for any God-fearing person,” was his guardian’s reply. “Thee must not
expect thy people to send thee to a place of worldly fashions and
ideas.”
“It looks as if I should have to send myself, then,” said the young
man, with a smile in his clear eyes, but with his chin looking even more
determined than was its usual firm habit.
When Leland Stanford Junior University opened its doors in 1891, Herbert
C. Hoover was one of those applying for admission. The first student to
register for the engineering course, he was the distinguished nucleus of
the Department of Geology and Mining. The first problem young Hoover had
to solve at college, however, was the way of meeting his living
expenses.
“What chances are there for a chap to earn money here?” he asked.
“The only job that seems to be lying about loose is that of serving in
the dining-rooms,” he was told. “Student waiters are always in demand.”
The young Quaker looked as if he had been offered an unripe persimmon.
“I suppose it’s true that ‘they also serve who only stand and wait,’” he
drawled whimsically, “but somehow I can’t quite see myself in the part.
And anyway,” he added reflectively, “I don’t know that I need depend on
a job that is ‘lying about loose.’ I shouldn’t wonder if I’d have to
look out for an opening that hasn’t been offered to every passer-by and
become shop-worn.”
He had not been many days at the university before he discovered a need
and an opportunity. There was no college laundry. “I think that the
person who undertakes to organize the clean-linen business in this
academic settlement will ‘also serve,’ and he won’t have to ‘wait’ for
his reward!” he said to himself.
The really successful man of business is one who can at the same time
create a demand and provide the means of meeting it. The college
community awoke one morning to the realization that it needed above
everything else efficient laundry-service. And it seemed that an alert
young student of mining engineering was managing the business. Before
long it was clear, not only that the college was by way of being
systematically and satisfactorily served in this respect, but that, what
was even more important, a man with a veritable genius for organization
had appeared on the campus. It soon became natural to “let Hoover
manage” the various student undertakings; and to this day “the way
Hoover did things” is one of the most firmly established traditions of
Leland Stanford.
Graduating from the university in the pioneer class of 1895, he served
his apprenticeship at the practical work of mining engineering in Nevada
County, California, by sending ore-laden cars from the opening of the
mine to the reducing works. He earned two dollars a day at this job, and
also the opportunity to prove himself equal to greater responsibility.
The foreman nodded approvingly and said, “There’s a young chap that
college couldn’t spoil! He has a degree _plus_ common sense, and so is
ready to learn something from the experience that comes his way. And
he’s always on the job--right to the minute. Any one can see he’s one
that’s bound for the top!”
It seemed as if Fate were determined from the first that the young man
should qualify as a citizen of the world as well as a master of mines.
We next find him in that dreary waste of New South Wales known as Broken
Hill. In a sun-smitten desert, whose buried wealth of zinc and gold is
given grudgingly only to those who have grit to endure weary, parched
days and pitiless, lonely nights, he met the ordeal, and proved himself
still a man in No Man’s Land. He looked the desert phantoms in the face,
and behold! they faded like a mirage. Only the chance of doing a
full-sized man’s work remained.
The Broken Hill contract completed, he found new problems as a mining
expert and manager of men in China. But he did not go to this new field
alone. While at college he had found in one of his fellow-workers a
kindred spirit, who was interested in the real things that were meat and
drink to him. Miss Lou Henry was a live California girl, with warm human
charm and a hobby for the marvels of geology. It was not strange that
these two found it easy to fall into step, and that after a while they
decided to fare forth on the adventure of living together.
It was an adventure with something more than the thrill of novel
experience and the tonic of meeting new problems that awaited them in
the Celestial Empire. For a long time a very strong feeling against
foreigners and the changed life they were introducing into China had
been smoldering among many of the people. There was a large party who
believed that change was dangerous. They did not want railroads built
and mines worked. The snorting locomotive, belching fire and smoke,
seemed to them the herald of the hideous new order of things that the
struggling peoples of the West were trying to bring into their mellow,
peaceful civilization. The digging down into the ground was particularly
alarming. Surely, that could not fail to disturb the dragon who slept
within the earth and whose mighty length was coiled about the very
foundations of the world. There would be earthquakes and other terrible
signs of his anger.
The Boxer Society, whose name meant “the fist of righteous harmony,” and
whose slogan was “Down with all foreigners,” became very powerful. “Let
us be true to the old customs and keep China in the safe old way!” was
the cry of the Boxers. The “righteous harmony” meant “China first,” and
“China for the Chinese”; the “fist” meant “Death to Intruders!” There
was a general uprising in 1900, and many foreigners and Chinese
Christians were massacred. Mr. Hoover, who was at Tientsin in charge of
important mining interests, found himself at the storm-center. It was
his task to help save his faithful workers, yellow men as well as white,
from the infuriated mob.
There was a time when it looked as if the rising tide of rebellion would
sweep away all that opposed it before reinforcements from the Western
nations could arrive. And when the troops did pour into Peking and
Tientsin to rescue the besieged foreigners, another lawless period
succeeded. Mr. Hoover found it almost as hard to protect property and
innocent Chinese from soldiers, thirsty for loot, as it had been to hold
the desperate Boxers at bay. The victorious troops as well as the
vanquished fanatics seemed to
have eaten on the insane root
That takes the reason prisoner.
The master of mines had a chance to prove himself now a master of men.
He succeeded in safeguarding the interests of his company, and somehow
he managed, too, to keep his faith in people in spite of the war
madness. He never doubted that the wave of unreason and cruelty would
pass, like the blackness of a storm. Reason and humanity would prevail,
and kindly Nature would make each battle-scarred field of struggle and
bloodshed smile again with flowers.
The adventure of living led the Hoovers to Australia, to Africa, to any
and all places where there were mines to be worked. As manager of some
very important mining interests Mr. Hoover’s judgment was sought
wherever the struggle to win the treasures of the rocks presented
special problems. He had now gained wealth and influence, but he was too
big a man to rest back on what he had accomplished and content himself
with making money.
“I have all the money I need,” he said. “I want to do some real work;
it’s only doing things that counts.”
You know, of course, the joy of doing something quite apart from
anything you have to do, just because you have taken up with the idea
for its own sake. Then you run to meet any amount of effort, and work
becomes play. Mr. Hoover and his wife now took up a task together with
all the zest that one puts into a fascinating game. Can you imagine
getting fun out of translating a great Latin book about mines and
minerals?
“For some time I have looked forward to putting old Agricola into
English,” explained Mr. Hoover; “we are having a real holiday working it
up.”
“Who in the world was Agricola, and what does he matter to you?”
demanded his friend, in amazement.
“Agricola, my dear fellow, was the Latinized name of a German mining
engineer who lived in the early part of the sixteenth century--a time
when it was not only the fashion to turn one’s name into Latin, but to
write all books of any importance in that language. He matters a good
deal to any one who happens to be especially interested in the science
of mining. This volume we are at work on is the cornerstone of that
science.”
“How, then, does it happen that it has never been translated before?”
asked the friend.
“Well,” replied Mr. Hoover, with some hesitation, “you see it wasn’t a
particularly easy job. Agricola’s Latin had its limitations, but his
knowledge of minerals and mining problems was prodigious. Only a mining
expert could possibly get at what he was trying to say, and most mining
experts have something more paying to do than to undertake a thing of
this kind.”
“I see,” retorted his friend, with a smile; “you are doing this because
you have nothing more paying to do!”
“Yes,” replied Mr. Hoover, quietly, “there is nothing that is more
paying than the thing that is your work--because you particularly want
to do it.”
Mr. Hoover would say without any hesitation that the work which he
volunteered to do when the storm of the great war broke on Europe in
August, 1914, was “paying” in the same way. This citizen of the world
was at his London headquarters, from which, as consulting engineer, he
was directing vast mining interests, when the panic of fear seized the
crowds of American tourists who had gone abroad as to a favorite
pleasure-park and had found it suddenly transformed into a battle-field.
Hundreds of people were as frightened and helpless as children caught in
a burning building. All at once they found themselves in a strange,
threatening world, without means of escape.
“Nobody seemed to know what was to be done with us, and nobody seemed to
care,” explained a Vassar girl. “Their mobilizing was the only thing
that mattered to them. There were no trains and steamers for us, and no
money for our checks and letters of credit. Then Mr. Hoover came to the
rescue. He saw that something was done, and it was done effectively. It
took generalship, I can tell you, to handle that stampede--to get people
from the Continent into England, to arrange for the advancement of funds
to meet their needs, and to provide means of getting them back to
America. They say he is a wonderful engineer, but I don’t think he ever
carried through any more remarkable engineering feat than that was!”
The matter of giving temporary relief and providing transportation for
some six or seven thousand anxious Americans was a simple undertaking,
however, compared to Mr. Hoover’s next task.
In the autumn of 1914 the cry of a whole nation in distress startled the
world. The people of Belgium were starving. The terror and destruction
of war had swept over a helpless little country leaving want and misery
everywhere. There was need of instant and efficient aid. Of course only
a neutral would be permitted to serve, and equally of course, only a man
used to handling great enterprises--a captain of industry and a master
of men--would be able to serve in such a crisis. It did not take a
prophet or seer to see in Herbert Clark Hoover, that master of vast
engineering projects who had given himself so generously to helping his
fellow-Americans in distress, a man fitted to meet the needs of the
time. And Mr. Walter H. Page, American Ambassador to England, appealed
to Mr. Hoover, American in London, citizen of the world and lover of
humanity, to act as chairman of the Commission for Relief in Belgium.
“Who is this Mr. Hoover, and will he be really able to man and manage
the relief-ship?” was demanded on every side, in America as well as in
Europe.
“If anybody can save Belgium, he can,” vouched Mr. Page. “There never
was such a genius for organization. He can grasp the most complex
problems, wheels within wheels, and get all the cogs running in perfect
harmony. Besides, he will have the courage to act promptly as well as
effectively when once he has determined on the right course to pursue.
He is not afraid of precedent and red tape. A man who has developed and
directed large mining interests all over the world and who has been
consulting engineer for over fifty mining companies, he cares more about
doing a good job than making money. He’s giving himself now heart and
soul to this relief work, and we may be sure, if the thing is humanly
possible, that he will find a way.”
Can you picture to yourself the plight of Belgium after the cruel
war-machine had mowed down all industries and trade and had swept the
fields bare of crops and farm animals? Think of a country, about the
size of the State of Maryland, so closely dotted with towns and villages
that there were more than eight million people living there--as many
people as there are in all our great western States on the Pacific side
of the Rocky Mountains. This smallest country of Europe was the most
densely settled and the most prosperous. The Belgians were a nation of
skilled workers. Many were makers of cloth and lace. The linen, woolen,
and delicate cotton fabrics woven in Belgium were as famous as Brussels
carpets and Brussels lace. Since it was a land particularly rich in
coal, manufacturing of all sorts was very profitable. There were
important metal-works; nail, wire, and brass factories; and workshops of
gold and silver articles. The glass and pottery works were also
important. Little Belgium was a veritable hive of busy workers, whose
products were sent all over the world.
Of course, you can see that an industrial country like this would have
to import much of its food. The small farms and market-gardens could not
at best supply the needs of the people for more than three or four
months of the year. Just as our big cities must depend on importing
provisions from the country, so Belgium depended on buying food-stuffs
from agricultural communities in exchange for her manufactured articles.
Now can you realize what happened when the war came? There was no
longer any chance for the people to make and sell their goods. All the
mills and metal-works were stopped. The conquerors seized all the mines
and metals. Everything that could serve Germany in any way was shipped
to that country. The railroads, of course, were in the hands of the
Germans, and so each town and village was cut off from communication
with the rest of the world. The harvests that had escaped destruction by
the trampling armies were seized to feed the troops. Even the scattered
farm-houses were robbed of their little stores of grain and vegetables.
The task with which Mr. Hoover had to cope was that of buying food for
ten million people (in Belgium and northern France), shipping it across
seas made dangerous by mines and submarines of the warring nations, and
distributing it throughout an entire country without any of the normal
means of transportation. Let us see how he went to work. First he
secured the help of other energetic, able young Americans who only
wanted to be put to work. Chief among these volunteers were the Rhodes
scholars at
[Illustration: The Belgian children’s Christmas card, printed at the
Plantin Museum in Antwerp]
Oxford, picked men who had been given special opportunities and who
realized that true education means ability to serve. Without confusion
or delay the relief army was organized and the campaign for the war
sufferers under way.
It was a business without precedents, a sea that had never been charted,
this work of the Relief Commission. At a time when England was vitally
and entirely concerned with her war problems and when all railroads and
steamships were supposed to be at the command of the government, Mr.
Hoover quietly arranged for the transportation of supplies to meet the
immediate needs of Belgium. Going on the principle that “when a thing is
really necessary it is better to do it first and ask permission
afterward,” Mr. Hoover saw his cargoes safely stowed and the hatches
battened down before he went to secure his clearance papers.
“We must be permitted to leave at once,” he declared urgently. “If I do
not get four cargoes of food to Belgium by the end of the week,
thousands are going to die of starvation, and many more may be shot in
food riots.”
“Out of the question!” replied the cabinet minister, positively. “There
is no time, in the first place, and if there were, there are no good
wagons to be spared by the railways, no dock hands, and no steamers.
Besides, the Channel is closed to merchant ships for a week to allow the
passage of army transports.”
“I have managed to get all these things,” Hoover interposed, “and am now
through with them all except the steamers. This wire tells me that these
are loaded and ready to sail, and I have come to you to arrange for
their clearance.”
The distinguished official looked at Hoover aghast. “There have been men
sent to the Tower for less than you have done, young man!” he exclaimed.
“If it was for anything but Belgium Relief,--if it was anybody but
you,--I should hate to think of what might happen. As it is--I suppose I
must congratulate you on a jolly clever coup. I’ll see about the
clearance papers at once.”
First and last, the chief obstacles with which the Relief Commission had
to deal were due to the suspicions of the two great antagonists, England
and Germany, each of whom was bent on preventing the other from
securing the slightest advantage from the least chance or mischance. Now
it was the British Foreign Office which sent a long communication,
fairly swathed in red tape, suggesting changes in relief methods, which,
if carried out, would have held up the food of seven million people for
two days. In this stress Mr. Hoover dispensed with the services of a
clerk and wrote the following letter, which served to lighten a dark day
at the Foreign Office, in his own hand:
Dear Blank:
It strikes me that trying to feed the Belgians is like trying to
feed a hungry little kitten by means of a forty-foot bamboo pole,
said kitten confined in a barred cage occupied by two hungry lions.
Yours sincerely,
HERBERT C. HOOVER.
In April, 1915, a German submarine, in its zeal to nip England,
torpedoed one of the Commission’s food-ships, and somewhat later an
aëroplane tried to drop bombs on another. Mr. Hoover at once paid a
flying visit to Berlin. He was assured that Germany regretted the
incident and that it would not happen again.
“Thanks,” said Hoover. “Perhaps your Excellency has heard about the man
who was bitten by a bad-tempered dog? He went to the owner to have the
dog muzzled.
“‘But the dog won’t bite you,’ insisted the owner.
“‘You know he won’t bite me, and I know he won’t bite me,’ said the
injured man, doubtfully, ‘but the question is, does the dog know?’”
“Herr Hoover,” said the high official, “pardon me if I leave you for a
moment. I am going at once to ‘let the dog know.’”
Another incident which throws light on the character and influence of
our citizen of the world was related by Mr. Lloyd-George, the first man
of England, to a group of friends at the Liberal Club. Here is the story
in the great Welshman’s own words:
“‘Mr. Hoover,’ I said, ‘I find I am quite unable to grant your request
in the matter of Belgian exchange, and I have asked you to come here
that I might explain why.’ Without waiting for me to go on, my
boyish-looking caller began speaking. For fifteen minutes he spoke
without a break--just about the clearest utterance I have ever heard on
any subject. He used not a word too much, nor yet a word too few. By
the time he had finished I had come to realize not only the importance
of his contentions, but, what was more to the point, the practicability
of granting his request. So I did the only thing possible under the
circumstances--told him I had never understood the question before,
thanked him for helping me to understand it, and saw that things were
arranged as he wanted them.”
As Mr. Lloyd-George was impressed by the quiet efficiency of his
“boyish-looking caller,” so the whole world was impressed by the
masterly system with which the great work was carried forward. Wheat was
bought by the ship-load in Argentina, transported to Belgium, where it
was milled and made into bread, and then sold for less than the price in
London. The details of distribution were so handled as to remove all
chance for waste and dishonesty; and finally, the cost of the work
itself--the total expense of the Relief Commission--was less than
one-half of one per cent. of the money expended.
Many of the Belgians were, of course, able to pay for their food. They
had property or securities on which money could be raised. The destitute
people were the peasants and wage-earners whose only dependence for
daily bread--their daily labor--had been taken from them by the war.
In the winter of 1917 Mr. Hoover came to America to tell about
conditions in Belgium and the work of the Relief Commission. Looking his
fellow-citizens quietly in the face he said: “America has received
virtually all the credit for the help given, and we do not deserve it.
Out of $250,000,000 that have been spent, only $9,000,000 have come from
the United States, the rich nation blest with peace--who owes, moreover,
much of her present prosperity to the misfortunes of the unhappy
Belgians, for the greater part of the money expended for relief supplies
has come to this country.”
There is not a child in Belgium who does not know how Mr. Brand
Whitlock, the American Ambassador, and other American “Great-hearts,”
have stood by them in their terrible need, just as they know that the
wonderful “Christmas Ship,” laden with gifts from children to children,
came from America. They have come to look on the Stars and Stripes as
the symbol of all that is good and kind. In his book, “War Bread,” Mr.
Edward E. Hunt, who was one of the members of the Relief Commission,
prints several letters from Belgian children. Here is one signed “Marie
Meersman.”
I have often heard a little girl friend of mine speak of an uncle
who sent her many things from America, and I was jealous. But now I
have more than one uncle, and they send me more than my friend’s
uncle did, for it is thanks to you, dear uncles, that I have a good
slice of bread every day.
All Americans who once realize that by far the greater part of the money
spent for Belgium has come from the nations on whom the burdens of war
are pressing most heavily must want America to do much more.
Do you know the story of the kind-hearted passer-by who was so moved by
the misfortune of a workman, hurt in an accident, that he exclaimed
aloud, in an agonized tone, “Poor fellow! Poor, poor fellow!” Another
bystander, however, reached in his pocket and drew out some money.
“Here,” he said, turning to the first speaker, “I am sorry five
dollars’ worth. How sorry are you?”
That is the question that Mr. Hoover has put to America: “What value do
you put on your thankfulness for peace and prosperity and your sympathy
for a suffering people less fortunate than yourselves?”
As we look at Mr. Hoover, however, we say, “In giving _him_ to the work,
America has at least given of her best.” And we like to think that he is
truly American because his interests and sympathies are as broad as
humanity, because all mankind is his business, because in deed and in
truth he is “a citizen of the world.”
THE END
Typographical errors corrected by the etext transcriber:
not against flesh and bood=> not against flesh and bood {pg viii}
the United States cruiser _Kearsage_=> the United States cruiser
_Kearsarge_ {pg 141}