By Thomas F. Schwartz One of Herbert Hoover’s last books had nothing to do with politics or global issues. Rather it was a meditation on fishing. Fishing for Fun and to Wash Your Soul (1963) contains a chapter entitled “Fishing Presidents and Candidates” that offers both a wonderful glimpse into Hoover’s understated humor and his … Continue reading Fishing Presidents and Candidates
In honor of Presidents Day, I resume my series on Hoover’s interactions with American Presidents. In our last episode, I left Hoover at Warren Harding’s death bed in August 1923. After Harding died, Vice President Calvin Coolidge rose to the office of President. Coolidge, described as a ‘Puritan in Babylon’ by one writer, could not … Continue reading Hoover and 20th Century Presidents: Calvin Coolidge
My office mate and I had a conversation about Ozymandias, a poem by Percy Bysshe Shelley more than two hundred years ago. Fragments of the poem rattled in my memory; my colleague knew it by heart. Lines that stuck with me: ‘And on the pedestal these words appear/ ‘My name is Ozymandias, king of kings/ … Continue reading Hoover, and Other Heads of the American State
08/13/1960 Former President Hoover throws out the first ball at the Old Timers game, Yankee Stadium. Red Rutting, Bob Feller and Joe DiMaggio. In exploring the Hoover-Ruth salary story, I indulged myself to compare salaries of other baseball players in light of the annual salary of the President. Given that the POTUS’s salary changed only … Continue reading Comparing Earnings of Presidents and Baseball Players.
Part 2 by Matthew Schaefer This post is the second in an intermittent series describing the continuing saga of Herbert Hoover’s connections to U.S. Presidents. In 1910, the 36 year-old Hoover wrote letters to friends explaining that he’d grown bored with the game of making money and that he’d welcome a new challenge. Well-connected friends … Continue reading Herbert Hoover and American Presidents of the 20th century
by Matthew Schaefer Theodore Roosevelt Box 12 of the Allan Hoover papers contains an intriguing folder titled ‘People Herbert Hoover Knew.’ The names on these twenty-seven pages obviously did not list every one that Hoover knew, just those with sufficient political prominence to catch Hoover’s attention. One page was especially noteworthy. On it Hoover listed … Continue reading Herbert Hoover and American Presidents of the 20th century
