Herbert Hoover as Secretary of Commerce THE GREAT ENGINEER Herbert Hoover as Secret

Herbert Hoover is remembered today primarily as the hapless predecessor of Franklin D. Roosevelt: the President who, at the time of the Great Crash of 1929 and the beginning ensuing Great Depression, failed to respond either with effective economic policies or dynamic leadership, and was accordingly swept aside in the 1932 election. His unsuccessful presidency in a time of crisis has almost completely overshadowed his prior career.

In the 1920s, however, Hoover was considered one of the ablest rising stars on the American and even international political scene. As the head of emergency food relief during the period of famine in Europe that immediately followed the war, he became a hero to millions, to the extent that "hooverize" became a synonym for humanitarian accomplishment. After the Versailles treaty that ended the war, economist John Maynard Keynes said that "Mr. Hoover was the only man who emerged from the ordeal of Paris with an enhanced reputation" (Blandes, 1962, p. 23).

In 1920, both American political parties vied for his allegiance. His eventual successor as president, FDR, said that "he is certainly a wonder, and I wish we could make him President of the United States. There could not be a better one" (Blandes, 1962, p. 24). A move to give Hoover the Republican nomination went nowhere, but in 1921 he was picked by Warren G. Harding to be Secretary of Commerce -- in general opini

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ch sectors of the economy. He energetically promoted commercial aviation, establishing beacons and other air-route markers, and lobbying for the assignment of airmail contracts to the nascent commercial airlines (Hicks, 1960, pp. 176-77). Hoover also took an interest in radio, the Internet of the 1920s. ("Radio Flyer" brand children's wagons still echo the excitement that radio produced in the 1920s.) Radio technology had emerged in experimental form at the turn of the century, and had been applied to a limited degree for military purposes (as for communication between ships at sea) during World War I. By the 1920s it was just coming into its own as a widely practical technology and mass medium. ("Radio Flyer" brand children's wagons still echo the excitement that radio produced at this time.) Hoover established the policy for assigning radio frequencies to commercial broadcasters, and actively promoted further technological development. In April, 1927, he was featured in the first public demonstration of television (Smith, 1984, p. 100). Agriculture One area in which Hoover was notably unsuccessful, even by his own admission, was agricultural policy (Wilson, 1981, p. 116). American agriculture in the 1920s was conspicuo
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