Review of Herbert Hoover in the White House by Charles Rappleye

According to journalist and biographer Charles Rappleye, President Herbert Hoover “remains very much unknown to most Americans. When he is recalled at all, it is in defeat and in caricature—the clay-footed conservative who preached the old dogmas of laissez-faire, while the false idols of capital came crashing down, handmaidens to the elite, scourge of the huddled masses.” In Herbert Hoover in the White House, Rappleye does not seek to somehow resurrect Hoover’s reputation; he admits that Hoover was a failure as a president, “and not just because of fate or bad timing” (xvi). He does, however seek to provide a more balanced portrait of Hoover as both man and president.  Writing several decades after the end of the 1930s, Rappleye is able to attempt one of the first works about the Hoover presidency “weighed in the scales of time and experience rather than partisan political belief” (xv).

Throughout the biography, Rappleye stresses two main themes, ideas which stand in contrast to key stereotypes about Hoover’s presidency.   First, he argues that Hoover “was not the mild Quaker that his friends liked to portray” (xvi).  Instead, he could be petty and vindictive, was subject to outbursts of temper, and used fear as a weapon, which lead to him “winning some legislative battles but losing the war for hearts and minds” (xvi). 

The second misconception about Hoover that Rappleye attempts to correct is that Hoover did little or nothing to ease the Great Depression. Rather, “Hoover made an active and energetic response to the economic tsunami that hit the nation.” (xvii). No one in the Hoover administration “was more creative in fashioning a response” than Hoover himself (xvii).  Unfortunately for Hoover’s political career and for the nation as a whole, Hoover’s measures tended to be too little, too late, and they tended to benefit the wealthiest members of society rather than the poorest Americans.  This, together with Hoover’s lack of warmth and charisma, led a very large number of Americans to believe he simply did not care about their hardships.

As its title suggests, Herbert Hoover in the White House is not a true biography.  Rappleye flies through Hoover’s early life and his pre-presidential career and devotes about 95% of the book to Hoover’s presidency, with a very brief epilogue concerning Hoover’s post-presidency.  When narrating the events of the presidency, Rappleye discusses economic matters to the near-exclusion of issues such as non-economic domestic affairs, foreign policy, and Hoover’s personal life.  Readers with little interest in and/or knowledge of finance, banking, the stock market, and world currency rates may well find themselves struggling to keep reading.

When I was in graduate school, one of my professors told our class that when we write a book review, we should “evaluate it for the book that it is, not for the book you wish it were.”  Following this sound advice, I will not scold Rappleye for not writing a comprehensive biography, filled with human interest like David McCullough’s biographies of John Adams and Harry Truman.  I would have loved to have learned much more about Hoover’s rags-to-riches story and his great success as a humanitarian, but…I read the title, and I should have known going into it that this book would be almost entirely about Hoover’s unsuccessful presidency.  Still, I could not help coming away a bit disappointed.

In summary, if you are seeking to learn a great deal about President Hoover’s economic policies and his efforts to combat the Great Depression, this is the perfect book for you.  If, however, you want a comprehensive account of Hoover’s life that includes his highly successful career as an engineer, businessman, and humanitarian, you will need to look elsewhere.

Review of Coolidge: An American Enigma by Robert Sobel

“American intellectuals do not so much harbor a negative opinion of Calvin Coolidge as they trivialize him. He often is dismissed as a political naif, simpleton, and lazy misfit, a relic from the nineteenth century, whose administration set the stage for the Great Depression. Most of the time, however, he simply isn’t taken very seriously.”  So begins Robert Sobel’s 1998 biography Coolidge: An American Enigma.  In the introduction, Sobel also discusses the long-held belief that Coolidge was a reactionary whose policies heavily favored big business.  Sobel takes issue with all of these stereotypes, arguing instead that Coolidge was an intelligent and complicated man who was “capable of holding dissonant views on some subjects” and who was much more progressive than he is generally given credit for (8). Sobel also argues that Coolidge was “the last president who believed in a passive executive branch in times of peace and prosperity” and that of all our twentieth-century presidents, Coolidge was “the most Jeffersonian in philosophy and practice—a judgment those who admire Jefferson but have not delved deeply into his writings may find astonishing” (14).

Sobel follows his introduction with a brief overview of Coolidge’s humble upbringing. The boyhoods of many of our presidents included great hardships, and Coolidge’s was no exception; he lost his mother at the age of 12 and had asthma and frequent colds throughout his early life.  In secondary school, Coolidge was extremely shy and was a good, though not an outstanding, student.  He did better in college, graduating cum laude. After graduation, Coolidge followed the common practice of apprenticing with a local law firm.  He was admitted to the bar in 1898 and soon afterward opened a law practice in Northampton, Massachusetts.

The same year, Coolidge began his political career by being elected to the Northampton City Council. After serving in this and other municipal positions, Coolidge was elected to the Massachusetts House of Representatives.  After serving two years, Coolidge ran for and was elected Mayor of Northampton.  After two more years, Coolidge in 1912 ran for the state senate, defeating his opponent handily.   Coolidge continued to rise through the state hierarchy, being elected President of the Massachusetts Senate in 1914, Lieutenant Governor in 1915, and Governor in 1918.  During his 20 years of service in local and state offices. Coolidge supported pro-labor legislation, better wages and hours for workers, medical care for the poor and suffering, factory regulation, higher wages for teachers, and even unionization.  These efforts of Coolidge were in direct line with progressive thought and show him to be far from a reactionary during his pre-Washington years.  In Sobel’s words, Coolidge “was not the tool of big business that he has become in today’s legend” (118).

Coolidge’s tenure as governor was characterized by “honesty, integrity, and incorruptibility” (156).   His successful suppression of the 1919 Boston Police Strike vaulted him to national prominence and resulted in his being named as the Republican vice presidential candidate in 1920. At this time, Coolidge’s political views were becoming more conservative and less progressive along with those of most of the rest of the nation.  As was the practice at the time, Vice President Coolidge performed few duties other than ceremonial ones.  On August 2, 1923, President Harding died, and Coolidge suddenly and unexpectedly found himself at the head of a grieving nation.

As president, Coolidge tended to be a “hands off” leader, delegating much to his subordinates.  He spoke out for the rights of African-Americans, even though he took little concrete action to help them.  Although he was far from beholden to big business, he did sign legislation granting tax cuts to businesses and individuals and worked to promote a pro-business climate.  He appointed special counsels to investigate corruption (including the notorious Teapot Dome Scandal), and his administration initiated more antitrust suits than did any of his predecessors.  Coolidge oversaw a period of economic growth and stability that the nation had not seen in many years. In foreign affairs, Coolidge successfully avoided major confrontations with China, Mexico and Nicaragua and signed the idealistic Kellogg-Briand Pact into law.  At the time of his retirement from the presidency, Coolidge was immensely popular, and the goodwill he had built up contributed largely to another Republican landslide victory in 1928.  The former president spent his final days writing an autobiography and a newspaper column until he died on January 5, 1933.

Overall, Calvin Coolidge: An American Enigma is a solid biography.  Like nearly any such work, it contains flaws.  For example, Sobel fails to mention Coolidge’s signing of the 1924 Indian Citizenship Act, which granted U. S. citizenship to all American Indians living on major reservations (a highly significant, if much delayed, action).  In addition, the book is almost entirely a political biography.  Sobel rarely mentions Coolidge’s relationship with his wife Grace and his sons.  More information about Coolidge’s family life would have made him seem more like a person and less like a mere politician and would have made the biography more interesting.  Finally, Sobel’s description of Coolidge’s death leaves much to be desired; Sobel merely writes that one day while he was shaving, Coolidge “keeled over and fell to the floor.  He was dead at the age of sixty-one” (414). He provides no details about the cause of death.

Despite these flaws. Sobel has produced an excellent chronicle of the political life of “Silent Cal.”  Still, readers wanting to know more about Coolidge’s personal life will need to supplement their reading with other works.