"HERBERT HOOVER and Stanford", by George H. Nash (Hoover Institution Press, 1988, pp. 241)

     Pursuant to my literary credo "Faction, not fiction!", biography fascinates me and I gave a course on it at Stanford. This biography has a special interest for me because of Stanford and the fact that I knew most of the individuals named, beginning with Hoover himself. In the years between the Depression and his death, Hoover was the target of many vicious attacks, even at Stanford, and this book has educated me. It was clearly written to set the record straight, and it does not mention some stories, presumably dismissed as false. At the same time, this book reports what went on behind the university stage, unknown to the faculty at large, including me. It should be stressed that, although it was published by the Hoover Institution Press, the book was sponsored by a third party, the Herbert Hoover Presidential Library Association, affiliated with the library in West Branch, Iowa, so that the author was not entangled in the Stanford disputes.
     At the same time, the book paints Hoover, warts and all. His great merits were his devotion to duty and to Stanford, and his administrative ability. On the other hand, he was pretty acquisitive until the age of forty, dismissing as useless people who were not rich by that age. Then he suddenly changed, and became very generous and, in line with the biblical injunction "Let not thy left hand know what thy right had doeth", he gave quietly, even anonymously. A psychological study should be made of men who made a fortune, then, like Andrew Carnegie, changed in this way. Hoover's generosity had be evident earlier in the help he gave friends like Ray Lyman Wilbur, but now this seed burst into full bloom.
     Hoover was devoted to Stanford, and unusually creative. However, he could be rough. Leland Stanford died in 1893 and his wife in 1905, while Hoover was still abroad making money. The principal figure on the campus was the president, David Starr Jordan. Hoover soon pushed him upstairs to the office of Chancellor, so that Hoover's old professor John Caspar Branner could become president. Then he decided that his old friend Ray Lyman Wilbur, Dean of the Medical School, should get the job; he held it until 1943. This started the argument as to whether Stanford should discard the Medical School, then in San Francisco. The argument was still raging when I arrived at Stanford.
     Hoover wanted Stanford to be run like a business; tenure should be abolished, and unproductive professors fired. He was finally persuaded that this would be a bad policy. He could not stand the easy give and take, and he told Wilbur to "abolish that well-known debating society called the Academic Council." When I arrived, that body simply met to hear Wilbur's report; no debate, no questions. Finding this uncollegiate, I wrote a long article calling for the creation of an effective senate. In retrospect, I understand why the article was a bombshell, but the senate came to be.
     Unlike his wife, Hoover had no artistic taste. The official residence built for Wilbur, known as the Knoll, is a charming Italian Renaissance building. Hoover dismissed it as "Portuguese Gothic," suggesting he was not a Lusophile. When the same distinguished architect proposed to build a similar residence for Hoover, he was dismissed. Hoover told the new architect that "the house should look as if a child had piled up blocks."
     Hoover lived gloriously in Washington as president, but then his national reputation collapsed. He continued working for Stanford until 1941, when the Hoover Tower was inaugurated. Then the arguments with the faculty began because of his isolationism. He began to regard most of the faculty, even his former favorites, as dangerous radicals. He wrote gross attacks on them. I was relieved that I was not mentioned. He presumably regarded me, rightly, as insignificant.
     Outsiders would be little interested in the details of his fights with the faculty, which ended with his virtually breaking with the university. He chose his small hometown, West Branch in Iowa, as the site of his presidential library. He and his wife are buried there is simple tombs, with a view toward the humble house where he was born. Home again, at last.

Ronald Hilton - 10/19/99