What a World This Would Be

While today’s frightening explosion at Hoover Dam appears to be under control, the incident brought to mind a petty but recognizable tale from American history and politics, something I learned this summer while spending time at the home, the library, and the grave of one Herbert Hoover, the former president whose name adorns this massive feat of engineering. It’s the story of one administration trying to stamp out the legacy of its predecessor. Probably sounds familiar.

Before the Great Depression and well before he had even the slightest ambition for the White House, “Bert” Hoover was a Stanford-trained engineer who built and managed mines from the Midwestern Ozarks to the Chinese caves and tunnels under threat from the infamous Boxer Rebellion. Before he turned 30, Hoover had become one of the smartest, richest, and most famous Americans in the world. But for a man with Quaker roots, he had never sought great wealth and chose, instead, to invest some of his own money and a great deal of his own time into a food shortage in Belgium at the start of World War I, since Belgians were either trapped or getting trampled between France and Germany. Hoover did the same for the Russian and European people near the end of World War I as well, sometimes having to convince Americans back home that while he might disagree with a few thousand political leaders, the other few million citizens didn’t deserve to be punished by starvation. That earned him a pretty big legacy as a kind and global humanitarian that still survives in Europe today.

During the Roaring Twenties, Hoover served two presidents, Harding and Coolidge, as Commerce Secretary, a position that mostly still abides by the same principles, “to drive U.S. economic competitiveness, strengthen domestic industry, and spur the growth of quality jobs in all communities across the country.” And among the first things that Hoover did in 1922 was to coordinate an agreement between multiple states over damming the Colorado River. At issue was a population explosion in the west, the need to control and supply available water, and a major problem with flooding in the Midwest. All parties had to agree on the project and Hoover was key to ensuring that project got off the ground, which it did, finally, just after he was elected in 1928. Socially, it was referred to as the Boulder Dam Project, but more officially referred to, because he had coordinated it, as the Hoover Dam Project.

But alas, then came the Great Depression in 1929, the souring of the nation on a president who had once played a significant role in making those twenties roar, and the subsequent election of Franklin Roosevelt in 1932, whose replacement at Commerce and the Interior wanted nothing to do with anything that bore Hoover’s name. In fact, come election time, even when Hoover wasn’t running, all Democrats had to do to keep winning their campaign was to run against the guy who presided over the first three years of the Great Depression and thus tarnish the Hoover name in perpetuity, over and over and over. And that included removing Hoover from any connection to what the nation would begin to call Boulder Dam.

Not until Hoover began helping President Truman with overseas relief to the Europeans after World War II–a final return of the once great humanitarian–that Truman himself stepped in to ensure the Congress give Hoover his due, a signature on April 30, 1947 that renamed Boulder Dam to Hoover Dam. Truman had no axe to grind with the former president and they even came to appreciate each other over drinks and dinner, even in partisan opposition, an ideal we’ve all witnessed in our lifetimes (Bush Sr. and Clinton; Bush Jr. and Obama). But we’ve also seen the former as well, with administrations that seek to undo the positive work of their predecessors, which is exhausting and vindictive.

If history is supposed to teach us anything, it’s that we often get it wrong. And when we get it right, we often get it right at the expense of someone else. But what a world this would be if we found out that the last four presidents all sat down for a meal, shared a laugh, and talked about ways to make the world better, together, in the aftermath of multiple disasters.

Gosh. A teacher can dream, right?