By Thomas F. Schwartz
On May 30, 1931, President Herbert Hoover used Memorial Day to honor George Washington and recount the significance of the winter encampment at Valley Forge. Washington had to evacuate Philadelphia, selecting a site eighteen miles outside of the city where his army of roughly 12,000 men could camp for the winter months. Hoover used the example of Valley Forge to make several points: that fields of victorious battles are not the only one’s worthy of remembrance; that the Great Depression is “another Valley Forge” moment; and the inspiration Americans can glean from the Valley Forge experience.
Most depictions of Valley Forge cast it with snow and bitter cold. More serious was the inadequate supply of nutritious food. The greatest threat to armies at this time was the spread of disease due to confinement and poor hygiene. Perhaps as many as 2,000 soldiers died. Hoover emphasizes the “dreadful winter of privation” as marking Valley Forge “as a foremost shrine in the War of Independence and in our Nation. It is a shrine to the things of the spirit and of the soul.” He goes on to paraphrase a section of Lincoln’s Gettysburg Address claiming “Here men endured that a nation might live.” The transcendent ideals provided “The triumph of character and idealism and high intelligence over the counsels of despair, of prudence, and materials comfort. This was one of those moral victories that are the glory of the race. Without such victories the life of man would descend to a sheer materialism for ‘where there is no vision the people perish.’” This last phrase is from the Book of Proverbs, 29:18 which is the verse in the Bible Hoover selected for his inauguration.
Hoover argued that “An ideal is an unselfish aspiration. Its purpose is the general welfare not only of this but of future generations. It is a thing of the spirit. It is a generous and humane desire that all men may share equally in a common good. Our ideals are the cement which binds human society…Idealism was forged into the souls of the American people by the fires of the Revolution.” Using the reference to the Revolution and Valley Forge, Hoover encourages Americans to bring that same sense of idealism and spirit in dealing with the conditions brought about by the worldwide depression affecting America. Acknowledging that hardship has been brought about “in part the penalty of excess of greed, of failure of crops, and the malign inheritances of the Great War and a storm of other world forces beyond our control. Their far-reaching effects have fallen heavily upon many who were in no wise concerned with their causes. Many have lost the savings of a lifetime, many are unemployed, all know the misgivings of doubt and grave concern for the future.”
In the face of hardships, Hoover encourages Americans to take heart. He concludes his remarks with a call to remember. “Valley Forge is our American synonym for the trial of human character through privation and suffering, and it is the symbol of the triumph of the American soul. If those few thousand men endured that long winter of privation and suffering, humiliated by the despair of the countrymen, and deprived of support save their own indomitable will, yet held their countrymen to the faith, and by that holding held fast the freedom of America, what right have we to be of little faith? God grant that we may prove worthy of George Washington and his men of Valley Forge.”