Page 18 - Forbes - USA (March 2018)

FOrBES
FACt & COMMENt STEVE FORBES

dealing with it. His political maladroitness way to enter public service back home. Hoover’s desire to help American farm-
and optimistic statements allowed him to Then the Great War broke out. Without ers, who were suffering from overproduction
be portrayed—even to this day—as out of anyone requesting it of him, Hoover im- and inadequate commodity prices, started
touch, overwhelmed and incompetent. His mediately took charge of getting more than this hideous ball rolling. He thought that put-
dour personality was in stark contrast to 100,000 stranded Americans back home. ting tariffs on imported commodities would
that of his successor, the ebullient, upbeat, It was an amazing effort in fund-raising, help; however, Congress didn’t stop there,
confidence-inspiring Franklin D. Roosevelt. logistics and improvisation. Then Hoover and slapped new or higher levies on just
FDR was no more successful than dived into the task of feeding some 9 mil- about everything under the sun. The pros-
Hoover at slaying this beast of hard times, lion people in German-occupied Belgium pect of a sweeping, destructive tariff law sent
as evidenced by the depression of 1937– and northern France. The Germans had the stock market crashing in the fall of 1929.
1938 during Roosevelt’s second term, when stripped these areas of foodstuffs, and the Whyte skillfully describes the legislative
unemployment surged to 20%. British naval blockade ensured that no food history of Smoot-Hawley and how Hoover
Kenneth Whyte’s comprehensive, well- could get through. Hoover persuaded the lost control of the process. He could easily
researched and fluidly written biography British to let food be delivered via neutral have vetoed the resulting monstrosity, yet
of this man of many contradictions paints shipping and the Germans not to comman- despite the warnings of hundreds of noted
as complete a picture as one could hope deer those provisions—and he organized economists, he signed the bill in June 1930.
for. Thankfully, Whyte doesn’t assume the the entire relief effort at minimal cost. A global contraction began.
role of many previous writers—prosecu- When the U.S. entered the war in 1917, Contrary to myth, Hoover was anything
tor or defense attorney. This fair-minded Hoover was made America’s food czar and but a do-nothing president as the disaster
masterpiece will be the standard reference again performed miraculously. After WWI unfolded. But he responded with a series of
for many years to come. ended, he saved tens of millions measures that either exacerbated the crisis
Hoover’s early life story of people in Russia and other or were ineffectual. Other countries were
would have delighted Abraham parts of Europe from famine in no better, enacting tax increases as their
Lincoln as an example of individ- the midst of the Russian Civil War. economies shrank. Germany, in particu-
ual effort overcoming immense After an amateurish run for lar, slapped on major hikes, deepening the
obstacles. The son of an Iowan the GOP presidential nomina- slump and fueling the rapid rise of the Nazi
Quaker blacksmith and his wife, tion in 1920, Hoover was named party. Hoover followed suit with a mas-
Hoover was orphaned at 9, and commerce secretary, a cabinet sive tax boost that overnight raised the top
he and his siblings were shipped backwater. He turned this sleepy income tax rate from 25% to 63% and hit
off to various relatives. For most agency into a dynamo of hyper- numerous items with higher excise taxes.
of his childhood Hoover was an activity, successfully pushing the While one may disagree with Whyte’s
outlier, always working hard but development of radio, aviation take on some issues, he is right in that
never receiving any real affection, which and even television. He promoted the es- many of Hoover’s policies actually laid the
helped account for his withdrawn person- tablishment of market standards and cost- foundation for Roosevelt’s New Deal.
ality and utter lack of social graces, traits saving techniques to help business and The economic calamity, as well as the
that proved to be lethal in the political make the running of government more public’s disenchantment with Prohibition—
world and, subsequently, to his reputation. cost-efficient. No cabinet secretary had had the repeal of which Hoover refused to sup-
Always an indifferent student, Hoover such a record of achievement since Alex- port—led to his crushing reelection defeat
nonetheless displayed his amazing organi- ander Hamilton. and banishment to the political wilderness.
zational abilities early on. He deftly reorga- No wonder Hoover coasted to the pres- After WWII President Harry Truman
nized the head office of his uncle’s business. idency in 1928, winning in a landslide. But called on Hoover to help with European
He was admitted to the first class of the new then it all fell apart. The very activism that relief efforts. He also appointed Hoover to
Stanford University in 1891, even though had made him such a success led Hoover head a commission on streamlining gov-
he flunked the entrance exams (the institu- into a series of catastrophic mistakes. ernment. He did a superb job, and many
tion needed students), and won the admi- Any discussion of the Great Depres- states created “Little Hoover Commis-
ration of the U.S.’ outstanding geologist. sion—its causes and what should have been sions” to do the same. These efforts and the
Hoover would have taken a post with the done—is always laded with intense contro- passage of time lessened the bitterness and
U.S. Geological Survey had it not been for a versy. It is in the world of interpretation that antagonisms of the Depression years, and
shortage of funds brought about by the de- one can debate some of Whyte’s conclusions. Hoover’s public standing improved.
pression afflicting the country at the time. In this reviewer’s mind, Hoover’s biggest The controversies surrounding the De-
After Stanford, Hoover went to work disaster was signing the Smoot-Hawley pression will forever arouse debate and dis-
in the mining business in China and else- Tariff Act into law. It slapped new or higher cussion, but Whyte’s book is indispensable
where, achieving dazzling successes. By the taxes onto thousands of import items, pre- to understanding the extraordinary man
age of 40 he was an immensely rich man, cipitating a global trade war that sent econo- at the center of the storm—and to appre-
working out of London and looking for a mies around the world into a tailspin. ciating how much he did for humanity. f

16 | FOrBES march 31, 2018