The Life of Herbert Hoover . Vol. II: The Humanitarian, 1914-1917 (review)

Abstract

110Quaker History But while Henry Drinker continued to be an active Quaker, holding important posts in the yearly meeting, as well as serving on the Indian Committee, the Abolition Society, and the Westtown Committee, Elizabeth became less and less active in the Society as the years passed, and seemed little interested in its problems. The Quaker reformation, the turn to reform movements, the tightening of the discipline, and the tensions which were to result in the split of 1827, are not the subject of her pen. Although large numbers of Friends stayed with the Drinkers during Yearly Meeting, Elizabeth Drinker says little about her guests, even when they included such notables as Elias Hicks and James Mott. The visits of Quaker women ministers are rarely noted, nor do we find any references to the actions of the Philadelphia Women's Yearly Meeting. Slavery comes up only as it affects the Drinker household. The editors are similarly uninterested in Quaker affairs, and fail to footnote those brief references which Drinker makes to the life of the meeting. Drinker's comment on the preaching of Jemima Wilkinson for example receives no footnote , while a few pages further, the editors footnote a speech by George III published in a local newspaper. The history of meeting houses is footnoted, but the relationship of preparative, monthly, quarterly, and yearly meeting, or the parallel structure of women's meetings, is not made clear. While the Biddle volume of extracts makes fascinating reading, this new and complete version is too much like an encyclopedia to keep by the bedside. For scholars, however, who want to follow up any one of a number of lines of research, the three volumes comprise an invaluable original source, and ought to be in the library of everyone interested in Quaker scholarship. We are in debt to Elaine Crane for her meticulous work. PhiladelphiaMargaret Hope Bacon The Life of Herbert Hoover. Vol. II: The Humanitarian, 1914-1917. by George H. Nash. New York: W. W. Norton, 1988. Illustrations, notes, bibliographical postscripts, and index. $25. Herbert Hoover's traditional image is well known: a failed president, paralyzed by a fractured economy, who was unwilling and unable to assist the thousands of Americans made destitute by the Great Depression. In contrast, George Nash's The Life of Herbert Hoover: The Humanitarian, 1914-1917 introduces us to a younger, different Hoover: the founder and brilliant director of an international relief organization that provided desperately needed food for more than nine million helpless Belgian and French citizens trapped between a German army of occupation and a British naval blockade. Nash's Hoover emerges as a man of "restless vitality," a "Master of Efficiency " whose crusading mission constituted a relief effort "on a scale previously unknown and unimagined." Within thirty turbulent months, Hoover and his London-based Committee for Relief in Belgium (CRB) organized at least 130,000 volunteers around the world, and expended nearly $1 billion in charitable gifts and government subsidies—all "with not a whiff of scandal and an administrative overhead of well under 1 % . " In the process, Hoover completed a personal Odyssey from a prosperous, professionally esteemed but obscure mining engineer to an internationally acclaimed humanitarian whose name was "a household word on Book Reviews111 three continents" and whose life was irrevocably set on the path of public service and, eventually, American politics. In tracking the transition years of 1914 to 1917, Nash demonstrates that "the world of philanthropy was no place for the meek." His detailed narrative, based on extensive research in US, British, and Belgian archives, praises Hoover and provides insights into the political intrigue, personal ambition, petty rivalries, and diplomatic infighting that constantly challenged him and the CRB. Hoover had to confront not only the British and the Germans, neither of whom would take responsibility for feeding the trapped Belgians, but also fellow philanthropists such as John D. Rockefeller, Jr. who tried to establish rival organizations or to commandeer the CRB. Throughout all these wearisome struggles, Hoover proved himself to be adroit and dogged in his determination to save the Belgians, brilliantly blending his idealism with practical efficiency. In 1915 one colleague wrote, "I should like to see H.C...