Herbert Hoover Dealing with disaster EPISODE TRANSCRIPT Listen to Presidential at http://wapo.st/presidential This transcript was run through an automated transcription service and then lightly edited for clarity. There may be typos or small discrepancies from the podcast audio. LILLIAN CUNNINGHAM: When I think of Herbert Hoover, this is what I think. SONG FROM 'ANNIE' LILLIAN CUNNINGHAM: It's a song from the musical, 'Annie.' The Great Depression is raging, and there's a scene where Little Orphan Annie stumbles into a Hooverville, which is what they called the shantytowns that sprung up when millions of Americans lost their jobs and their homes and were starving on the streets during the Depression. The word ‘Hooverville’ was, of course, a jab at President Hoover, who was in the White House as the country spiraled downward. So, this was basically the extent of my image of Hoover -- a failed president during the Great Depression. This week, we are going to get a much richer picture of him, starting with the fact that Hoover, like Annie, was an orphan. I'm Lillian Cunningham with The Washington Post, and this is the 30th episode of “Presidential.” PRESIDENTIAL THEME MUSIC LILLIAN CUNNINGHAM: Last week with Calvin Coolidge, we spent a lot of time talking about economics. So, this week, even though we're now at the Great Depression and there are a lot of interesting economic questions to explore, we're not actually going to get too into the weeds on economic policy. Instead, I'm interested in the fact that Hoover entered the White House looking extremely qualified for the role. He was a self-made millionaire, an astute businessman. He had led the U.S. Food Administration. He had helped lead relief efforts in World War I, and he had served as secretary of Commerce. So, why was his presidency so unsuccessful? Exploring that question with me this week is biographer Charles Rappleye. He recently published the book, 'Herbert Hoover in the White House.' So, Charles, thanks for being my guide for Hoover this week. Presidential podcast wapo.st/presidential 1 CHARLES RAPPLEYE: Nice to be here. LILLIAN CUNNINGHAM: So, let's just start at the beginning of his life. CHARLES RAPPLEYE: Yes. LILLIAN CUNNINGHAM: So, Herbert Clark Hoover was born in 1874 in a small town in Iowa, West Branch. I know that both of his parents died when he was young, but could you give me a bit more of a vivid picture of what his childhood was like? CHARLES RAPPLEYE: I mean, they were poor. And that was their life. It was in a poor community. His father was a small-time entrepreneur -- opened a blacksmith shop. Sold some dry goods. Hoover was 6 when his father died, and then it was three or four years later that his mother got sick and died. She was a Quaker who was invited to preach at meetings. In fact, that's when she got sick and died – she was walking home from a meeting a couple of miles away from West Branch. LILLIAN CUNNINGHAM: She caught pneumonia. CHARLES RAPPLEYE: She caught pneumonia. Soon after that, he was sent out in care of an uncle to Oregon. So, Bert grew up pretty lonely. He had his older brother with him at first, but then they were separated. He helped his uncle in chores. It was not a warm environment. When he was 14 and 15, he was working at the counter for the land company that his uncle had started up, selling off lots. He slept on a cot behind the counter. He studied math in his spare time. He didn't attend school after grade school. He spent all his time in the office. So, he was a very isolated fellow and socially held back. But in his 18th year, a college recruiter came through -- a guy representing the new Leland Stanford College that was being started in Palo Alto in California. And somehow, he found Bert Hoover and administered a test to him and was impressed with his diligence in his industry and invited him to join the college -- with the one proviso that he had done poorly on the writing and English, so he had to get some tutoring. He was a little bit handicapped in English. He had real trouble with it. After his four years at Stanford, his one barrier upon graduation was he was also held back to be tutored in English. And they had to give him dispensation to graduate. And the irony being that later in his life, after his presidency, Hoover spent the rest of his years producing volumes and volumes of books -- taking the one thing that he was considered to be the least skilled at. Of all the intellectual endeavors he could have pursued, writing became his principal occupation. And it says something about Hoover, because Hoover is full of contradiction and never accepted the limits that he was faced with -- personally or otherwise. LILLIAN CUNNINGHAM: So, why don't we pause here for just one second. Why is the detail that he grew up Quaker important? You know, in a number of biographies about Hoover, that's that sort of a detail that's brought to the forefront. What insight does that give us about his character or his values -- the way he saw the world? CHARLES RAPPLEYE: Certainly, his Quaker upbringing informed his worldview. He was a Pacifist. Presidential podcast wapo.st/presidential 2 And that does not mean he was against war in any case, but he was always anti-militarism. But I think it's a mistake to consider Hoover an active Quaker. A number of biographers -- it's true -- have portrayed Hoover as the Quaker president and have looked for his character in light of his Quaker upbringing. But I think that has largely been over-emphasized. Herbert Hoover, after he left West Branch, had little to do with the Quaker church. LILLIAN CUNNINGHAM: So he enters Stanford, and this is the very first class at Stanford University. It's the year that it starts. And he ends up majoring in geology. CHARLES RAPPLEYE: Yes. LILLIAN CUNNINGHAM: So, he also falls in love with the only woman at Stanford, who's also a geology major. Her name was Lou Henry. Tell me a bit more about his temperament. If I were Lou sitting in one of these geology classes with him and then being asked out on a date by him, who's this man that I would encounter? CHARLES RAPPLEYE: Well, he was shy and retiring, very sort of close-mouthed. But he was also very smart. He had a self-deprecating and warm sense of humor. He liked the outdoors -- he loved the outdoors, as did Lou. They shared that. I mean he was brilliant, and she was attracted to that. At one point on the campaign trail, somebody observed to Lou, 'Oh you're very accomplished as well. You've also got a geology degree at Stanford.' She said, 'Yes, I majored in geology at Stanford, but I've majored in Herbert Hoover ever since.' She was very committed to Bert, and he graduated two years before she did and he left Stanford and toiled in mines in California. He worked under a mining engineer who saw his talent, and received a query from a European firm seeking a manager for new mining operations in Australia. And Hoover went to Australia and then, after he'd been away for a couple of years, he proposed to Lou. And they went out to Australia and then Asia and together. They were running mining operations in China during the Boxer Rebellion. And Lou was packing a pistol and minding the perimeter and feeding other ex- Pats who were trapped behind the lines, and it was an adventure. They lived a life of adventure together. They were in Russia. They were all over the world, and they had their two little children - - two boys. LILLIAN CUNNINGHAM: I think I came across in my bit of research that, by the time they came back to the U.S., she could speak eight languages, and that there would be times when they would talk in Mandarin together when they didn't want people to overhear what they were saying to each other. CHARLES RAPPLEYE: Yes, she was quite a linguist. Also, she had great knowledge of botany, of biology. She was the leader on their collaboration, the hobby that they did together, which was to take an ancient Roman mining text and translate it for the first time. They used to give volumes as gifts to people. They were celebrated in the world of mining and mineralogy. They were quite the accomplished couple, and Hoover had a consultancy with offices on six continents and headquarters in London. And that's where he was when World War I broke out, and he moved into public life. Presidential podcast wapo.st/presidential 3 LILLIAN CUNNINGHAM: Yeah. So he ends up having this very successful career as a businessman, even though, all the way back when he was at Stanford, he was doing jobs on campus to try to pay for his schooling. He really is one of those stories of a self-made millionaire. So, how is it that he then transitions into public service? CHARLES RAPPLEYE: By age 40, he had made his fortune, and he was looking for a more useful role -- a public role. And his initial instinct was not to run for office. He was thinking of buying a newspaper.