National Affairs: Natural Man

There is a self-concealing habit about Nominee Hoover’s mind at its self-conscious moments. As a result, people are more surprised than otherwise when they discover, in Hoover speeches or reports or quoted from personal correspondence, sentences and sentiments which have unmistakably come from the natural man who lives somewhere inside the Beaver Man.

Currently published is a book* which contains, besides a sketchy but competent Hoover biography, a section of Hoover quotations and excerpts of the unfamiliar sort. They are not abundant. They include, of course, part of the famed Hoover essay, “In Praise of Izaak Walton,” published last year in the Atlantic Monthly (TIME, June 6, 1927). There is also the familiar bit about “Main Street Under Water” (the Mississippi flood).

But there are also bits of such as the following, from a letter written by Mr. Hoover to a friend to “answer some of the solemn discourses on my private life and crimes”:

“. . . For instance, I have made careful inquiries and I regret that so far I cannot find: (a) The $10,000,000 I am said to have made in my early youth, or even middle age, or altogether, or any respectable part of it. (b) The investments that I am supposed to have in Great Britain.

“Like the Negro porter who was asked to change $10, I am grateful for the compliment. I am sorry that these funds do not exist, for they would be useful for Children’s Relief.

“I have also given deep consideration to the other items mentioned: (a) Am I a British subject? Did I ever apply for such citizenship? No. Many generations of persecuted Quaker ancestors would rise in their graves at such a discovery. … (b) Did I ever rent a “residence” abroad? I plead guilty of this crime and in mitigation I do appeal to the feelings of fathers who object to hotel life for babies and children. … (d) I plead guilty to the criminal charge of pursuing my engineering profession in foreign parts again and again. I have a fervent hope, however, that this new doctrine of criminality will not deter our citizens from extending American professions and business anywhere in the world. They always bring something home, and pay taxes on it. (e) I gather also that it is moral turpitude on my part to have managed large enterprises. The hope to rise from the ranks of labor to the ranks of management will, however, probably not be crushed from the heart of the American boy even by this onslaught.”

Other Hooverisms:

¶ “In every society, however perfected, there will always be at the bottom a noxious sediment and at the top an obnoxious froth.”

¶ (On the Federal Government) “There are too many floating islands in this dismal swamp. They are anchored to the President technically, but are responsible to nobody.”

¶ “I don’t drink, I don’t overeat, I don’t waste my energy running around in circles—I go fishing.”

* THIS MAN HOOVER—Earl Reeves—Burt (75¢).