• Location: Cranbrook, BC
• Mood: contemplative
• Music: The Monkees-"Last Train to Clarksville"

The Hoover Paradox

I've never written much about Herbert Hoover, and for some reason I felt compelled to write about him. I didn't really know much about him, other than I've heard it expressed that he didn't deserve to be blamed for the great depression, but since it occurred on his watch, he was. From everything I read about the man, he's really a canundrum. On the one hand, he was this great humanitarian who led efforts to alleviate hunger in Europe, but he was also the guy who gave Douglas MacArthur permission to fire on protesters during the depression. In reading about him however, what struck me most was his contradictory stances on matters of racism. I realize he was living in a different era, but when one looks at Hoover's record on issues of race, there were some ways in which he was more progressive than his times, and others in which his behaviour smacked of old school bigotry.



Hoover was the first (and so far only) president to select a Native American as his running mate. Hoover's Vice-President was Charles Curtis, whose maternal ancestry was three-quarters' Native American, of ethnic Kaw, Osage and Pottawatomie ancestry. Curtis spent years of childhood living with his maternal grandparents on their Kaw reservation. In matters of native affairs, Hoover's goal was to have Native Americans acting as individuals and not as tribes.



Hoover's wife, First Lady Lou Hoover, defied the norms of the day and invited an African American Republican Congressman, Oscar DePriest, to have dinner at the White House. The last time an African American was previously invited to dine at the White House was in 1901 when Teddy Roosevelt invited Booker T. Washington.

However Hoover seldom mentioned anything about civil rights while he was President. He believed that African Americans and other races could improve themselves with education and wanted the races assimilated into white culture. Notions of affirmative action were contrary to his nature and his beliefs. To win the Republican nomination in 1932, Hoover adopted a strategy that alienated many African Amercian voters. He used an electoral tactic later known as the "Southern Strategy" in which he ousted many African American leaders in the Republican party, and replaced them with caucasians. Hoover's appeal to caucasian voters netted Republican victories in states Tennessee, North Carolina, Florida, Virginia, and Texas and marked the first time a Republican candidate for president carried Texas. These tactics outraged African American leadership, who largely broke from the Republican Party, and began seeking candidates who supported civil rights in the Democratic Party.

As President, Hoover wanted to appoint John J. Parker to the Supreme Court in 1930. The NAACP opposed Parker's nomination, claiming that Parker made many court decisions against African Americans and was successful in lobbing for the defeat of Parker's nomination in the Senate.

Hoover took no steps to address the "Jim Crow" laws throughout the nation that suppressed African American's right to vote guaranteed by the 15th Amendment in the United States Constitution.

After his presidency, Hoover continued his humanitarian work. On Hoover’s initiative, a school meals program in the American and British occupation zones of Germany was begun in 1947. The program served 3.5 million children aged six through 18 and provided a total of 40,000 tons of American food.

Hoover died at the age of 90 in New York City on October 20, 1964.He had outlived by 20 years his wife, Lou Hoover, who had died in 1944.