation's economy spiraled downward into what became known as the Great Depression.

After the crash, Hoover announced that while he would keep the Federal budget balanced, he would cut taxes and expand public-works spending. However, he signed the Smoot-Hawley Tariff Act, which raised tariffs on over 20,000 dutiable items, and, later, the 1932 Revenue Act, which hiked taxes and fees (including postage rates) across the board. These acts are often blamed for deepening the depression, and being Hoover's biggest political blunders. Moreover, the Federal Reserve System's tightening of the money supply (for fear of inflationHerbert Hoover is also regarded by most modern economists as a mistaken tactic, given the situation. Hoover's Secretary of the Treasury was Andrew Mellon, a holdover from the Coolidge administration.

Thousands of World War I veterans and their families demonstrated and camped out in Washington, D.C., during June 1932, calling for immediate payment of a bonus that had been promised by the Adjusted Service Certificate Law for payment in 1924. Although offered money by Congress to return home, some members of the "Bonus army" remained. Washington police attempted to remove the demonstrators from their camp, but they were unsuccessful and the conflict grew. Hoover sent U.S. Army forces, led by General Douglas MacArthur and aided by junior officers Dwight D. Eisenhower and George S. Patton to stop a march. MacArthur, believing he was fighting a communist revolution, chose to clear out the camp with military force. In the ensuing clash, hundreds of civilains were injured and several were killed. The incident was a black eye for Hoover in the 1932 election.

Hoover's stance on the economy was based on volunteerism. From before his entry to the presidency, he was among the greatest proponents of the concept that public-private cooperation was the way to achieve high long-term growth. Hoover feared that too much intervention or coercion by behalf of the government would destroy individuality and self-reliance, which he considered to be important American values. Though he was not averse to taking action which he considered was in the public good, such as regulating radio broadcasting and aviation, he preferred a voluntary, non-government approach.

In June 1931, to deal with a very serious banking collapse in Central Europe that threatened to cause a world-wide financial melt-down, Hoover issued the so-called Hoover Moratorium that called for a one-year halt in reparations payments by Germany to France and in the payment of Allied war debts to the United States. The Hoover Moratorium had the effect of temporarily stopping the banking collapse in Europe. In June 1932, a conference was held in Switzerland that cancelled all reparations payments by Germany.

Hoover's economy was put to the test with the onset of the Great Depression in 1929. It was his vocal stance on non-intervention that led to public perception that he was a laissez-faire, 'do nothing' president, which his supporters deny.

The following is an outline of other actions Hoover took to try to help end the depression through government taxing and spending:

olSigned the Emergency Relief and Construction Act, the nation's first Federal unemployment assistance.Increased public works spending. Some of Hoover's efforts to stimulate the economy through public works are as follows:olDirected the Department of Commerce to establish a Division of Public Construction in December 1929.Urged the state governors to also increase their public works spending, though many failed to take any action.Signed the Federal Home Loan Bank Act establishing the Federal Home Loan Bank system to assist citizens in obtaining financing to purchase a home.Increased subsidies to the nation's struggling farmers with the Agricultural Marketing Act, but with only limited impact.Established the President's Emergency Relief Organization to coordinate local, private relief efforts resulting in over 3,000 relief committees across the U.S.Urged bankers to form the National Credit Corporation to assist banks in financial trouble and protect depositor's money.Actively encouraged businesses to maintain high wages during the depression. Many businessmen, most notably Henry Ford, raised or maintained their worker's wages early in the Depression in the hope that more money into the pockets of consumers would end the economic downturn.Signed the Reconstruction Finance Act. This act established the Reconstruction Finance Corporation, which made loans to the states for public works and unemployment relief. In addition, the RFC made loans to banks, railroads and agriculture credit organizations.Raised tariffs to protect American jobs. After hearings held by the House Ways and Means Committee generated over 20,000 pages of testimony regarding tariff protection, Congress responded with legislation that Hoover signed despite some misgivings. Instead of protecting American jobs, the Smoot-Hawley tariff is widely blamed for setting off a worldwide trade war which only worsened the country's (and the world's) economic ills.

In order to pay for these and other government programs, Hoover agreed to one of the largest tax increases in American history. The Revenue Act of 1932 raised taxes on the highest incomes from 25% to 63%. The estate tax was doubled and corporate taxes were raised by almost 15%. Hoover also encouraged Congress to investigate the New York Stock Exchange and this pressure resulted in various reforms.

For this reason, some hold that Hoover's economics were, in fact, left-wing in character. During the 1932 elections, Franklin D. Roosevelt blasted the Republican incumbent for spending and taxing too much, increasing national debt, raising tariffs and blocking trade, as well as placing millions on the dole of the government. He attacked Herbert Hoover for "reckless and extravagant" spending, of thinking "that we ought to center control of everything in Washington as rapidly as possible," and of leading "the greatest spending administration in peacetime in all of history." Roosevelt's running mate, John Nance Garner, accused the Republican of "leading the country down the path of socialism".

These policies pale beside the more drastic steps taken as part of the New Deal, however, and Hoover's opponents charge that they came too little, and too late. Even as he legislated for changes, 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.

Even so, New Dealer Rexford Tugwell sup later remarked that although no one would say so at the time, "practically the whole New Deal was extrapolated from programs that Hoover started."

Unemployment rose to 24.9% by the end of Hoover's presidency in 1933, a year that is considered to be the depth of the Great Depression. Even with massive intervention by his successor Roosevelt, the economy underwent only limited improvement, with unemployment falling to 14.3% in 1937, and then rising to 19% under a severe recession in 1937-1938 (a contraction labeled a depression by some economists). It was not until the war in the 1940s that the economy recovered fully. (Unemployment did not drop below 9.9% until 1942). Hoover was nominated, by the Republicans, for a second term, but was defeated by Democrat Franklin Delano Roosevelt in the 1932 election.

Even if the Hoover presidency has a negative imprint on it, it must be noted that there were some important reforms under the Hoover administration.

The President expanded civil service protection, cancelled private oil leases on government lands and led the way for the prosecution of gangster Al Capone. He appointed a commission which set aside 3 million acres (12,000 km²) of national parks and 2.3 million of national forests; he appointed a Federal Farm Board that tried to fix farm prices; advocated tax reduction for low-income Americans; doubled the numbers of veteran hospital facilities; negotiated a treaty on St. Lawrence Seaway (which failed in the Senate); signed an act that made the national anthem; wrote a Children's Charter that advocated protection of every child regardless of race or gender; built the San Francisco Bay Bridge; created an antitrust division in the Justice Department; required air mail carriers to improve service; proposed federal loans for urban slum clearances; organized the Federal Bureau of Prisons; reorganized the Bureau of Indian Affairs; proposed a federal Department of Education; advocated fifty-dollar-a-month pensions for Americans over 65; chaired White House conferences on child health, protection, homebuilding and homeownership. He also signed the Norris-La Guardia Act that paved the way for the New Deal's labor policy.

In the foreign arena, he helped to pave the way for Franklin D. Roosevelt's "Good Neighbor Policy" by withdrawing American troops from Nicaragua and Haiti; he also proposed an arms embargo on Latin America and a one-third reduction in the world's naval forces--the Hoover Plan. He and Secretary of State Henry Stimson outlined the Hoover-Stimson Doctrine that said the United States would not recognize territories gained by force.

Hoover appointed the following Justices to the Supreme Court of the United States:

His opponents in Congress, whom he felt were sabotaging his program for their own political gain, painted him as a callous and cruel president.

Hoover was badly defeated in the 1932 presidential election. After Roosevelt assumed the presidency, Hoover became a critic of the New Deal, warning against tendencies toward statism. His misgivings are in the book, , where he talked of fascism, communism, and socialism as enemies of traditional American liberties.

In 1938, Hoover went on a tour of Europe and met many heads of state, including Adolf Hitler.

In 1940, Hoover spoke at the Philadelphia Republican convention. Numerous reporters, including Drew Pearson, wrote that Hoover was positioning himself for the nomination, which, although taking place as France fell to Hitler's armies, was split between four candidates, the isolationists (Thomas Dewey, Robert Taft and Arthur Vandenberg) and the eventual winner, and anti-Nazi, Wendell Willkie. Hoover said that Hitler's victory over Europe was assured, and what America needed was a man as President who could do business with Hitler, and who had never alienated him. This is detailed in the Charles Peters book, "Five Days in Philadelphia."

In 1947, President Harry S. Truman appointed Hoover to a commission, which elected him chairman, to reorganize the executive departments. This became known as the Hoover Commission. He was appointed chairman of a similar commission by President Dwight D. Eisenhower in 1953. Many government 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 the age of 90 in New York City on October 20, 1964 at 11:35 AM, 31 years and seven months after leaving office. He had outlived his wife by 20 years. By the time of his death, he had rehabilitated his image and died praised as a beloved statesman. His was the longest retirement of any President. (Gerald Ford is now a close contender, and, as of 2006, he has been out of office for 29 years). Hoover and his wife are buried at the Herbert Hoover Presidential Library and Museum in West Branch, Iowa. Hoover was honored with a state funeral, and it was America's third in a span of 12 months (The others were for John F. Kennedy and General of the Army Douglas MacArthur).

The Lou Henry and Herbert Hoover House, built in 1919 in Palo Alto, California, is now the official residence of the President of Stanford University, and a National Historic Landmark. Hoover's rustic rural presidential retreat, Rapidan Camp (also later known as Camp Hoover) in the Shenandoah National Park in Virginia, has been recently been restored and opened to the public. The Hoover Dam was also named in his honor.

"I outlived the bastards" - answer to a question of how he managed to survive the long ostracism under the Roosevelt administration."Once upon a time my political opponents honored me as possessing the fabulous intellectual and economic power by which I created a worldwide depression all by myself.""There are only two occasions when Americans respect privacy, especially in Presidents. Those are prayer and fishing."Hooverball - sport created by Hoover's physician, played nearly every morning of his presidency on the White House lawn New York, 1951–52. 3 vol; v. 1. Years of adventure, 1874–1920; v. 2. The Cabinet and the Presidency, 1920–1933; v. 3. The Great Depression, 1929–1941.