Herbert Hoover in the White House: The Ordeal of the Presidency

by Charles Rappleye

Rappleye's surprising portrait of a Depression-era president Herbert Hoover reveals a very different figure than the usual Hoover, engaged and active but loathe to experiment and conscious of his inability to convey hope to the country.

Herbert Clark Hoover was the thirty-first President of the United States. He served one term, from 1929 to 1933. Often considered placid, passive, unsympathetic, and even paralyzed by national events, Hoover faced an uphill battle in the face of the Great Depression. Many historians dismiss him as merely ineffective. But in Herbert Hoover in the White House, Charles Rappleye draws on rare and intimate sources, memoirs and diaries and thousands of documents kept by members of his cabinet and close advisors;to reveal a very different figure than the one often portrayed. The real Hoover, argues Rappleye, just lacked the tools of leadership.

The Hoover presented here will come as a surprise to both his longtime defenders and his many critics. In public Hoover was shy and retiring, but in private he is revealed as a man of passion and sometimes of fury, a man who intrigued against his enemies while fulminating over plots against him. Rappleye describes him as more sophisticated and more active in economic policy than is often acknowledged. We see Hoover watching a sunny (and he thought ignorant) FDR on the horizon. FDR did not cure the depression, but he experimented with steps that relieved it. Most importantly he broke the mood of doom almost immediately. The Hoover we see here;bright, well meaning, energetic;lacked the single critical element to succeed as president. He had a first-class mind and a second-class temperament.

Herbert Hoover in the White House is an object lesson in the most, perhaps only, talent needed to be a successful president;the temperament of leadership.

Genres: History, Biography, Presidents, American History, Nonfiction, Politics, Us Presidents

576 pages, Hardcover

First published May 10, 2016

Reviews

[Matt · Rating 4 out of 5]

“[Being overlooked] is a rare circumstance for a person who reaches so high an office as the presidency of the United States, but that was the case with Herbert Hoover. That is not because Hoover’s presidency was insignificant. He led the country in the teeth of the most dire economic crisis in American history, a trauma that, in cause and result, might well be considered the labor pains attendant to the birth of the modern era. At the same time, all of the civilized world was wrestling with the allure and the dangers presented by the isms of the left and the right – communism, fascism, and every stripe of the spectrum in between. In this titanic struggle, Hoover found the resolve to stay off the shoals and steer by his own lights. Still Hoover remains very much unknown to most Americans…”
- Charles Rappleye, Herbert Hoover in the White House: The Ordeal of the Presidency

Historians of all political inclinations have made a cottage industry of reviewing and reinterpreting past presidents perceived as failures, fitting them to our times, re-looking at the choices they made, and generally attempting to lift their reputations. In past years, presidents as different as Harry Truman and Calvin Coolidge have been the subject of hefty tomes that attempt to turn them into standard bearers rather than disappointments.

When Charles Rappleye’s Herbert Hoover in the White House was published in 2016, I sensed it might be the beginning of a Hooveraissance, an effort to elevate one of the most maligned chief executives in history – long listed as the absolute worse – into a paradigm of limited government.

Then, of course, in the year this came out, there was an election you might have heard about, and politics went in a whole different direction. In an era of fake news and chosen realities and dangerous conspiracies, the idea of rehabilitating a man who’s been dead over half-a-century seems almost quaint. The present tumult also makes it unlikely that Hoover – unlike, say, Ronald Reagan – will ever be remade into an icon.

Still, this is a solid look at a fascinating man.

***

The title gives you an accurate indication of this book’s scope and purpose. It begins with Hoover’s nomination by the Republican National Convention in 1928, and ends with his landslide defeat to Franklin D. Roosevelt in 1932. Rappleye spends no time with an introductory biographical chapter, but instead thrusts you right into the White House along with his subject.

In one sense, I respect the focus. I have had many occasions to be irritated with histories that promise one thing, only to digress into something entirely different.

Nonetheless, I think Rappleye’s choice to eschew any background (save for a few disconnected references to Hoover’s past) is a mistake. For one, Hoover – as Rappleye understands, since it’s one of the reasons for writing this – is not well known today. And his life story is really compelling. A Quaker from Iowa, orphaned at a young age; a Stanford graduate who traveled the world and made millions as a mining engineer; a famed humanitarian who organized food relief in Europe during World War I, and who led the response to the 1927 floods in the U.S. No matter what else you think of “Bert” – which is what Rappleye insists on calling him – his is not a boring life story. Moreover, Rappleye attempts on occasion to give psychological insight into Hoover’s choices by reaching back to his foundational moments. Since we have not been given any insight into Hoover’s past, these attempts don’t land with much impact.

***

Overall, Herbert Hoover in the White House is a very fast-paced, lucidly written, and engaging narrative. I really enjoyed reading it – which is a thing I didn't necessarily suspect upon opening a book with Hoover’s self-satisfied mug on the cover.

Rappley does a fine job laying out Hoover’s various challenges (not just the Great Depression, but Prohibition as well), sketching the many characters, and giving you the bottom line. At 469 pages of text, this is not a novella by any means. It has the space to explore and explain Hoover’s ordeal, especially since Rappleye mostly ignores extraneous items not directly connected to his role as president. At the same time, it is not a deep dive into the material. There are no rigorous disquisitions on tariffs or monetary policy. I’m not trying to imply that Rappleye is giving us Hoover for Dummies, only that he is writing for a general audience that might not be entirely familiar with the effects of the ’29 Crash, the causes of the Great Depression, or the complicated impact of WWI loans and reparation payments on the international economy.


***

I suppose it is worth mentioning that Rappleye is not a Hoover expert. He freely admits that he knew little about Hoover when starting this project. You can sense that in his style, which I mean as a compliment. He writes with the freshness and energy of someone stumbling upon something new. I caught some of that enthusiasm, and as I read, I began searching through the bibliography for further reading.

***

Herbert Hoover in the White House is not structured or executed as a polemic. It leans on storytelling more than argument. Still, it definitely has a thesis. The Hoover that Rappleye presents is not an uncaring laissez faire liquidationist, willing to let the economy burn to the ground so it can later regrow. Instead, Rappleye wants us to focus on the steps that Hoover took to stabilize the banks, prop up big businesses, and increase money flow.

For instance, Rappleye spends a lot of time discussing the Reconstruction Finance Corporation as a signal example of Hoover’s activism. The RFC was meant to provide loans to private businesses in the hopes this would allow them to continue operating and boost public confidence. In all, the RFC provided some $2 billion in support, which isn’t nothing. When it comes to the Depression, though, there is no shortage of dissenting opinions, and other writers and economists have come to conclusions opposed to Rappleye’s, believing that the RFC was a trickle-down program that did far too little. Either way, it shows Hoover doing something, which counters the enduring image of him as a man who did nothing.

***

For me, the most unfortunate aspect of Herbert Hoover in the White House is its treatment of Hoover’s vanquisher. Writing about Hoover and FDR does not have to be a zero sum game, in which one is good, and the other bad.

Unfortunately, that’s what happens here. Rappleye presents an FDR that is exactly how Hoover conceived him, seeing only naivety, cynicism, and incoherence. Rappleye accuses FDR of inconstancy, of flip-flopping, and of essentially reading any speech that was put into his hands. This pretty much echoes Walter Lippmann’s contemporary critique, which was wrong at the time and hasn’t gotten less wrong in the 85 years since he wrote it. FDR was a longtime progressive with a very definite vision of the role of government. His vague policy positions leading up to the 1932 election – which Rappleye finds damning – was actually cagey politics. FDR knew that the Democratic nominee was going to be president, so he needn’t worry about Herbert Hoover so much as competition in his own party, especially from Al Smith. These are the kinds of subtle distinctions that tend to get lost when a biographer starts to see things only through his subject’s eyes.

***

Unlike a truly partisan work, you don’t necessarily have to agree with all Rappleye’s conclusions to enjoy this. I learned a lot, even if I remain unconvinced that Hoover deserves to climb the presidential rankings. Maybe he was not an American Nero, blithely eating five course meals in a tuxedo while his fellow citizens lined up for soup. Maybe he did try to right things, within the paradigm of his own views on economics and the limits of government. That can be true and yet not be enough. Even Rappleye has to concede that Hoover was a terrible politician and an awful communicator. Instead of instilling confidence, he delivered grim and pedantic lectures. Instead of getting out among the people, he holed up in the White House. He was rejected soundly in 1932, and his presidency deemed an abject fiasco. It will take far more than this book to convince me of the unsoundness of that verdict.

[Jeffrey Keeten · Rating 4 out of 5]

”The presidency was the first elected office Hoover ever held, and it showed. His status as a political novice served him well in his race against New York governor Al Smith, who was the quintessential politician of the time, a garrulous backslapper who embodied the spirit and the pluck of Gotham’s tenements. But in office Hoover’s nature betrayed him. Through a curious combination of arrogance and personal pique he managed to turn much of his own party against him, and within a year, well before the Depression had fully revealed itself, Hoover had shown himself to be hapless and inept as president.”


Herbert Hoover

For me no president is insignificant. I may have more interest in certain presidents, but every president has had an impact on history. It may not have been the author’s, Charles Rappleye’s, intention to make allusions to our current president with this description of Hoover, but certainly it is easy to see some parallels. Hoover won election over the very well liked Al Smith, despite the fact that Smith was “wet” and the country was ready to repeal prohibition. Smith was Catholic, which held some stigmas for this primarily Protestant country. John F. Kennedy still faced the same issues in 1960. Oddly enough, both Hoover and Richard Nixon were Quakers squaring off against these Democratic, Catholic candidates. Hoover won easily, and Nixon lost in a squeaker.

President Warren G. Harding was a skirt chaser, hard drinker, and gambler, who was well loved by the American public. Despite knowing about his bohemian, personal lifestyle, when I look at pictures of Harding, he looks substantial and presidential. His administration was rocked by a series of scandals, mostly involving the Tea Pot Dome Controversy. Most of the scandalous issues with his lifestyle and with his administration did not come out until after he died suddenly while still in office at the age of 57. His replacement, President Calvin Coolidge, managed to clean up the dirty laundry (I’m not talking about women’s delicates here, although who knows what he found in the drawers of Harding’s desk.) left scattered around the White House and reinvigorated the faith of the American people in the office of the presidency. I don’t know much about Silent Cal except that his thoughts on domestic economic matters, termed laissez-faire ideology, had a lasting impact on American policy ,especially for those who consider themselves fiscally conservative Republicans.


Cal cleaning house.

Some make the argument that this belief of a hands off role of government in regards to business matters led to the Great Depression. I’m not going to get into the reasons why the Depression happened, as that would be a whole essay by itself. Coolidge decided not to run for reelection in 1928. He has spent six years in office and firmly believed that ten years would be too many years for any man to hold the reins of office. He walked away even though it was evident he would have won reelection easily. This opens up the White House door for Herbert Hoover.

Rappleye concentrates his writing on the White House years, but he does give us some background on Hoover that proves significant in trying to understand why he made some of the decisions he did that contributed to some of his failures in office. He was well respected. Few presidents have had such high expectations coming into office. He was known as the “Great Humanitarian,” which becomes such an ironic nickname. He provided wonderful relief work as part of the President Woodrow Wilson administration as the head of the U.S. Food Administration. He was instrumental in saving millions of lives, organizing food distribution across Europe in the wake of WW1. Has there ever been a better tailor made man for the trials and tribulations the American people were about to face?

Who would have thought he would turn out to be the perfect man to ensure Franklin Delano Roosevelt the presidency?

Hoover has such a compelling rags to riches story. He was an orphan, who worked his way through college doing whatever crap job he could find to keep himself sustained. He certainly believed in the pull yourself up by your own bootstraps philosophy, which is fine if the opportunities exist for a hardworking person to do so. His disconnect seemed to come from not ever fully grasping how dire the circumstances were for those people who found themselves jobless, homeless, and hungry in quick succession. ”The American people were not acting like the plucky patriots of Hoover’s caricature; they were reeling in the face of loss, dislocation, and in the drought region, impending famine. Hoover could not have been ignorant of the impending doom.” People needed help and direction. “These were folks who needed solace, not a scolding.” They needed definable hope, not accused of not working hard enough to better their circumstances.

Hoover had no illusions about the reasons for the crash in 1929. ”’The only trouble with capitalism is capitalists,’ the president told his journalist friend. ‘They’re too damned greedy.’” Which always comes back to how much is enough? Greed and gluttony are such corrupting influences on the soul and on the heart. Embracing either puts a person in jeopardy of never achieving peace or enlightenment. They are shallow desires unworthy of pursuit or practice, and yet we live in a country where money is lauded and contentment is looked on with suspicion.

Hoover could sense hard times coming and pulled all of his personal fortune out of the stock market before Black Tuesday, or actually Black Thursday which is when the slide actually started. Few knew the correction of a bloated market would cause such huge, long lasting pain to every facet of every industry.



It is not that Hoover didn’t try to do some things to turn the tide of The Depression, but they were ineffectual, too late, and generally he mucked them up by not garnering enough support from key politicians to help him bring them to life. In some ways, he seemed to like the idea of being president more than he did actually doing the job. He certainly struggled to feel empathy: ”When it came to breadlines and soup kitchens, he was downright dismissive. ‘Nobody is starving,’ Hoover dryly pronounced. ‘The hoboes are better fed than they ever were before.’ The president mentioned an anecdote from the current news. ‘Did you see where one hobo in New York got 18 meals in one day? These are boon times for hoboes.’”

First of all, who could eat 18 meals in one day? Who followed this hobo around to watch him eat these meals? It sounds like an urban legend to me, but what is tragic about a story like this is Republicans especially love to use such tales to show how people inherently find ways to take advantage of any kindness, especially if it is a government sponsored program. Let’s say this hobo did eat 18 meals in one day; does that negate the good that the program did for thousands of other people?

There is lots to ponder in this book. I certainly have a better idea of why it took so long for the United States to come out of The Great Depression. One part of it was Hoover’s insistence on adhering to the gold standard, while other countries, such as England, abandoned it. Those countries who abandoned the gold standard came out of their depressions years sooner. Hoover is frankly baffling. He was intellectually gifted, could see the forest for the trees, and he could have certainly been remembered as a more restrained FDR, but instead we think of him as the man who refused to offer leadership, aid, and reassurance to those who needed it most.

If you wish to see more of my most recent book and movie reviews, visit http://www.jeffreykeeten.com
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[Steve · Rating 4 out of 5]

https://bestpresidentialbios.com/2020...

"Herbert Hoover in the White House: The Ordeal of the Presidency" by Charles Rappleye was published in 2016, just a few months after I read four books on Hoover during my initial journey through the best biographies of every president. Rappleye was an investigative reporter and the author of five books including "Robert Morris: Financier of the American Revolution." He died in 2018 at the age of 62.

Navigating a childhood which instilled the twin values of hard work and self-reliance, Herbert Hoover led an extraordinarily purposeful and almost entirely successful life. Charles Rappleye's 469-page book, however, covers the four years of Hoover's life for which he was most ill-suited - his presidency.

Less a biography built upon new revelations and more a re-telling of Hoover's White House years through a fresh lens, this book offers readers a critical and balanced view of what, by most accounts, was an unsuccessful tenure.  Rappleye is a skilled writer with a talent for both observation and analysis and although Hoover's march through the White House can best be described as a depressing slog, the narrative is remarkably clear...and often surprisingly interesting.

The book's best feature may be the liberal infusion of one-liners which pervade the text. These punchy observations add valuable clarity to a storyline intrinsically burdened by a series of complex crises spawned by the Great Depression.

Rappleye is also able to take dull or tedious topics (such as the inner-workings of the Federal Reserve and the nuances of foreign exchange rates) and make them unusually approachable. And he does so without sacrificing the intellectual integrity of the discussion.

Some of the book's more interesting moments include a thorough review of president-elect Hoover's discomfort with the booming stock market, the discussion of his efforts to deflate the equity "bubble" and his refusal to abandon the Gold Standard in the face of significant pressure.

But while Rappleye manages to take complicated topics and make them refreshingly clear, he is not always as adept at making them interesting. As a result, readers not enchanted by abstruse topics inherent in any discussion of the Hoover presidency will find portions of the narrative tedious or uninteresting.

In addition, Hoover's personality makes him a particularly difficult subject to fully fathom; he was highly intelligent, famously circumspect and incredibly opaque. And because much of his failure as president stemmed from personality traits ingrained early in his life (and outside this book's focus), the reader is never fully able to observe the broad cause-and-effect.

To his credit, Rappleye does refer to moments in his subject's pre-presidency in an effort to explain many of his presidential actions and tendencies, but Hoover undoubtedly remains more a mystery than would be the case if this book included a more comprehensive exploration of his entire life.

Finally, Hoover's personal life is all but missing. His wife appears intermittently and his children are referred to sporadically. But the private side to this man is largely out of view - as I'm sure he would have preferred.

Overall, however, Charles Rappleye's "Herbert Hoover in the White House" is a commendable book covering a talented businessman who was ill-equipped for the presidency. Given its relatively narrow scope, readers hoping to understand the most fascinating aspects of Hoover's life - and fully understand his presidential failings - will need to look elsewhere. But anyone seeking an articulate, insightful and nuanced rendering of his presidency will find this book extremely enlightening.

Overall rating: 4 stars

[Aaron Million · Rating 5 out of 5]

Ranked today as one of the worst Presidents, prior to him occupying that role, Herbert Hoover was one of the most successful and admired men in America (and arguably the world). Hoover, orphaned by the time he was ten, built himself up from basically nothing, becoming a wealthy mining engineer before turning to public service in WWI. Tasked by Woodrow Wilson to keep millions of European children from starving, he did so. He parlayed this success into eight years as Secretary of Commerce before being elected overwhelmingly in 1928. Then it all came crashing down, in more ways than one.

Charles Rappleye goes in-depth on Hoover's presidency: what went wrong, where he went wrong, what he did right, what was out of his control, and what he failed to do; all the while documenting the onset of the Great Depression and how it ravaged the country. Rappleye shows that the historical reputation that Hoover now has as a failed President is both overblown and well-earned at the same time. Hoover did not sit around doing nothing. Far from it. In fact, he toiled ceaselessly, to the point of collapse. Reading this book, one wonders how he did not collapse.

When the Wall Street crash occurred in October of 1929, Hoover (like many others) initially thought things would not become as bad as they quickly became, and that the slump would not last very long. Rappleye reminds the reader that Hoover and his administration were reacting in real-time, while we today have the luxury of knowing how things turned out. How could anyone have predicted that the Depression would be as deep and long-lasting as it ended up being? Many people did predict that the market was due for an over-correction, and some did predict a crash of some level, but who could have foreseen all of the misery that was ahead? Hoover had been concerned about the reckless ways of the 1920s, but there was little he could do in advance. Banks quickly failed, people lost their jobs and their homes, soup lines became common, and pleas for assistance poured in from everywhere.

Hoover's biggest enemy was not the Depression. It was himself. He carried a narrow, limited view of his office and the powers that lie in it. Hoover also abhorred government intrusion into peoples' lives, and was a stickler for individual initiative and people making their own way through life, much like he had. He was constantly on the lookout for people who he thought wanted to go on "the dole", which nowadays would be called welfare. The strange thing is not that Hoover didn't care, it is that his actions and words gave people the impression that he didn't care. His speeches were moribund and devoid of personality. He came across as much more concerned about balancing the budget and encouraging people to help their neighbors out. This, while people shivered and starved.

Modern-day Presidents focus much of their time on winning the public relations wars. Hoover is a great example of someone who failed, and failed miserably. He did try things: the Reconstruction Finance Corporation was created on his watch with his stamp of approval; he implored the Red Cross to step up and help those who needed food and shelter; he called together groups of wealthy business owners (people like Henry Ford) and asked them to hold wages steady; he worked and worked to try to find solutions to get money moving and people working again. But nobody saw any of this. All they saw was Hoover's horrible speeches where he kept repeating bromides about individual initiative and how important it was for the budget to be balanced. His demeanor was cold, impersonal, standoffish. Perception is reality, and the country's perception of Hoover was of someone who just didn't give a damn.

Rappleye has an excellent chapter about the Bonus Army debacle in the summer of 1932. Thousands of WWI veterans marched from all across the country to Washington D.C., demanding early payment of a bonus that a Congress several years before had voted to award them. The bonus was supposed to be paid in 1945, but the veterans needed/wanted it now. Rappleye is clear-eyed here as he is throughout the book: Hoover ended up taking the blame for the tragedy that ensued, but he was far from the only guilty party. The marchers themselves were not choirboys, and some of them got way out of line and basically asked for trouble. Army Chief of Staff, General Douglas MacArthur deliberately disobeyed Hoover's orders and used excessive force against the ragtag group, chasing them out of D.C. with bayonets, burning their campgrounds, and pushing them way beyond what Hoover had instructed be done. The Secretary of War, Patrick Hurley, left Hoover to be the fall guy for the administration's botched handling of the event, and Hoover naively allowed it to happen. Hoover had worked hard behind the scenes to avert a clash and resolve the issue peacefully, but the public did not know that. All it knew was the Hoover refused to meet with the group's leaders, and then sent MacArthur after them. If there were any lingering doubt that Hoover might not lose his bid for re-election, it ended then.

Hoover's final months in office, after his landslide defeat by Franklin Roosevelt, reminded me (in some ways) of two other recent, one-term Presidents. In the ensuing almost four months left to him, Hoover as a lame-duck worked tirelessly to try to prevent the economic system from completely collapsing. This lasted all the way up to the morning of FDR's inauguration. It made me think of Jimmy Carter frantically trying to bring negotiations over the Iran hostage crisis to an end before Ronald Reagan assumed office. Unfortunately, the other President whom Hoover reminded me of a bit was Donald Trump. While Hoover did accept the results of the election, he certainly did not act like it as he kept trying to get FDR to repudiate his own views and endorse Hoover's. Hoover did not think that Roosevelt was up to the job mentally or physically, and hectored him until the inauguration, trying to get him to turn against the New Deal that he had pledged during the campaign. I am not sure what Hoover was thinking here; why would anyone was just overwhelmingly elected, repudiate their own platform? Hoover should be happy that he even got votes, given his abysmal reputation at that time. As Rappleye notes on page 408: "With shantytowns on the fringes of every great city, and breadlines on Main Street; with banks failing in record numbers and collapsed prices driving farmers off their land, it's a wonder more than fifteen million people actually cast their votes for Herbert Hoover."

Rappleye is scrupulously fair throughout the book. He is not trying to pile on Hoover nor rehabilitate his reputation. Rather, he successfully shows that while Hoover was far from the image of the uncaring, stand-pat executive that history now condemns him as, he also utterly failed the American people because he not only allowed them to think that he didn't care about their plight, he unwittingly encouraged that view due to failure to explain to them what he was doing, why he was doing it, and how hard he was trying to do it. People believed Hoover didn't care because he crafted an image of an aloof, unconcerned executive. Hoover spent four years continuously shooting himself in the foot. No wonder he was miserable.

Grade: A

[happy · Rating 4 out of 5]

Mr Rappleye has produced a very readable and balanced look at the presidency of the US’ 31st president, Herbert Hoover. The author looks at both the good aspects of the man and his policies as well as those that weren’t so good.

At the present time, if anyone thinks of Hoover at all, he is caricatured as a cold unfeeling man who didn’t care about the fate of the little guy as the depression worsened during his 4 year term as president. He is depicted as one who only cared about big business and big banking. Mr. Rappleye shows how that caricature came to be. He also shows a much different side of the president.

Hoover never held elective or military office before being elected president and the author shows how this lack of specific experience led to a man who was not prepared for the demands of the presidency in a crisis. That is not to say he was unexperienced in government. He had been both Warren Harding and Calvin Coolidge’s Secretary of Commerce and was intimately involved in the policy decisions that led to the economic boon of the twenties. That said he didn’t whole heartedly agree with them. He had major concerns about the stock market as early as 1924/5, but was unable to change the policies that led to the speculation in the markets. In hindsight this should have been a warning sign on his political skills.

Some of the positives in Hoover’s character that the author highlights are his humility, his personal story, his experience with humanitarian endeavors. He was an orphan, graduated from Stanford University went uinto mining and became a self made millionaire. He was in charge of the US relief efforts before, during and after World War One and became known as the Great Humanitarian. None of these equipped him for the challenges he faced as president. He was also a very principled man, who would not let his belief in a limited federal government sway his actions to mitigate the effects of the depression. That said, he personally felt for those suffering and donated large sums of his own money to various relief efforts. In his innate humility he would not let his staff publicize these contributions.

In looking at Hoover’s policy attempts to fight the depression, the author looks at two principles that hampered Hoover’s response – his belief in limited government and the adherence to the gold standard. Hoover followed the long standing belief that the federal government did not have the authority to become directly involved in economic relief efforts. That said he did set up a quasi-government agency, the Reconstruction Finance Corporation, to help struggling businesses to obtain funding necessary to stay in business. He felt that direct relief to individuals should come for private or state sources. He also stayed with the gold standard long after other world governments, including Britain and France had abandoned it.

His many faults as a politician are not skimped on. He was a very poor public speaker, was very thin skinned, and did not have the political skills to unite a severely fractured Republican Party. He had trouble getting his legislative agenda through congress even though his party held a 103 seat advantage in the house and a 13 seat advantage in the Senate He also have a very poor relationship with the press, which basically denied him the ability to appeal to the country. Finally and maybe most important, he could not make a decision. He agonized and second guessed himself over any major decision. This made almost all of his attempts at policy too little to late.

The later portions of the narrative compares him to his successor, who is portrayed as a man who didn’t have Hoover’s political principles, but was the consummate politian and public speaker. At the time there was almost a five month gap between the elections and the swearing in of the winner. Hoover’s attempts to enlist FDR to present a united front are well done. FDR didn’t want anything to do with that, and even when the 1932/33 banking crisis almost brought the country to its knees, FDR would not agree to a joint policy for a banking holiday.

In conclusion, I thought this was an excellent look a man with a good heart, but was in way, way over his head. I personally think that the great depression was such a perfect storm, nobody would have been successful in combating it. This is a solid 4 star read.

[Bob · Rating 4 out of 5]

Summary: This new biography of the Depression-era President presents a more nuanced picture than the aloof, somewhat helpless figure he has often been characterized to be. It shows a competent, caring, and principled administrator lacking the political skills requisite for presidential leadership in a time of crisis.

Most portraits of Herbert Hoover's presidency characterize him as ineffectual, unfeeling and unable to lead the country in the greatest economic crisis that it has faced. Likewise, many of these portrayals lay this crisis squarely at his feet. His one term presidency stands in sharp contrast to his charismatic successor's three-plus terms in office in the minds of most.

Charles Rappleye gives us a far more nuanced picture, one that recognizes the strengths of character, the Herculean efforts made to serve the country as well as the errors of judgment and lack of political leadership skill that led to his failed presidency. Hoover rose from humble Quaker beginnings to make a fortune as a mining engineer, to lead a humanitarian relief effort in Belgium after World War 1 and serve as a pro-business Secretary of Commerce under Calvin Coolidge. Having never run for elected office, he won a decisive victory in 1928 that swept him into the Presidency, so impressed were people with his integrity, problem-solving skills and the fact that he was a "non-politician".

Even before the stock market crash of 1929, Hoover's lack of political skill became evident in problems with a Republican Congress (his own party). Like some other presidents, he viewed the press as enemies and restricted their access to him. He disliked giving speeches and when he did, they were wordy, turgid exercises in boring elocution (a sentence Hoover might like!).

The Depression was a "perfect storm" of factors ranging from over-inflated stock prices, problems in the international banking and debt system following Versailles, and a terrible drought that afflicted a great part of the country. What Rappleye makes clear is that Hoover was far from passive and uncaring, working with businesses to sustain employment, in farm relief efforts, in work with private relief organizations to provide aid to the needy, and most significantly, in the Reconstruction Finance Corporation, to shore up failing banks to keep the financial system of the country afloat, using measures not unlike the TARP measures used by Bush and Obama administrations in the US's most recent economic downturn. On a personal level, Hoover donated his full salary as president to charitable causes including many personal appeals for assistance.

At the same time, Rappleye delineates Hoover's resistance to big government relief programs, preferring solutions of both private charity and job creation in the business and industrial sector. He also gives attention to Hoover's principled refusal to abandon the gold standard when European countries had done so and reaped the benefit economically.

Perhaps Hoover's greatest flaw was his inability to work with Congress or communicate his compassion to the country and that most crucial of presidential skills, to be "a purveyor of hope." Here, Roosevelt stands as a marked contrast, from the very first moments of his presidency when he says, "the only thing we have to fear is fear itself." Roosevelt didn't lift the nation out of the depression and some of Hoover's policies and recommendations were as instrumental as anything in stabilizing things--from the Reconstruction Finance Corporation, to the recommendation of a bank holiday, which Roosevelt immediately declared.

Perhaps the saddest thing is that Hoover never saw this and after a period of silence, devoted significant energy throughout his life to vindicating himself vis a vis Roosevelt. At the same time, he became a model of post-Presidential service, helping with post World War II relief efforts, chairing a commissions under Harry Truman and Dwight Eisenhower for streamlining government. He founded a think tank, the Hoover Institution, at Stanford University, which served as an archive of his and a number of other public figures' papers. And he devoted himself to fund-raising efforts for the Boys Clubs. He died in 1964 at the age of 90.

Rappleye's study of Hoover uses diaries and family papers not previously available to scholars that afford a glimpse into the inner life of this intensely private man in the most public office of all. His appraisal of Hoover seems to be even-handed, and marked with a certain respect for the personal integrity of the man while marking his flaws. His study also shows us that something more than competence is vital in presidential leadership, particularly in times of crisis. It is the contrast in our more recent era between Jimmy Carter and Ronald Reagan. It is the quality of political skillfulness and the ability to connect with and assure the people that seems so crucial for effective leadership. This is a timely biography coming on the eve of a presidential election. Will we find such leadership? Will we need it?

________________________________

Disclosure of Material Connection: I received this book free from the publisher via Netgalley. I was not required to write a positive review. The opinions I have expressed are my own. I am disclosing this in accordance with the Federal Trade Commission’s 16 CFR, Part 255 : “Guides Concerning the Use of Endorsements and Testimonials in Advertising.”Summary: This new biography of the Depression-era President presents a more nuanced picture than the aloof, somewhat helpless figure he has often been characterized to be. It shows a competent, caring, and principled administrator lacking the political skills requisite for presidential leadership in a time of crisis.

Most portraits of Herbert Hoover's presidency characterize him as ineffectual, unfeeling and unable to lead the country in the greatest economic crisis that it has faced. Likewise, many of these portrayals lay this crisis squarely at his feet. His one term presidency stands in sharp contrast to his charismatic successor's three-plus terms in office in the minds of most.

Charles Rappleye gives us a far more nuanced picture, one that recognizes the strengths of character, the Herculean efforts made to serve the country as well as the errors of judgment and lack of political leadership skill that led to his failed presidency. Hoover rose from humble Quaker beginnings to make a fortune as a mining engineer, to lead a humanitarian relief effort in Belgium after World War 1 and serve as a pro-business Secretary of Commerce under Calvin Coolidge. Having never run for elected office, he won a decisive victory in 1928 that swept him into the Presidency, so impressed were people with his integrity, problem-solving skills and the fact that he was a "non-politician".

Even before the stock market crash of 1929, Hoover's lack of political skill became evident in problems with a Republican Congress (his own party). Like some other presidents, he viewed the press as enemies and restricted their access to him. He disliked giving speeches and when he did, they were wordy, turgid exercises in boring elocution (a sentence Hoover might like!).

The Depression was a "perfect storm" of factors ranging from over-inflated stock prices, problems in the international banking and debt system following Versailles, and a terrible drought that afflicted a great part of the country. What Rappleye makes clear is that Hoover was far from passive and uncaring, working with businesses to sustain employment, in farm relief efforts, in work with private relief organizations to provide aid to the needy, and most significantly, in the Reconstruction Finance Corporation, to shore up failing banks to keep the financial system of the country afloat, using measures not unlike the TARP measures used by Bush and Obama administrations in the US's most recent economic downturn. On a personal level, Hoover donated his full salary as president to charitable causes including many personal appeals for assistance.

At the same time, Rappleye delineates Hoover's resistance to big government relief programs, preferring solutions of both private charity and job creation in the business and industrial sector. He also gives attention to Hoover's principled refusal to abandon the gold standard when European countries had done so and reaped the benefit economically.

Perhaps Hoover's greatest flaw was his inability to work with Congress or communicate his compassion to the country and that most crucial of presidential skills, to be "a purveyor of hope." Here, Roosevelt stands as a marked contrast, from the very first moments of his presidency when he says, "the only thing we have to fear is fear itself." Roosevelt didn't lift the nation out of the depression and some of Hoover's policies and recommendations were as instrumental as anything in stabilizing things--from the Reconstruction Finance Corporation, to the recommendation of a bank holiday, which Roosevelt immediately declared.

Perhaps the saddest thing is that Hoover never saw this and after a period of silence, devoted significant energy throughout his life to vindicating himself vis a vis Roosevelt. At the same time, he became a model of post-Presidential service, helping with post World War II relief efforts, chairing a commissions under Harry Truman and Dwight Eisenhower for streamlining government. He founded a think tank, the Hoover Institution, at Stanford University, which served as an archive of his and a number of other public figures' papers. And he devoted himself to fund-raising efforts for the Boys Clubs. He died in 1964 at the age of 90.

Rappleye's study of Hoover uses diaries and family papers not previously available to scholars that afford a glimpse into the inner life of this intensely private man in the most public office of all. His appraisal of Hoover seems to be even-handed, and marked with a certain respect for the personal integrity of the man while marking his flaws. His study also shows us that something more than competence is vital in presidential leadership, particularly in times of crisis. It is the contrast in our more recent era between Jimmy Carter and Ronald Reagan. It is the quality of political skillfulness and the ability to connect with and assure the people that seems so crucial for effective leadership. This is a timely biography coming on the eve of a presidential election. Will we find such leadership? Will we need it?

________________________________

Disclosure of Material Connection: I received this book free from the publisher via Netgalley. I was not required to write a positive review. The opinions I have expressed are my own. I am disclosing this in accordance with the Federal Trade Commission’s 16 CFR, Part 255 : “Guides Concerning the Use of Endorsements and Testimonials in Advertising.”

[Josh Caporale · Rating 3 out of 5]

THERE IS INCORRECT COMMON KNOWLEDGE IN THIS BOOK, but let's get back to that.

I picked up Herbert Hoover in the White House sooner as opposed to later on the basis that we decided to read a presidential biography for the Season 10 discussions on Literary Gladiators and Herbert Hoover's name was drawn. Since this was the biography of his I owned, this is what we went over. While I have come across some presidential biographies that advertise themselves as being about a particular subject but then turn out being a general biography anyway, this book concentrates on the presidency of Herbert Hoover, beginning with Calvin Coolidge's announcement that he would not run for reelection and continuing until the end of Hoover's presidency, but talking slightly about what happened afterward. Remember, Herbert Hoover had the longest retirement of any president at 31 years until Jimmy Carter broke that record in 2012. Carter is at 38 years and counting.

The thesis of this biography is evident within the introduction: Herbert Hoover's presidency was a failure and not just because of circumstance. Hoover was the wrong person for the wrong time, be it the situation with The Great Depression paired with Hoover's ongoing methodology of staying out of desperate situations involving local cases which he felt could be solved with local efforts and charities. Hoover was a mining engineer (which was not explored much at all in this piece), a humanitarian (working with the Belgian Embassy), and he served as Secretary of Commerce under Warren Harding and Calvin Coolidge. His efforts worked well in these cases and it made him the most popular person in the country. Due to the success of Coolidge's administration (Harding's was shadowed by the Teapot Dome scandal and a premature death), Hoover felt that his methods would allow for the United States to take the next step forward, but what was in demand was the exact opposite. This "opposite" would be addressed by Franklin D. Roosevelt. At the same time, this book also reminds us that it is not fair to write Herbert Hoover off as merely a bad president, for he meant well and could have done slightly better at a different time and in a different situation.

This book does a great job depicting the kind of person Hoover was. While he was kind to his family and friends and successful with his humanitarian and commerce work, he was a very uptight, intense, and aloof individual. Where FDR was outgoing, engaging, and able to speak to the people, Hoover was much more distant and detached from them and this made for a very awkward presidency from 1929-1933. Rappleye does a great job depicting this and making this fuel for Hoover's handling of the situation at hand. In addition, Rappleye does the best he can to give us a look at everything that took place within Hoover's adminstration: the cabinet members he appointed, the supreme court justices he appointed, the various issues he came across and the bills he signed, and one that stuck out was his desire for something that a few years later would be addressed by FDR and become known as Social Security.

With its triumphs, this book did have its slogs. This is a very dense book that is primarily going to cater to the people that have read general biographies and want to know more. These people are going to get complexities, but it did miss on some major points that I felt should be mentioned. Very little is said about the Hoovervilles and terms that were used to describe housing and eating situations that were a result to Hoover's presidency, which I feel were a very important reflection of what took place. An important detail between Hoover and FDR riding to the inauguration was also not mentioned in which two words were spoken, when he said "lovely steel" when passing the Commerce building. While there is appropriate mentions to Hoover's childhood where it seemed to fit, it would cut off awkwardly without finishing its point.

THE COMMON KNOWLEDGE, though, the common knowledge really proved to be an issue. This book states that Warren Harding was 53 years old when he died, when in actuality he was 57 years old (November 2, 1865-August 2, 1923). He is only a very light supporting cast member to this piece, but to go through what should be rounds of editing and fact-checking makes this mistake inexcusable. The worst mistake, though, is messing up Lou Hoover's age at the time of her death. The book says she was 68 years old when she died, when in actuality she was 69 years old (March 29, 1874-January 7, 1944). The fact that a simple mistake be made on the spouse of the central figure in this biography is unacceptable. This is a book that advanced enthusiasts of American Presidential history are going to read and THIS is a slap in the face. It betrays trust even if the major information is accurate, informative, and most importantly, correct.

The 3 stars remain contingent on what I get out of future biographies. In particular, I plan to read Herbert Hoover: A Life by Glen Jeansonne. If I get the same kind of information and then some from that, this book will be in danger of dropping to 2 or 2.5 stars, but no lower than 2 stars, because it does lay out a solid canvas of Hoover's administration and what we need to know about all of its factions and as much as who Hoover was as a person.

[Nancy · Rating 4 out of 5]

A man was quoted in my local newspaper as saying that the idea of having a businessman as president is a good idea, but it had to be the right man. The speaker added that he had lost faith in politicians.

Americans have elected a number of businessmen to the presidential office. Herbert Hoover in the White House: The Ordeal of the President by Charles Rappleye show how the 'wrong' businessman failed to alleviate the ills of the Depression and failure of farms during the dust bowl days.

I requested the book because I wanted to know how a great humanitarian who orchestrated massive relief efforts to Europe, saving hundreds of thousands of lives, came to be remembered as distant, uncaring, and unmoved by American's sufferings.

Rappleye's detailed study on Herbert Hoover shows how his personality, experience, and beliefs impacted and derailed his presidency.

Hoover's intractable belief in the importance of charity at home and non-government involvement in relief were based in his own life experience. He grew up in rural poverty, was orphaned as a child, lived with uncles on an Indian reservation and in a sod hut, and scrambled to get an education. He became an successful engineer. That was life as he knew it, and he expected others could do as he did. He believed 'charity at home' was essential to building American character.

Hoover's success also meant he believed anyone could do the same. "If a man has not made a fortune by 40 he is not work much," Hoover said in his thirties. (My grandfather was born to a single woman, orphaned at age nine, worked hard to get through college, and had a long and varied career. It is done. Gramps also had intelligence, an uncle who rewarded academic achievement, and an excellent high school education.)

Hoover also believed in the power of positive thinking. He wanted to keep up morale. But suffering Americans thought Hoover was out of touch. Behind the scenes, Hoover's wife Lou handled the hundreds of letters and requests for help, aiding those she could, and giving of away his presidential salary to charity.

Farmers were starving, their children did not have clothing so they could attend school. Urban unemployment in some cities soared to 40%. It was feared that "slackers" would misuse government relief. Instead of direct relief the president worked with business and labor leaders and banks, increased Federal spending, limited immigration, increased tariffs, and increased taxes to keep a balanced budget.

Hoover recalls Richard Nixon: both of Quaker parents, both thin skinned and prone to anger, both sending staff to break into political enemies offices, both disdained by the press. Hoover was a pacifist.

'Bonus Army' of unemployed WWI veterans came to Washington D.C. to demand the bonus promised. The homeless men and families were installed in empty buildings and in a camp along the Potomac. When disorder sprouted up, and reports that radicals and communists had infiltrated the camps, Hoover was convinced to give carte blanch to Army Chief of Staff MacArthur. Mac Arthur was to return them to their camps. MacArthur ignored the president's instructions and the veterans were routed out of the city by soldier using tear gas and swords. Hoover failed to repudiate MacArthur for disobedience. Hoover was vilified as cold and heartless.

This book shows how hard Hoover tried to solve the problems of the country, but also how his fatal flaw of personality left him the legacy of being an ineffectual president. He was a shy, private person who avoided eye contact and read his speeches. As the publisher's promo says, Hoover had "a first-class mind and a second-class temperament"-- the "temperament of leadership."

The idea of electing a businessman to the presidency as a response to mistrusting politicians is not a good option. History has shown that businessmen make for failed political leadership. Consider the failed presidencies of businessmen like Warren G. Harding and Jimmy Carter. In fact, according to studies and ratings NO president with a successful business background is among the top rated. The skills of business and the ability to lead in government are not the same.

Presidential success is based on empathy, persuasive eloquence, and compromise. Hoover's failure to appear empathetic and his ineffectiveness as a speaker clearly hurt him. Considering the hundreds of thousands of lives he saved after WWI and WWII organizing relief abroad I know he had empathy. What a complicated man.

I received an ARC through NetGalley in exchange for a fair and unbiased review.

[Sue · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book is an important read, especially today. We could have been prepared for Trump if we studied Hoover. Sadly, though, this book was drier than burnt toast. It had no personality and was heavy handed with the financial details. Important yes. But I would have appreciated more about Hoover the man as president.

[Jimmy Reagan · Rating 4 out of 5]

Hoover, so often vilified and ranked as one of the worst presidents, just begs for a good biography. You just know there’s more to the story than we have heard. Charles Rappleye gives us a biography of Hoover’s turbulent presidency and only enough of his life before and after to contrast it with his one term in office. He went into office with tremendous respect and admiration and left it with little love lost.

Rappleye did not write as a fan of his subject, but with keen research he did strive to present a balanced picture. Besides, perhaps, going too far in some of his psychological analysis of Hoover, Rappleye brought Hoover to life in this book.

Hoover was a hard worker, had a peculiar personality that was really not a good match for the presidency, and was somewhat petty. At the same time, he had core principles, determination, and great brains. He was also a most unfortunate victim. The Depression was in no way caused by him and was ready to explode before he even took office. There were international factors out of his control too. Really, everything lined up against him and likely no politican could have stopped it. His popular successor was much better at calming the people, but did not stop the Depression either throughout the 1930s.

I left this biography feeling sorry for Hoover and thinking that many of the things he stood for would have been better than what transpired after him. He just lacked a real connection with the American people.

This well-written biography fills in many of the questions you may have. It is a solid contribution.

I received this book free from the publisher. I was not required to write a positive review. The opinions I have expressed are my own. I am disclosing this in accordance with the Federal Trade Commission’s 16 CFR, Part 255.

[Jim Gulley · Rating 4 out of 5]

Herbert Hoover entered the Presidency in 1928 riding the crest of the “Roaring Twenties.” He set about building on his impressive resume of business success, humanitarian accomplishments, and government bureaucracy management. Within months, the effects of national and international economic conditions came crashing down around him. The economic emergencies consumed the energies he expected to devote to solidifying the nation’s prosperity through public/private cooperation and adherence to ideals of liberty. The world he now led had stepped off the cliff and into the Great Depression without even knowing it. For the remainder of his term, Hoover battled the “temporary” setbacks that continued to pop up like a carnival whack-a-mole game.

The conventional historiography of Hoover has not been kind. The generation of historians, like Arthur Schlesinger, who were of the New Deal burnished FDR’s reputation by using Hoover as the foil. Hoover was the handy scapegoat for every intractable problem, the specter in historical memory of an era not to go back to. He has been portrayed as fiddling idly while America burned. Charles Rappleye argued that this is an inaccurate and unjust appraisal of the Hoover administration. While acknowledging that the Hoover presidency was unsuccessful, Rappleye argued persuasively that it was not without herculean efforts to reverse that downward spiral that led to the Great Depression. Furthermore, he demonstrated that the Roosevelt administration followed most of Hoover’s policies, availed themselves of the bureaucracy that had been developed to deal with the crisis, and, ironically, failed to deliver in two terms what Hoover was rejected for in one. It was not until the build-up in armaments before World War II that the spell of the Great Depression would be broken.

Rappleye supported his argument in painstaking detail. Combing through mountains of primary sources, he chronicled the step-by-step actions taken by Hoover to address the causes and symptoms of economic distress sweeping the country. The stock market crash in October 1929 occurred just six months into his administration. This was followed by a severe drought in 1930 which decimated the agricultural economy and precipitated a GOP bloodbath in the 1930 mid-term elections. For the remainder of his term, Hoover fought unprecedented economic conditions with a hostile Congress. Rappleye, though, provided a clear-eyed assessment of Hoover’s shortcomings. The coldness of his personality with the public undermined the country’s sentiment concerning his policy agenda. Hoover’s inability to generate public confidence led to major factors preventing economic growth: cash hoarding, the unwillingness of banks to lend, and disappointment in the level of direct government aid to those in need.

The book is well written and presents a fascinating look at a pivotal time in American history. It is quite dense, though, to students without a foundation in economics, particularly money and banking.

[Barry · Rating 4 out of 5]

I wanted to learn more about Herbert Hoover, especially after he took such a beating in my recent reading of Robert Caro's 1st of 4 volumes on Lyndon Johnson. Charles Rappleye's book is a well-researched and thorough history of Hoover's presidency, full of economics theories and political in-fighting. I would recommend it to other history buffs.

In his book, Mr. Rappleye presents a respectful but unflinching biography of Hoover, who was one of the most unpopular Presidents in American history. He was certainly a good man and an extremely hard - and highly intelligent - worker. But he was an introverted, thin-skinned man who did not know how to play the game of politics. He stuck to his principles, holding that American recovery from the Great Depression should be on the back of a collaborating and innovating private sector and not from hand-outs by the Government. (Perhaps he was too unbending.) He disliked giving speeches and maintaining relations with the Press, and just never did manage to convey any caring or sympathy to the American public for what it was suffering through. He was never able to establish a leadership relationship with the American people. Nor was he able to establish bipartisan rapport with the Democrats in Congress - e.g. he worked on an agricultural relief bill in 1930 with Democrat Senate Leader Joe Robinson but then redrafted key terms and ambushed Robinson, causing a permanent rift with key Democrats which hurt Hoover later in his term as he attempted to free up the rules around loans to and from banks. Ultimately, he was unable to put much of a dent in the Depression. As the author points out, by the time he faced Franklin Roosevelt in the 1932 Presidential election, and lost resoundingly, a leading paper stated that "All informed observers agree that the country did not vote for Roosevelt; it voted against Hoover." (p. 408)

Mr. Rappleye ably educates the reader as to the economic issues, banking rules, international financing rules - e.g. should the United States have copied the UK and gone off the Gold Standard earlier than it did? - around the Great Depression and attempts to handle it. He presents a thorough analysis of the workings of the Reconstruction Finance Corporation created under Hoover. He covers all the very significant behind-the-scenes efforts Hoover and his staff made to influence USA bankers and to modify government-to-government debts from World War I. He also covers the unfortunate actions of General Douglas MacArthur, and Hoover's unsympathetic public positioning, around the US Army routing of the "Bonus Army" of starving/protesting veterans in Washington, DC in 1932. And he covers the intense feelings Hoover developed against Franklin Roosevelt. (What a tough experience for Hoover, to watch as a born politician, born into great wealth, short on substantive details and very facile with what he did or didn't agree to, became a man of the people while Hoover, who was orphaned at a very young age and grew up very poor only to become a very successful engineer and a multi-millionaire, became very unpopular.) A tough time for the American people, an unfortunate Presidency for a good man.

[Bryan · Rating 5 out of 5]

What an absolute fantastic insight into the Hoover presidency. Hoover had a very adventurous life, so it's hard to find a single one volume book that details his life outside and inside the presidency. I decided to tackle one that details his presidency. Rappleye does a great job at giving a new view on Hoover, not one that is supportive or harsh but one that shows Hoover trying. Albeit trying and still making bad decisions but at least trying. The author does a great job of showing that Hoover just couldn't connect with the average American during the depression.
In my own reading, I was absolutely shocked by how vengeful and also psychotic Hoover was during his lame duck secession and post presidency to FDR. At the end of the day, Hoover wouldn't allow himself to pivot away from the set standards of economic and war policy that had been a tradition since America's founding. When dealing with a never before seen scenario such as the depression and the very beginning of WWII, you have to be able to pivot as a leader.

Book: 5/5 - I would like to go back to Hoover's life outside the presidency.

Presidential Rating: D

[John Daly · Rating 4 out of 5]

It's not been a good reading year for me. Just been busy and not taking time during the week to read. I'm going to try to make up for it now that we are entering the fall.

As to Mr. Hoover as always I'm interested in how someone who had a great repuation and came into office as a hero and would leave as a percieved looser as a result of the depression.

The focus of Mr. Rappleye's study is just his years in the Presidency and like Jimmy Carter we see an administration that just does not become effective due to the charater traits of the indivdual. Like Carter, Hoover's intervetism works against his cause and his never able to get the press or members of his own party to work in assisting his endevors.

Although it took me awhile to read through the narrative is good and moves at an excellent pace. I think this voulume works well if you have read Amitty Shales "The Forgotten Man" and adds on to her examination of the beginins of the depression.

[Cassie · Rating 2 out of 5]

I wish the author had spent more time on Hoover's life before and after the presidency. Those years covered less than 20 pages of the entire text. I don't think Hoover had the right personality to be president. He had done great things before he was elected, but these were in a pretty narrow area of responsibility. I think he could have been a great benefit to our country during the beginning of the depression had he stayed in that sphere of effort. That being said, it wasn't his presidency that caused the great depression, and it's unfortunate that he's become the scapegoat and face of so much hardship and suffering. I'm always disappointed in humankind when I read about these eras in history, and there is so much self saving and lack of cooperation and work for the betterment of the country as a whole. I keep hoping that, someday, we will become better at thinking of each other. I haven't seen it born out yet, not among the politicians, at least.

[Apryl Sparks]

I'm not going to input a rating, because while I can acknowledge that it's a well researched book, I didn't like it. 1.5 stars.

I prefer biographies that give an overview of the entire president's life, but I can't fault this book for that. It was the only one my library system had, and I knew from the title it would be severely lacking. So many little tidbits were dropped about him being a world traveler and feeding people after the war, which is so interesting! But I guess I'll get that information from Wikipedia.

My problem with this book was the economics. So. Much. Economics. I hate economics. I understand he was president at the start of the Great Depression, so of course there's a lot of economics! It just wasn't my cup of tea.

[Christopher Litsinger · Rating 3 out of 5]

Rappleye does a pretty good job of covering Hoover without either overly defending his reputation or dismissing him as an absolute failure. While the book is covering the presidency of the 20s and 30s, it is a modern book (it was published in 2016) that felt surprisingly relevant in early 2017.
I don't think I'll ever read another story of a tech entrepreneur insisting that coding gives one the right mindset for solving the problems of society today, and that they're thinking of stepping into politics without recalling this passage, thinking about what happened under Hoovers watch, and giving a little shudder:

Along with a generation of idealistic reformers, Hoover was convinced that technology and logic, applied on a macro scale, were the only answer to the “great theories spun by dreamers” — social and political theories that could lead to “social and political havoc.” Engineers especially, with all their expertise in the discipline of efficiency, were naturally suited to lead a social and economic reformation. Their training, Hoover believed, placed them in “a position of disinterested service.”

And so much of Hoover's legacy brings to mind our 45th president. There's this from Chapter 4:

“Observers of Mr. Hoover during and since his campaign are wondering how he will react to criticism, once the criticism begins,” he wrote. Already, Essary observed, Hoover had demonstrated his prickly thin skin. “He has proven himself more sensitive to censure, since his nomination, than any man in public life.”

This from Chapter 13:

From the moment he announced as a candidate for president Herbert Hoover presented Americans with the riddle: what did it mean to place a nonpolitician — an anti-politician — in high political office? By now an answer was beginning to emerge. Hoover was striving to perform the intrinsically political task of rallying the electorate to his party standard, but there was no resonance, no sensation. The bond that connects a leader to the people might be ineffable, but now, with the country wounded and seeking direction, its absence felt uncomfortably real.

Hoover even curtailed immigration to help the economy (spoiler alert: it didn't work):

His principal addition to the formula in 1930 was to sharply curtail immigration as a threat to the domestic labor market. Just before the midterm elections Hoover announced an executive order restricting immigration to those with jobs already in hand. It was a popular measure that Hoover included in every subsequent policy statement on the Depression, though its impact was limited by the fact that, with jobs scarce, immigration was already sharply down.

And his relationship with the press was notoriously bad:

By the nature of their office presidents generally believe the press corps is working against them, but there is little question that in Washington in 1932 reporters and editors had a lively antipathy for Hoover, a disdain unmatched by any successor until the next Quaker to occupy the White House — Richard Nixon, some forty years later.

So, yeah, I found the book relevant and filled with interesting tidbits (I even learned that the Community Chest preserved in Monopoly was a real thing!). But it was also a bit hard to get through. There were quite a few times where I simply had to put the book down and take a break.

[YourLovelyMan · Rating 4 out of 5]

In the canon of Presidential Biographies, one niche remains to be filled. It is the niche in which belongs a biography of Herbert Hoover that truly does Hoover justice; that tells both the history and the character analysis behind Hoover and his time; that begins with his modest upbringing, details his trials and travails as a young man, outlines his early career in politics and rise to become known as the "Great Humanitarian," his failed presidency, and his legacy.

Whoever writes that biography will find Herbert Hoover in the White House: The Ordeal of the Presidency to be an indispensable resource. Unfortunately, Herbert Hoover in the White House: The Ordeal of the Presidency is not that biography.

First, this book focuses almost exclusively on the election and presidency of Herbert Hoover. Any insight into his younger years, including relief efforts during World War I, are seen as flashbacks that are part of an analysis of events between 1928 and 1932. The book never sets out to examine how Hoover became the Great Humanitarian. Rather, the book examines the Hoover presidency, inquiring sincerely why he was considered a failed President, but never questioning that conclusion.

Rappleye certainly answers that question effectively. Hoover's reform efforts were modest at best, as Hoover believed in limited government that should not intervene in a free economy. Right or wrong, Hoover was a less than inspiring President who came off as cold, aloof, and out of touch with the despondent public. He was also somewhat duplicitous, taking pride in the office but despising public life, which led to vacillation in his approach to problem solving.

This is not an easy or casual read. If you don't have a basic understanding of Great Depression economics, including the workings of the Federal Reserve, the Gold Standard, European War Debts, and other economics issues of the day, you're in for a tough time.

Stylistically, Rappleye frequently begins paragraphs with a comparative statement to the previous paragraph (Hoover would not find success here. [New paragraph:] Nor would he find it there.) Less frequently do paragraphs begin with a narrative statement or scene setting, which makes some factual details hazy and less likely to stick.

But where the narrative does stick, it sticks well. There is an excellent chapter on the Bonus Army, a fair if brief analysis of Hoover's approach to prohibition, and an emotional epilogue in which Hoover defends his legacy, and lives to see some revival work with President Truman.

Overall, the almost punishing detail and thin narrative may put off the casual reader. But if you are truly interested and stick with this book through the end, you will come away with an understanding of who Hoover was, why his Presidency failed, and what legacy he left behind.

[Dominic · Rating 5 out of 5]

Everybody knows Herbert Hoover was the president who did nothing when the stock market crashed in 1929. That his free-market ideology prevented the federal government from pursuing an active response to the Great Depression.

This is yet another time when conventional wisdom is wrong. Charles Rappleye's new biography of President Hoover attempts to add some much-needed nuance to our understanding of the least popular president in U.S. history. Rappleye uses records from Hoover's archives to give readers a better sense of Hoover the man. There are some startlingly candid revelations amongst Hoover's letters to his wife and closest friends. Hoover's sense of exhaustion and frustration with politics come across loud in clear in his writings. He was extremely bright and industrious, but wracked by insecurities - in short, poorly suited to the political arena.

It turns out Hoover's response to the Great Depression was downright activist compared to his Republican predecessors (even Teddy Roosevelt outsourced the response to the Panic of 1907 to JP Morgan). I was already somewhat familiar with Hoover's policies after having read Amity Shales' The Forgotten Man (which is unfortunately undermined by its ideological biases). Rappleye focuses on how Hoover's Reconstruction Finance Corporation was a bold and innovative - if not entirely successful - attempt to inject liquidity back into the banking system (and, ironically, setting the precedent for the Bush/Obama bank bailouts).

There's always a risk that revisionist history will overcompensate and attempt to portray maligned presidents as misunderstood heroes. Fortunately, Rappleye doesn't fall into that trap. In fact, I was surprised to learn that Hoover engaged in the types of dirty tricks that would later lead to Nixon's downfall. Worried about an upcoming critical biography, Hoover authorized subordinates to raid the offices of a democratic operative. Hoover also forced one of the Federal Reserve governors to resign, a clear violation of the Fed's independence. Greater understanding doesn't necessarily absolve Hoover.

Recommended for readers interested in U.S. presidential history.

[I received a copy of this book from the publisher in exchange for an honest review]

[Carl · Rating 4 out of 5]

The Wall St. meltdown & Bernie-mania have resulted in a sharp spotloght being focused on FDR & the New Deal. So it seemed appropriate to learn a bit about pre-FDR politics, the onset of The Depression, & the anti-FDR. Herbert Hoover came into the presidency as an overwhelmingly popular slam-dunk. As the architect of post-war European recovery & the highly successful Secretary of Commerce under Harding & Coolidge, he'd establish a reputation as a humanitarian & a consummately accomplished administrator. What Hoover was not was a politician. The skills he lacked were in making deals & getting his message across. His honeymoon didn't last. He was barely in office when the financial meltdown - already in its early stages - laid waste to his administration. Hoover was a self-made success as a business man & was wedded to the eternal Republican dogma of small government, balanced budgets, & unquestioned support of big business interests. At the same time, he opposed the concept of government as a social safety net. Couple these views with his phobia of the press & natural reluctance to become personal with the public & it is plain how he was to become viewed as elitist & unfeeling for the popular misery.

Hoover was the first Quaker elected to the presidency. As such, he had pacifist & humanitarian leanings which seemed to be contradicted by the treatment of the "Bonus Army" of unemployed & destitute veterans who marched on Washington to seek government support & his refusal to acknowledge the general trends in homelessness & hunger. Strangely, much more peculiar traits seemed to be shared with the other, later Quaker president, Richard M. Nixon, such as social awkwardness, paranoia, hatred of the press, & a willingness to break the law to the point of burglary in seeking political advantage. Hoover was a remarkable & capable man but in the wrong job at the wrong time. It is remarkable however to realize that so much of the chasm between Republicans & Democrats (or conservatives & liberals) dates back to

[Terri Wangard · Rating 4 out of 5]

Herbert Hoover could have been a successful president if only he had been more personable. He had good ideas for combating the depression, but his stiff, monotone speeches, or more likely, no speeches at all, didn’t encourage confidence. He lacked FDR’s bedside manner and never bonded with the public.

Why he sought the presidency is hard to fathom. He knew he was ill-suited. He valued his privacy and was very shy. He was not a public speaker. Calvin Coolidge may be known as Silent Cal, but Hoover couldn’t have been far behind.

Hoover made a name for himself by coordinating humanitarian relief projects during and after World War I. In those and in his tenure in the Commerce Department, he displayed instinctive leadership and snap decisions. The aura of the presidency stifled his personality and made him hesitant. He believed people had exaggerated idea of him as a sort of superman, with no problem beyond his capacity. His engineering background added to that impression.

Mindboggling is his hope to be nominated to run again four years after his defeat.

Comedic are his atrocious table manners. The president was always served first. He immediately began eating, rapidly, and cleared his plate before all his guests were even served. Had his impoverished childhood led to his impulsive urgency to eat fast?

Charles Rappley’s Herbert Hoover in the White House offers a fascinating look at a president little known today. He had good ideas that were implemented by FDR, but he refused entreaties to make public statements, take a visible role in the financial crisis. That was never his style and he wasn’t going to change.

[Ted Lehmann · Rating 4 out of 5]

Charles' Rappleye's biography of Herbert Hoover, the president perhaps most particularly incapable of responding to the challenges of the Great Depression, has produced a book that is both sympathetic to Hoover and brutally coruscating in its unblinking views of underlying psychology and ongoing inability of a quite brilliant man to respond appropriately to the challenges of his time.

The book is detailed, sometimes becoming mired in the sticky mud of trying to respond to crises with thoughts rather than compassion and uplifting vision. It's also necessary reading and worthy of thoughtful study in times which, on reading during this election year, seem eerily familiar. While Hoover has always been something of a demonic personality in my understanding of history, this biography, while doing little to alter my opinions of his leadership, helped my form a deeper understanding of both the man and his times. What else should come of good biographical writing.

While this book is not for everyone, those who decide to read it and persevere with it will be amply rewarded.

[Mark Patton · Rating 4 out of 5]

Rappleye's book gives a great deal of background and perspective to the little knowledge most of us have of Herbert Hoover (Hoovervilles, Great Depression, pummeled by FDR). On the downside, my understanding of macroeconomics is minimal so several chapters discussing various maneuvers aimed at offsetting the market decline and saving the banks went right over my head even though I'm sure Rappleye was keeping things simple. I came away with a much more sympathetic view of Hoover as having been a good man, while at the same time as having been the wrong man for the times. FDR, who is one of my faves, comes across as a bit of an ass during the months after the election of 1932 and before he took office in March, but I have no doubts that Rappleye is accurate in his assessment. (Not that it matters, but I never became accustomed to President Hoover being referred to as "Bert" by his friends and "Daddy" by his wife.)

[Greg · Rating 4 out of 5]

Well done! Balanced and fair and one of the most complete explanations of the Great Depression that I've read. Rappleye doesn't paint Hoover as a hero or a villain, but a complete person with strengths and flaws. He presents the complex series of events leading up to the Great Depression with skill and a good deal of detail. If you are looking for a fair and complete understanding of Hoover and the depression you could do no better than this.

[M · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is an study of the Hoover presidency. I wish the author had devoted a chapter to Hoover's rise from a poor childhood to a very successful businessman. He only gives this a passing message but Hoover had a made a small fortune in a very few years before he entered public life. That success shaped his views and drive.

[Chandler · Rating 3 out of 5]

A general rule of thumb when looking at any Presidency is what kind of crisis did they have to face, and did they face it for the good of the country? Washington had to face the problems of a new nation that was struggling to figure out just who could vote and on what. Lincoln had the Civil War and all the personal strife that came with it, and Trump had the COVID-19 crisis.

All of these men, and many more besides, have had some major emergency that can define their presidency. In the terms of Herbert Hoover, he will always be tied to his failure to adequately combat the sudden economic downturn that began with the Stock Market Crash and was cemented by the Smoot-Hartley Tariff. In his book Herbert Hoover in the White House: The Ordeal of the Presidency, Charles Rappleye attempts to give a more balanced view of Hoover's legacy, showing both his successes and failures, during his term in office.

One of the standout features of this text would be Rappleye's ability to bring a balanced viewpoint to Hoover and his legacy. Hoover was a smart man who liked working with government institutions on a small scale, where the government was presented with a specific need, and Hoover saw to fill that need. He was also a part of the then liberal Republican Party and believed that the people should support the government, but the government should not support the people. This was a hallmark of the day, and Hoover followed this common train of thought for the time. He also was willing to bend in his beliefs to help those in need, as he wanted to use government funding to help farmers during the Dust Bowl. Rappleye gives us a positive view of Hoover, which few people may know of today.

But this is not a hagiography, as the introduction had me thinking. In this book, we also see that Hoover was not very friendly toward the press, and did not like his official public appearances. As odd as this may seem today, this was a president who did not like public speaking. This would not change as the Great Depression came into full swing, and people began to wonder when they would hear directly from their president about what was going to be done about the economic downturn. Then there was Herbert Hoover's inability to identify that this was an economic depression that was far beyond the scope of what his brand of government intervention could provide to those people who struggled to find jobs or feed their families.

With all this in mind, it was no wonder that Hoover was a one-term president and FDR was elected. FDR was far more easygoing with the press and even began to use the radio in earnest with his fireside chats. Roosevelt also swung government relief to the other end of the spectrum. Where Hoover had been conservative in terms of relief, Roosevelt spent money all over the place, and created a handful of committees every day, it seemed. This ensured the people that he was at least attempting to solve the problem, when compared to Hoover, who seemed chilly at best, uncaring at worst. The government spending may have angered people who were independent and wished for little government intervention, but for the people with no job, little food, and no place to live, these programs could have saved their life.

This book does contain some elements that I personally disliked. One was the writing style of Rappleye. He is someone who has an odd structure to his sentences. They usually have one or two more words than necessary, and odd word choices to boot. This was something that bothered me, and a reader may wish to be aware of it.

A second issue would be the way that the author describes the economics of the book, including, but not limited to the fights of the Federal Reserve, and the development of the different economic theories that Hoover had to work with of the day. While Rappleye does write these sections in an informed manner, they are not entertaining ones. Often, my eyes glazed over at the mere description of the Federal Reserve in the text. Readers should keep this in mind.

In the end, this is a book that, while at times boring and poorly edited, left me with the feeling of understanding. We understand today that a President should be made up of more than simply campaign promises and that we should question if he can weather the storm of a crisis, because if not, then the United States may just be caught up in its whirlwind.

[Kyle · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book changed my perspective on Hoover. It now seems to me Hoover was not incompetent but indecisive. Considering the calamity that happened during his one 4 year term, it was the exact wrong time to have someone so uncertain of any action to take. The stock market crash of '29 and the following depression were not his fault. The crash was the inevitable consequence of massive overspeculation, banks giving out far too much in loans for leverage (betting on stocks with borrowed money), and just plain old greed. He was merely the guy caught holding the bag when it happened.

The whole system was predicated on the idea that stock prices would continue to rise forever and ever. The speculators taking out leverage, the banks that loaned people's saved wages out to them, the corporations that gladly took the borrowed investments, and the Federal Reserve caught asleep at the wheel all forgot one very basic question: WHAT IF YOU'RE WRONG?

The stock market crash was not an isolated incident. All these things are intertwined to some extent but 2 other major things happened during his term that worsened the depression that were also not his fault: Germany defaulted on it's debt and Britain moved off the gold standard in '31. Both of which triggered waves of bank failures across the world.

It's ironic thar in 1928 Hoover campaigned on the idea that America's next great invention was the elimination of poverty. And he went on to preside over the greatest impoverishing disaster in 1928. Not his fault, but there were certainly warning signs that he knew of. Like how stock prices were not grounded in reality of a company's true value, that the market was over-leveraged and too much new investment money was made in debt. When he decided to take action before and after the crash it was too little too late. Like rearranging the deck chairs on the Titanic. The shanty towns that arose because of the depression were ironically named Hoovervilles. The bread lines named Hooverlines.

His moves before the crash to replace people at the Fed and slow down leverage investing and his moves after the crash to free up lines of credit didn't amount to much. He really thought these things would eventually trickle down to the common man and prevent people from starving in the streets. And when it didn't, people saw him as aloof and uncaring.

He did not meaningfully address America's agrarian crisis, which had been going on for at least a decade prior to the crash. Overproduction caused food commodity prices to sink so low, farmers were unable to make enough money to pay their mortgages and started defaulting in massive numbers. A real paradox of the economic system that people were starving in a land that produced too much food.

One thing I didn't know was that Glass Steagal Act was passed during Hoover, not Roosevelt. Glass Steagal created a necessary separation between commercial and investment banks, one of the main causes of the depression. It seems we have learned nothing. It was regretfully repealed in the 90s by Bill Clinton and the Republicans, and was one of the primary causes of the housing bubble and financial collapse of '08.

Hoover also failed to see what an absolute political juggernaut Franklin Delano Roosevelt "the champ" was in 1932. Unlike most of the American public, he knew of FDR's disability and couldn't imagine losing to him and him being such a successful president because of it.

I was disappointed in the Epilogue, obviously written by someone sympathetic to Hoover and his ideas. It said that FDR's greatest accomplishment was fixing banking with ideas he got from Hoover. Even that is debatable. FDR can hang his hat on a whole lot more than that, things that Americans still benefit from today. Those things include Social Security, legal recognition of unions, electrification of the south and rural areas, a fix to the agrarian crisis, public works and infrastructure for our parks, and the management of most of WWII where we defeated fascist nations on 2 fronts, possibly the greatest evil men have ever used on one another.

[Alex · Rating 4 out of 5]

The title is accurate. Besides a brief review of Hoover’s upbringing and career and a brief epilogue covering the last 32 years of his life, this 450-plus page book covers Hoover’s 1928 campaign and his single term. The book isn’t day-to-day coverage—although in certain high stress periods it basically is—but it is at least week-to-week coverage, essentially a biography of a presidential term. And it’s really good. Hoover’s term was obviously and completely hijacked by the stock market crash and Great Depression, and the Depression dominates the book like it dominated Hoover’s term. But the book is not merely a history of the early stages of the Depression. It centers on Hoover’s decision-making, personality, governing philosophy, and how they all shifted as he tried to guide the country out of the Depression.

The author maintains that Hoover made one fundamental and overriding mistake: holding on to the gold standard while many industrial countries left it in the early 30s. I am skeptical of the wisdom of abandoning the gold standard. But I am not bright enough on the topic to critique the author’s criticism of Hoover, other than to say that Hoover was not alone in wanting to maintain the gold standard, nor was he in a position to do it himself anyway. And, to be fair, the author recognizes that, too.

But otherwise the author is complimentary of the ideas and innovations Hoover tried, although he points out how Hoover’s personality and approach were often counter-productive to how those things were implemented and sold to the public.

Given Hoover’s accomplishments before his presidency and his long, remarkable post-presidency life, he seems worthy of a modern, sober, one-volume magisterial biography, particularly now that Freedom Betrayed has been published, after sitting in a closet for 50 years. I’m not sure there is one worthy of him yet.

[Drew Zagorski · Rating 4 out of 5]

This was the first full - well, at least in terms of his White House years - biography that I've read on Hoover. Prior to this I'd only ever picked up whatever bits on him from books on other topics. Rappleye does a good job of moving the story of his administration through the slog of economic issues that he was faced with. That was challenging enough, and the author presented them very well, so that a non-economic scientist could follow the hows, whats and whys of the stops and starts of the economy. The second challenge was Hoover's own personality - or lack of it. This certainly wasn't a colorful guy. Brilliant, flawed as a chief executive, but pretty much a dull fellow. All this said, the book did a great job of telling his story fully. I was pretty much only aware of the failings he had. The book illuminated all he did in the background to try to stimulate the economy and markets - albeit unsuccessfully. But it made me aware of all he really did try to do. At the end of the day, his ideas weren't progressive enough at a time when the situation called for big ideas and experimentation. As a lover of presidential biographies, this certainly wouldn't be my favorite, but I'm very happy I read it as it filled in a hole in my knowledge of him and the beginnings of the Great Depression.

[Jeff · Rating 4 out of 5]

Rappleye pictures Hoover as a failure of communication as President. He posits that Hoover simply froze upon attaining the Presidency, he grew stiff and either unwilling or unable to set an agenda other than a rather passive stance. Hoover believed, along with most other thinkers and leaders, in an economic understanding of the world which most scholars would now see as primitive. He enters the office and within the year Wall Street collapses. Economists had poor understanding of how things worked then (even today there is plenty of unknowns for the discipline, but it was much worse then.) So the remedies that Hoover backed were traditional notions of how the economy worked through hard work and mutual support. He had very poor statistics to even know what was going on, for instance, there were no comprehensive unemployment numbers.

That there are some who would call themselves "The Hoover Institute" today, as to follow in his ideas and footsteps, is baffling.