Running for Food Dictator: Review

We are not treated to a review, for example, of how similar to Hoover's C.R.B. work were his operations both as an engineer and as a mining consultant, or how his turn-of-the-century relief work in China during the Boxer Rebellion and his efforts to promote the Panama-Pacific Exposition from 1912 to 1914 contributed to his ability to publicize and organize the first major relief effort of the 20th century. Most important, we are not told which of the leadership characteristics Hoover exhibited in insuring the pre-eminence of the C.R.B. (and himself) in wartime relief work would aid or impede him as Secretary of Commerce during the 1920's or as a beleaguered Depression President. Finally, Mr. [George H. Nash] does not summarize what lessons Hoover thought he had learned from his C.R.B. experience that made him an ''internationally acclaimed humanitarian'' who was responsible ''for saving more lives than any other person in history'' - namely, the ''9,000,000 helpless Belgian and French citizens trapped between a German army of occupation and a British naval blockade.'' ''It was,'' we are told enigmatically, ''to have a searing impact on his social philosophy and future career.'' In contrast, Hoover could not deal personally and directly with human suffering - preferring to filter it through a hierarchical scrim of philanthropy. This approach would prove insufficient during the Great Depression. His impersonal concern for the suffering of others, with the possible exception of children, is attributed vaguely to the ''loneliness of being an outsider'' as an orphan growing up in Iowa and Oregon. Mr. Nash also suggests that Hoover's inability to enjoy or be comfortable with the success and recognition he so ambitiously sought is due to ''a pattern of behavior common among orphans.'' Perhaps. But one suspects there is more to Hoover's personal inability to relate to the sufferings of others than this. After all, a quite different example was set by another prominent orphan - Eleanor Roosevelt.