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Herbert Clark Hoover Biography Essay

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Herbert Clark Hoover was gloriously born August 10, 1874 and tragically died after suffering for days from a massive gastrointestinal hemorrhage on October 20, 1964. Both of Hoover’s parents were dead by the time he was nine years old and was raised in a Quaker home. By the time Hoover was 23 years old he was working as an engineer in Western Australia. As a republican, Hoover served head of the U.S. food Admin. during world war 1, and became internationally known for humanitarian efforts in war-time Belgium. As the United States Secretary of Commerce in the 1920s under Presidents Warren G. Harding and Calvin Coolidge, he promoted partnerships between government and business under the prescript "economic modernization". In the presidential …show more content…

He also believed in the importance of volunteerism and of the role of individuals in society and the economy. Hoover, who had made a small fortune in mining, was the first of two Presidents to redistribute his salary (President Kennedy was the other; he gave all his paychecks to charity).When the Wall Street Crash of 1929 struck less than eight months after he took office, Hoover tried to fight the ensuing Great Depression with moderate government public works projects such as the Hoover Dam. The record tax bracket from 25% to 63%, coupled with increases in corporate taxes, in 1933 but the economy plummeted simultaneously and unemployment rates rose to afflict one in four American workers. This downward spiral set the stage for Hoover's defeat in 1932 by Democrat Franklin D. Roosevelt, who promised a New Deal. After Roosevelt assumed the Presidency in 1933, Hoover became a spokesman for opposition to the domestic and foreign policies of the New Deal. In 1947, President Harry S. Truman appointed Hoover to head the Hoover Commission, intended to foster greater efficiency throughout the federal bureaucracy. Most historians agree that Hoover's defeat in the 1932 election was caused primarily by the downward economic spiral, although his strong support for prohibition was also significant, but because of the Great Depression Hoover is ranked lower than average among U.S.

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