USA: Herbert Hoover and Hoover Peace Tower

Glenn Reinhart asks: What was Hoover like as a person to you?  What do you most remember about him in his personal style? 

RH: I have never known such an embittered individual, which is natural since he had gone from the acme of national popularity to the nadir of public contempt. This unfair condemnation, understandable during the Great Depression, hurt him deeply. His supporters tried hard to buck him up. Once, with Harold Fisher, I visited him in his office in the Hoover Tower, which in his honor I would like to see renamed the Hoover Peace Tower. Professor Fisher, the director of the Hoover Institute and a most likeable person who had worked with Hoover for years,  tried every means to break the ice, calling him chief in a respectful way.  Hoover just sat there glowering.  Our house is very close to the Hoover House, and we often saw him going for a walk  Our daughter, than a small child, imagined she as a dog and barked at him.  It was funny, but he was not amused. We also knew his son who lived in Palo Alto.  He was a charming person, and he invited us to tea.  We avoided the topic of the former President's state of mind. The basic problem is socio-economic. During the Depression people were looking for a scapegoat, and Hoover was the obvious one. Then there is something in the American system which unfortunately oils the wheel of political fortune, making the downs especially painful. Stanford owes an enormous debt to Herbert Hoover, and I want him to be remembered as the peace maker rather than the depression maker.
I answered Glenn Reinhart's inquiry about Herbert Hoover.  He comments: Many thanks for your reply.  I'm sorry he was so embittered, especially since he had such progressive vision and organizational talents, and did considerable service to humankind.  I give you support for your concern to rename Hoover Tower, if you can get anything else in the news about it, I have approximately 1000 Quakers mostly in the US, but around the world, on my email list, and they also forward to other Friends.  I don't generally make my own news, but send published stories.  I think the polarization of society and of the Society of Friends also is such that Democrats are upset with the Hoover Institute and Republicans/conservatives being on its board. Many Friends are uneducated about Hoover, and I'd be happy to have them educated correctly as time moves forward. Are you a Friend, yourself?

RH: I hope Glenn Reinhart will inform his Quaker friends about the proposal to rename the Hoover Tower. If we can build up enough support, we might overcome institutional inertia. The proposed new name would help salve partisan bitterness about the Hoover Institution.  Are there any Quakers among its members? Who are they?  Is so, they would be sympathetic to the renaming of the tower.  No, I am not a Quaker, and I believe that on some issues they are too idealistic.  However, I have a great respect for them, and I believe that. if the Founding Fathers had listened to them, the Civil War might  have been avoided.  For this same reason I wish the nation's capital had remained in Philadelphia.