Writing History's Wrongs

Note to President Bush: Beware of finding comfort in hopes that history will look back on you favorably; if you don't take care for your historical narrative while in office, no one will bother to give you credit later.

As the great-granddaughter of Herbert Hoover, I know.

Hoover's stubborn unwillingness to fight for his own legacy may have been honorable, but has resulted in eighty years of bad press. Being related to Hoover has given me a special appreciation for the importance of presidential communication, and in Hoover's case, an example of how effective a counter-narrative can be. It's remarkable that forty-five years after his death, contemporary commentators like Rachel Maddow make popsicle stick cut outs of Hoover and sarcastically recycle 75 year old FDR generated talking points. If America knew more about the real Herbert Hoover, Rachel Maddow, John McCain, Paul Krugman, the Wall Street Journal editorial board, and even Dick Cheney would be ashamed of their role reinforcing the stereotype of Hoover as the economic anti-Christ.

No American president's reputation has been so removed from the larger context of his life accomplishments, or been the recipient of such multi-generational partisan slander as Herbert Hoover. It is my hope that mainstream historical narrative will someday get Hoover right, but his own actions make this a challenging prospect. During his presidency he considered it a misallocation of energy to devote any time to image-tending or public perception (an extension of his Quaker-faith), especially if that energy that could be dedicated to fixing problems (the engineer's creed).

While I don't foresee resolution of Hoover's legacy in the near-term, it is possible that 2009 could fertilize our collective conscience for an eventual re-evaluation of Herbert Hoover's role in history.

We’ve forgotten the master of emergencies, the godfather of the modern NGO, and the man whose swift and effective response to the worst river flood in American history won him the presidency in 1928. Lost is the Hoover who saved Belgium from starvation in 1914, Bolshevik Russia from famine in 1921, and Poland and Eastern Europe again after WWII. Instead, partisan historians and forgetful citizens heap disproportionate responsibility on his plate for the economic devastation of the 1930s, never mind that he was President for only two years of that decade.

The unlikely coincidence of the current economic crisis with the '08 presidential campaign, created an opening for a national debate about the effectiveness of New Deal economics. Thanks to Amity Shlaes' groundbreaking work in The Forgotten Man, honest historians and economists have begun to debate her thesisÑ that New Deal economics failed to fix the Depression, and likely contributed to making it "Great".

In all history, but especially with Hoover, one must judge the actor's decisions based on the information available to them at the time, rather than with the hindsight provided to us thanks to their experience. This is likely to happen only after we fairly debate the effectiveness of New Deal policies and reexamine the mythology of FDR's presidency. Only then can the narrative of Hoover's record be rewritten to reflect not just the merits and demerits of his Presidency, but his entire life of service. An unfortunately timed presidency ought not erase a lifetime of contribution to humanity.

As for the few contemporary Republicans who understand and appreciate Hoover – such as former Oregonian Senator Mark HatfieldÑ the Obama wilderness years call us to agree upon common principles which will forge the policy solutions we offer our country tomorrow.

A good place to start is Hoover's earliest political contribution entitled "American Individualism", which reflects on the economic, political and social forces that led to America’s ascendance, and which Hoover felt compelled to defend upon returning from Europe after World War I. While socialism seems a remote concern, socialist parties had earned 3% of the vote or better in the four elections through 1920. In the wake of the war’s devastation, collectivist ideas had gained ground in the old European democracies, and were polarizing and destabilizing the politics of the new democracies in Germany, Hungary, and Austria, after violently seizing power in Russia.

In Hoover’s words, it is never “amiss to review the political, economic and spiritual principles through which our country has steadily grown in usefulness and greatness, not only to preserve them from being fouled by false notions, but more importantly that we may guide ourselves in the road of progress.” As Republicans hoping to forge a New Majority, we would do well to begin here.