Now that George W. Bush is facing his final days in the White
House, let’s consider another controversial Republican president
who failed the test of his times. Herbert Clark Hoover happens to
be America’s only Commander in Chief who has any real claim to a
South Valley connection.
Now that George W. Bush is facing his final days in the White House, let’s consider another controversial Republican president who failed the test of his times. Herbert Clark Hoover happens to be America’s only Commander in Chief who has any real claim to a South Valley connection.
I feel a bit sorry for Hoover and his history. The 31st president of the United States was a good man who suffered bad luck when his turn came to lead America. I bet there were many occasions when he looked out the White House windows and wished he’d never left the Bay Area.
Born in West Branch, Iowa, on Aug. 10, 1874, Hoover grew up in a Quaker family that shaped his humanitarian outlook on life. By the age of 10, he was an orphan, and moved to Newberg, Ore., to live with an uncle named John Minthorn. There, he worked in Minthorn’s real estate agency as an office boy, attending night school where he studied math, typing and bookkeeping.
In 1891, the great railroad baron Leland Stanford opened Stanford University in Palo Alto. Hoover applied for the brand new college’s first class and was accepted. During his time there, he studied geology and served as the student manager of Stanford’s baseball and football games, participating in the inaugural “Big Game” against rival U.C. Berkeley. He also dated a young woman named Lou Henry, a fellow Stanford student.
The two would eventually tie the knot in 1899 at the San Carlos Cathedral in Monterey. (As a bit of presidential trivia, neither the bride nor groom were Catholic so the priest performed the wedding ceremony as a civil magistrate.)
Hoover graduated from Stanford in 1895 and began working as a mining engineer in California’s Sierra Nevada mountain range for the U.S. Geological Survey. He spent the next 20 years as a mining consultant in Australia and China. With the outbreak of World War I, he made a name for himself as a humanitarian by leading volunteer efforts to provide food for millions of starving Europeans affected by the crisis. For his relief work, the New York Times listed Hoover as one of its “10 Most Important Living Americans.” Immediately after receiving this honor, both political parties courted him as a potential candidate.
Hoover returned to Palo Alto in 1919 and he and his wife built a home on the Stanford campus. The couple lived there until 1921 when they moved to Washington, D.C., after President Harding appointed Hoover to be his Secretary of Commerce.
In 1928, Hoover ran against Democrat Alfred Smith for the White House. Waiting with his wife in their Stanford home for the results, Hoover found he’d won by a landslide. Unfortunately, half a year after he was sworn in as president, the U.S. was hit by the greatest economic disaster it had ever faced. The vast majority of Americans blamed Hoover for the Great Depression.
In 1932, Hoover and Lou once again were in their Stanford home waiting for election results. This time, the charismatic Franklin D. Roosevelt won by a landslide. After Roosevelt was sworn in in March 1933, the Hoovers returned to the San Francisco Bay Area. To get some privacy, they spent a month at the Mt. Hamilton ranch home of their friend Joseph Grant. No doubt, Hoover must have visited the Lick Observatory at the summit of the mountain a few miles up the road. From there, he would have gazed down upon the South Valley farm villages of Morgan Hill and Gilroy.
We know that in his post-presidential years, Hoover also visited the New Idria Quicksilver mines in southern San Benito County. In June 1936, he traveled there on an inspection tour of the facilities for his brother Theodore. No doubt, the former president passed through Hollister on his way, perhaps even stopping for a bite to eat.
From his visit to New Idria, Hoover recommended the mercury mines as a sound investment. Theodore and two other men purchased the property and formed the New Idria Mining Company. Hoover received a three percent share in the operation. At that time, the mine produced about a third of America’s mercury supply and about 15 percent of the world’s supply, so it proved to be a profitable enterprise for the former president.
I suspect that, like Hoover, George W. Bush will go into some geology-related enterprise (most likely oil drilling) after leaving the White House when Barack Obama becomes our new president. I’ll be fascinated to see what Bush decides to do with his post-presidential life. Will he strive to somehow salvage his standing in American history? Or, like Hoover did, will he simply drift away into obscurity?
