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Herbert Hoover: McAdoo

When he was threatening to win the Democratic nomination for the Presidency in spite of the fact that he was not a Democrat, a supporter of McAdoo complained bitterly to me, "Confound him! He has a genius for self-advertising. He is not half the man McAdoo is. He hasn't McAdoo's courage, optimism, force, or general statesmanship; but he has this infernal talent for getting himself in the papers. There is not much to him but press agenting; but how can you beat that?"

But though his own name has come to count for more than the causes he represents, so that the best way to obtain aid is to ask for it with "Hoover" in big letters and with the suffering children of Central Europe in small letters, still he remains only a name to the American people. They know that he always wears a blue suit of clothes cut on an invariable model, which he adopted years ago. They know that he worked his way through college as a waiter. They know that he grew rich as a mining engineer in the East. That is all. They think of him as a symbol of efficiency, as one who may save their money, as one who may find markets for them and develop their trade, as one who may help the world upon its feet again after the War, as a superman, if you will; but not as a man, not as a human being.

All his advertising has made him appeal to the American imagination, but not to the American heart. He is a sort of efficiency engineer, installing his charts and his systems into public life,-and who loves an efficiency engineer? There are no stories about him which give him a place in the popular breast. It is impossible to interest yourself in Hoover as Hoover; in Hoover as the man who did this, or the man who did that, or the man who will do this or that, yes,-but not in Hoover, the person.

The reason is that he has little personality. On close contact, he is disappointing, without charm, given to silence, as if he had nothing for ordinary human relations which had no profitable bearing on the task in hand. His conversation is applied efficiency engineering; there is no lost motion, though it is lost motion which is the delight of life. At dinner, he inclines to bury his face in his plate until the talk reaches some subject important to him, when he explodes a few facts, and is once more silent. Had he a personality with his instinct for publicity, he would be another Roosevelt. But he is a bare expert.

I doubt if he really thinks of human beings as human beings; on the contrary, some engineering graph represents humanity in his mind. It is characteristic of him that he always speaks of the relief of starving populations not in terms of human suffering, but in terms of chemistry. The people, of whatever country he may be feeding, have so many calories now, last month they had so many calories; if they had ten calories more, they could maintain existence. Many times have I heard this formula. It is a weakness in a democracy to think of people in terms of graphs, and their welfare in terms of calories; that is, if you hope to be President of that democracy-not if you are content to be its excellent Secretary of Commerce.

When he came to Washington as a Food Administrator, he brought with him an old associate, a professor from California. A few days later the professor's wife arrived and went to live at the same house where Mr. Hoover and her husband resided. Mr. Hoover knew her well. She and her husband had long been his friends. He met her in the hall, shook hands with her, welcomed her and then lapsed into silence. After some moments, he said, "Well,-" and hesitated. "Mr. Hoover," she said, "I know you are a busy man. You don't have to stand here trying to think of something to say to me. I know you well enough not to be offended if you don't talk to me at all while I am here." He laughed and took her at her word. He had the habit of too great relevancy to be human. If he could have said more than "Well" to that woman, he might have been President.