Hoover Presidential Museum

I took a wrong turn this afternoon, and came out onto the I-80 much further east than I'd planned. This turned out to be a blessing, as I would otherwise have never found the Herbert Hoover Presidential museum in West Branch, Iowa. This is where the 31st prez grew up and this is where he is buried.

Hoover is a fascinating character in American history, and maybe also one of the more tragic, at least in terms of his presidency. Few thought this would happen when he was elected. Hoover was an engineer, and a very talented one at that. At 23 he was building the Australian mining industry, and a few years later he was building the Chinese one. Already famous for his industrial exploits, he became a world hero when he organized relief for refugees from the 1st World War.

After the war he was given the task of overseeing internal relief in the US by then president Harding and later he became Secretary of Commerce for Coolidge. It was here we (us laissez-fare people, the few, the brave, the possibly clinically insane) saw the makings of a tragedy as Hoover put his no doubt great intellect into micro managing the affairs of others, when he should have kept the hell away.

Coolidge himself said of Hoover that he'd been getting lousy advice from him for six years in the Cabinet, and no less of a meddler than FDR said of Hoover prior to the 1928 campaign: "He has shown in his own department an alarming desire to issue regulations and to tell businessmen generally how to conduct their affairs." No shit, Sherlock. You would know!

Hoover lost spectacularly to FDR in '32 and the meddling increased. The rest is history, and is still fought over to this very day. I shan't go into an argument about the reasons and consequences of the Depression, merely state what everybody can agree on: Hoover's reputation was in tatters when he left the White House.

However, he became rehabilitated when he led some relief efforts during WW2 and later he was used by both Truman and Eisenhower to chair commissions on making the federal government more efficient (you can laugh now). He passed away in 1964, being the longest living ex-president in history.

All pics here.

The humble birthplace of a president. Hoover was a Quaker, and the values of that religion was instilled in him from an early age - work hard, be honest, help the less fortunate - and of course, as with all religions, MEDDLE.


The US fed Europe in the first years after the "Great War". Never forget what that country has meant for our fucked up continent, which has spawned the twin beasts of fascism and communism and twice torn itself to pieces in horrible wars. Also, iffin you have the opportunity, kick adherents of said ideologies in the fucking teeth; they are proper cunts in and of themselves, but also cunts with no sense of history.


Hoover and FDR.


The gravesite.