THE CHILD AND BOY

The account of Mr. Hoover’s sympathetic interest in the child sufferers from the Great War, and of his active and effective work on their behalf, makes one wonder about his own childhood. He is not so old that his childhood days could have been darkened by the one war which did mean suffering to many American children, especially those of the South. He was not born in the South, nor of parents actually afflicted by poverty, and did not spend his early days in any of the comparatively few places in America, such as the congested great city quarters and industrial agglomérations of poor and ignorant foreign working-people, where real child distress is common; so he certainly did not, as a growing child, have his ears filled with tales of child suffering, or with the actual crying of hungry children.

There was one outstanding fact, however, in his relations as a child to the world and to the people most closely about him, which may have had its influence in making him especially susceptible to the sight of child misfortune. This is the fact that he, like many of his later wards in Europe, was orphaned at an early age. But he was by no means a neglected orphan. So I hardly think that his own personal experience as an orphan is a sufficient explanation of the passionate interest in the special fate of the children, which he displayed from the beginning of the war to its end.

Nor can the explanation lie in the coldly reasoned conclusion that the most valuable relief to a people so stricken by catastrophe that its very existence as a human group is threatened, is to let whatever mortality is unavoidable fall chiefly to the old and the adult infirm for the sake of saving the next generation on which alone the future existence of the group depends. This actual fact Hoover always clearly saw; but the thing that those close to him saw quite as clearly was that this alone accounted for but a small part of his intensive attention to the children.

It is, then, neither any sad experience in his own life, nor any sociologic or biologic understanding of the hard facts of human existence and racial persistence, that does much to explain his particular devotion to the health and comfort of the millions of suffering children in Europe. The explanation lies simply, although mysteriously, in his own personality. I say mysteriously, for, despite all the wonderful new knowledge of heredity that we have gained since the beginning of the twentieth century, the way by which any of us comes to be just the sort of man he is is still mostly mystery. Herbert Hoover is simply a kind of man who, when brought by circumstances face to face with the distress of a people, is especially deeply touched by the distress of the children, and is impelled by this to use all of his intelligence and energy to relieve this distress. What we can know of his inheritance and early environment may indeed reveal a little something of why he is this kind of man. But it certainly will not reveal the whole explanation.

Herbert Hoover, or, to give him for once his full name, Herbert Clark Hoover, was born on August 10, 1874, in a small Quaker community of Iowa which composed, at the time of his birth, most of the village of West Branch in that state. That is, he usually says that he was born on August 10, but sometimes he says that this important day was August 11. He seems to slide his birthday back and forth to suit the convenience of his family when they wish to celebrate it. He does this on the basis of the fact that when, in the midst of the general family excitement in the middle of the night of August 10-11, one of the busy Quaker aunts present bethought herself, for the sake of getting things straight in the family Bible, to say: “Oh, doctor, just how long ago was it that baby was born?” she got the following answer, “Just as near an hour ago as I can guess it.” Thereupon she looked at the clock on the wall, and the doctor looked at his watch, and both found it exactly one o’clock of an important new morning!

Herbert’s Quaker father, Jesse Clark Hoover, died in 1880, and his Quaker mother, Hulda Minthorn, in 1884. The father had had the simple education of a small Quaker college and was, at the time of Herbert’s birth, the “village blacksmith,” to give him the convenient title used by the town and country people about. But really he was of that ambitious type of blacksmith, not uncommon in the Middle West, whose shop not only does the repairing of the farm machines and household appliances, but manufactures various homely metal things, and does a little selling of agricultural implements on the side. Jesse Hoover’s mind was rather full of ideas about possible “improvements” on the machines he repaired and sold. And his two sons, Herbert and Theodore, and Herbert’s two sons, Herbert, Jr., and Allan, are all rather given to the same “inventiveness” about the home.

Hulda Randall Minthorn Hoover, Herbert’s mother, was a woman of unusual mental gifts. After her husband’s death she gave much attention to church work, and became a recognized “preacher” at Quaker meetings. In this capacity she revealed so much power of expression and exhortation that she was in much demand. Her death, in 1884, came from typhoid fever. Those who knew her speak of her “personality.” They say that she had color and attractiveness, although she was unusually shy and reserved. One can say exactly the same things of her son Herbert.

The immediate Hoover ancestry is Quaker. The more remote is Quaker mixed with Dutch and French Huguenot. The Dutch name was spelled with an e instead of the second o. All of Herbert’s grandparents were Quakers, and the Quaker records run back a long time. One of the family branches runs into Canada, with the story of a migration there of a group of refugees from the American colonies during the Revolution. These emigrants came from prosperous farms in Pennsylvania, but while they wanted to be free from England’s control, they could not, as Quakers, agree to fight for this freedom. So as the neighbors were inclined to be a little “unpleasant” about this, and as Canada was just then offering free farms to colonists, they packed up their movables and trekked north.

Another Canadian branch, French Huguenot in origin, has traditions of hurried removals from France into Holland before St. Bartholomew’s Night, and of later escapes into the same country. But all finally decided that Europe anywhere was impossible, and hence they determined on a wholesale emigration to Canada. Here by chance they settled down side by side with the little Quaker group which had come from Pennsylvania. Close association and intermarrying resulted in the Quakerizing of the European Huguenots their beliefs were essentially similar, anyway so in time all the descendants of this double Canadian line were Quakers.

There were two other children in Jesse and Hulda Hoover’s family: one a boy, Theodore, three and a half years older than Herbert, and the other a girl, Mary, who was very much younger. Theodore, like his younger brother, became a mining engineer, and after a dozen years of professional and business experience with mines all over the world part of the time in connection with mining interests directed by his brother is now the head of the graduate department of mining engineering in Stanford University.

After the father’s and mother’s death, the three Hoover orphans came under the kindly care of various Quaker aunts and uncles, and especially at first of Grandmother Minthorn. This good grandmother took special charge of little Mary, and pretty soon carried her with her out to Oregon, where she had a son and daughter living. There had been a little property left when the father died, enough to provide a very slender income for each child. But if the dollars were few the kind relatives were not, and the little Hoovers never suffered from hunger.

These relatives were not limited to Iowa, and the boy Herbert soon found himself in a new and strange environment, surrounded by a different race of human beings, whose red-brown skin and fantastic trappings greatly excited his boyish wonder and imagination. For he was sent to live with his Uncle Laban Miles, U. S. Government Indian Agent for the Osage tribe in the Indian Territory, who was one of the many Quakers who had dedicated their lives to the cause of the Indians at that time. Here Herbert spent a happy six or eight months, playing with some little cousins and learning to know the original Americans. For when other pastimes palled there were always the strange and wonderful red people to watch and wonder about.

But his life among the original Americans was interrupted by the solicitous aunts and uncles, who, realizing that an abundance of barbarians and a paucity of schools might not be the best of surroundings for a child coming to its first years of understanding, decided on bringing him back into a more civilized and Quakerish environment; at least one less marked by tomahawks, bows and arrows, and other tangible suggestions of a most un-Quakerish manner of life.

So he was sent back to Iowa, where he lived for two very happy years in the home of Uncle Allan Hoover. To this uncle, and to his wife, Aunt Millie, the impressionable boy became strongly attached. And there were some energetic young cousins always on hand to play with. The older brother Theodore, or Tad, was living at this time with another uncle, a prosperous Iowa farmer, also much loved by both of the boys. He lived near enough to permit frequent playings together of the two, and on another farm, with Grandmother Minthorn, was still the baby sister Mary, who was, however, too young to be much of a playmate for the brothers. Indeed, the country all around bristled with the kindly uncles and aunts and other relatives and playmates, all interested in making life comfortable and happy for the little orphans.

There was also an especially attractive little black-eyed girl, Mildred Brook, who lived on a near-by farm, who later went to the same Quaker academy at Oskaloosa as Theodore, and is now Mrs. Theodore Hoover. In those days she was known as “Mildred of the berry-patches,” as all the children for miles around associated her in their minds with the luxuriant vines on the farm of her Uncle Bransome with whom she lived. Her home was the children’s Mecca in the berry season.

Herbert Hoover’s memories of those days are filled with lively incidents and boyish farm adventure. There was the young calf, mutual property of himself and a cousin of like age, which was fitted out with a boy-made harness and trained to work, eventually getting out of hand in a corn field and dragging the single-shovel cultivator wildly across and along rows of tender growing grain. Later the calf was restored to favor when it was triumphantly attached to a boy-made sorghum mill, which actually worked, and pressed out the sweet juice from the sorghum cane.

Winter had its special joys of skates and sled; spring came with maple-sugaring, and summer with its long days filled with a thousand enterprises. There were fish in the creek which you might catch if you could sit still long enough, without too violent wiggling of the hook when the float gave its first faint indications of a bite. It was two miles to school, and most of the time the children had to walk. But that was only good for them, and there was, of course, a good deal of churchgoing and daily family prayers, but there were always convenient laps for tired little heads being in church was the necessary thing, not being awake in church.

It was a joyous and wholesome two years, the kind that thousands of Mississippi Valley farms have given to hundreds of thousands of American little boys; the kind that gives them a good start in health and happiness towards a sturdy and simple adolescent life. But the time had come for young Herbert to learn new surroundings. For some reason, apparently not clearly remembered now, it was decided by the consulting uncles and aunts that young Herbert should go to Oregon, and join the Hoover and Minthorn relatives there. Perhaps, even probably, it was because of the presumably superior educational advantages of Oregon in the existence of the Newberg Pacific Academy that led to the decision. We may imagine that Herbert uttered no affirmative vote in the conclave that decided on his departure from the Iowa farm, and when he once got out to the superior place, he was less than ever in favor of the proceeding. But the conscientious uncles and aunts were inexorable as the Fates.

They meant to be the kindest of Fates, of course. They knew that they knew so much better than the little boy what was best for him. And probably they did. But this little pawn on the chessboard of life, moved about with ever so excellent intention by firm and confident hands, must have thought sometimes that he would have liked to have some little part in deciding these moves. But if one starts as pawn, one must find the way as pawn clear across the board to the king row before one can come to the higher estate of the nobler pieces.

The actual going from Iowa to far-away Oregon was not so unbearable, because of the excitement of the tremendous journey and the actual fun of it. It was not made, to be sure, as Herbert would have preferred it, in a long train of picturesque prairie schooners, drawn up in a circle each night to repel attacking Indians, as his storybooks described all transcontinental journeys; but in an overfull tourist-car on the railroad. Herbert’s most vivid memories of the week’s journey are of the wonderful lunch baskets and boxes filled with fried chicken, boiled hams, roast meats, countless pies and layer-cakes, caraway-seed cookies, and great red apples. Herbert Hoover had no food troubles in those days!

Arrived in Oregon he found himself in the family of Uncle John Minthorn, his mother’s brother, a country doctor of Newberg, and the principal of the superior educational institution. Uncle John did not live on a farm, but on the edge of a small town, which was a mistake, according to Herbert’s way of looking at it. And the Pacific Academy of Newberg, Oregon, could not be compared in interest with the district village school of West Branch, Iowa.

After two or three years of life with Dr. John, young Herbert was handed over to the care of a Grandfather Miles, for Dr. John decided to give up country doctoring in order to go into the land business “down in Salem,” the capital city. Therefore, as little Herbert’s schooling in the academy which he was attending all the time he was living with Dr. John, could not be interrupted, he was placed in the home of this Grandfather Miles on a farm just on the edge of the academy town.

Herbert’s life with Grandfather Miles does not seem to have been a very happy one, for the old gentleman did not believe in spoiling little boys by too much kindness. There were many chores to do before and after school, and little time for playing. And the chores just had to be done, and not be forgotten as they sometimes were. Probably this strictness of discipline was a good thing for the small boy. But, like other small boys, he did not like it. So, also, like many other small boys, he decided to run away.

Running away may not be the exclusive prerogative of young Americans, but some way it is hard for me to picture European boys of fourteen going off on their own. And yet perhaps they do. At any rate it is such a favorite procedure with us that hardly one of us I mean by us, American males has not had a try at it or connived at some neighbor’s son trying it. My own experience was only that of a conniver. A schoolmate of thirteen, whose father believed in a more vigorous method of correcting wayward sons than my father did, ran away from his house to as far as our house. There my brother and I secreted him in a clothes-closet for the nearly three hours of freedom that he enjoyed in half-smothered state. Then the stern father came over, discovered him and haled him away to proper discipline. I shall never forget the howls of the captured fugitive, nor the triumphant and accusing remark to us, shouted by the terrible capturer as he dragged off his victim: “Now ye see what liars ye are!” For, of course, we had done our impotent best to throw the hunter off the track. It was several days before I could lie again without a violent trembling.

But Herbert Hoover ran away for keeps. He did not run away to ship before the mast or to kill Indians. Nor did he run very far, only to Portland and to Salem, which his geography had already taught him were the principal city and capital, respectively, of the state of Oregon. And he ran away with the full knowledge and even tolerance of his relatives. But he went away to be independent, and to fit himself for the special kind of college to which he had already decided to go. In Salem he lived again with his Uncle John, helping in the real estate business, but in Portland he lived entirely on his own.

That part of his reason for running away which was connected with preparing for a college of his own choosing seems to have come about because of a difference of opinion that had arisen between young Herbert and his Quaker relatives with regard to the future course of his education. They had taken it quite as a matter of course that from the little Quaker academy in Newberg he would go to one of the reputable Quaker colleges of the country. But Herbert had come to a different idea about this matter of further education, and, as is characteristic of him, this idea had led to a decision, and the decision was on the rapid way to lead to action. In other words, Herbert had made up his mind that he wanted to study science, and for that purpose wanted to fit himself for and go to a modern scientific university. Also, he wanted to be, just as soon as he possibly could, on an independent financial footing. He probably did not express these wishes, in his boy’s vocabulary, by any such large mouthful of phrases; he probably said to himself, “I want to earn my own living, and go to a university where I can learn science.”

Just what led him to the decision about the modern university and science is not easy for the grown-up Herbert Hoover of today to tell. But he is pretty sure that a large part of this determination came from the casual visit of a man whom he had never seen before and has never seen or heard of since, but who was an old friend of his father.

This man, on his way through the town to look at a mine he owned somewhere in eastern Oregon, dropped off at Newberg so that he might see the little son of his Iowa friend. He was a “mining man,” and, from the impression that Mr. Hoover still has of him, probably a mining engineer. He stayed at the local hotel for two or three days, and saw what he could of young Herbert between school-hours and chore-times. His conversation was apparently mostly about the difference in the work and achievements in the world of the man who had a profession and the one who had not. It was illustrated, because the speaker was a miner, by examples in the field of mining. The talk also was much about engineering in general and about just what training it was necessary for a boy to have in order to become a good engineer, with much emphasis put on the part in this training which was to be got from a university. He also explained the difference between a university and a small academy-college.

And then the man went on to his mine. He invited the fascinated boy to go with him for a little visit, but permission for this was not obtained. The trails of this man and Herbert Hoover have never touched again, and yet this stray mining engineer, whose name, even, we do not know, almost certainly was more responsible than any other external influence in determining Hoover’s later education and adopted profession.

In Portland Herbert got a job in a real estate office as useful boy-of-all-work, including particularly the driving of prospective purchasers about to see various alluring corner lots in town and inviting farmsteads in the surrounding country. For his work he received sufficient wages to pay for all of his very modest living. He had hoped to go to the high school to prepare himself for college, but found that he could not do this and earn his full wages at the same time. So as the wages were a first necessity, he gave up his high-school plans and devoted himself to study at nights and odd hours of the day. He discovered a little back room in the real-estate office half filled with old boxes and bags, of which no one else seemed to be aware, and this he fitted up with a bed, a little table and a lamp, and made of it, with a boy’s enthusiasm especially the enthusiasm of a boy who had known Indians a secret cave in which he lived in a mysterious and exciting way. He slipped out to little restaurants and cheap boarding-places for his meals.

He remembers once standing fascinated before a sign that read: “Table d’hote, 75 cents”; but after thinking twice of indulging in a single great eating orgy, he decided that no human stomach, much less his own small one, could possibly hold all the food that seventy-five cents would pay for, and that therefore he could not get all of his money’s worth. So he went on to some fairer bargain.

There was a bank-vault just across the alley from his secret back room in the real estate office, and many a night did young Herbert lie awake in his cave hearing his imaginary bank-robbers mining their way into the vault and escaping with much rich treasure. But mostly young Herbert studied in that secret cave of his, and that he studied hard and to good purpose is proved by the fact that in little more than two years he felt himself ready to attempt the entrance examinations for college.