The Hoover Institution Library

The record makes is absolutely clear that Hoover viewed the library as the key element in what is now known as the Hoover Institution. This is from the letter of January 6, 1920 in which President Wilbur formally presented Hoover's proposal to the Board of Trustees: "Mr. Hoover has asked me to notify the Board that he is presenting to the University a collection of books, pamphlets, and other material on the Great War... Mr. Hoover makes the gift on the condition that it shall be maintained as a separate collection. Other books in the Library closely related to the same subject be assembled with this collection.". The trustees accepted his conditions. Later it became clear that a new building was necessary, and for this reason the Hoover Tower was built for the Library and Archives. If we wished to go back to "the original intent", it would have been restricted to the Committee for Relief in Belgium, but Hoover's intent was constantly expanding. Hoover died in 1964. The Hoover Library began its massive expansion after the appointment of Campbell as Director. There is no indication that in those long years Hoover changed his mind as to the place of the library in the university. In fact, his position hardened because of his vehement anti-Communism (he applauded the re-election of McCarthy). but that only widened the gap.

While his rigid position alienated the faculty, and he became a target of constant attacks, he had been inspired by great humanitarian ideals. He founded the Hoover Library and Archives to study the causes of war and revolution in order to bring about national and international peace, and he founded the Food Research Institute to study and alleviate hunger around the world. After his death, a pretext was found to reduce the scope of the Institute to food economics. The excuse given was that Hoover's purpose duplicated what other institutions, such as colleges of agriculture, were doing. This was untrue. They were studying agricultural techniques, aimed at profitability. Later the Food Research Institute was simply absorbed by the Economics Department and abolished.

The Hoover Institution is going down the same slippery path. I say this with feeling, having built up the Latin American program from scratch with a minuscule budget to a point where the New York Times described it as a model for the nation. When funds became available for Latin America, the faculty bloodhounds smelt money and chased after it. I resigned. Hoover, the generous humanitarian, would never have stooped to such tactics. Whatever one may think of his policies, his humanitarian instincts were remarkable.

Ronald Hilton - 11/24/01