The Real Herbert Hoover

Abstract

����� ��� hen the economy sank into the Great Recession in 2008, memories of the Great Depression were resurrected and the name “Herbert Hoover” was dusted off for a new round of scolding. He was repeatedly reprimanded as a champion of laissez faire, a term and philosophy he had specifically rejected as early as 1922 in his philosophical treatise American Individualism. 1 Virtually every Democratic presidential candidate since Franklin D. Roosevelt has equated Hoover with hard times. When people think “Depression” they think “Hoover.” They might as well be listed as synonyms in Roget’s Thesarus. Meanwhile, Amity Schlaes, author of The Forgotten Man, has impaled Hoover from the libertarian end of the spectrum. According to Schlaes, Hoover was a co-conspirator with Franklin D. Roosevelt. The duo prolonged the Great Depression by meddling with the economy. 2 George H. Nash has described Hoover as a political orphan, “too progressive for the conservatives and too conservative for the liberals.” 3 During his tenure in the White House, Hoover’s once enviable reputation plummeted so precipitously that Will Rogers quipped that a man bit into an apple, found a worm, and exclaimed, “Damn Hoover.” 4 Presidential polls of historians as late as 2008 rank him among the worst presidents, and the stereotype cemented in the mind of the general public resembles a cross between Ebeneezer Scrooge and the Grinch who stole Christmas. 5 His historical reputation is ensnarled in exag