Bertie is a historical figure who is often overlooked or discounted as a failure, but was he? Bertie was born in Iowa in 1874. His father, Jesse, owned a farm implement store. His mother’s name was Hulda. He had an older brother and eventually, a younger sister. In 1880, Bertie’s father died from a sudden heart attack at the young age of 34. Four years later, his mother died from Typhoid fever. Ten-year-old Bertie and his two siblings were orphans. In 1885, Bertie and his siblings went to Newberg, Oregon, to live with their uncle, a businessman named John Minthorn. Uncle John managed a real estate office called the Oregon Land Company. Bertie dropped out of school at the age of 13 to work in Uncle John’s land company.
In 1891, Bertie enrolled in the first class of the brand new Stanford University. He initially studied mechanical engineering but changed his major to geology after working with Dr. John Casper Branner, the chairman of Stanford’s geology department. In 1894, a strong-minded 20-year-old woman named Lou Henry attended a geology lecture by Dr. Branner and was hooked. Shortly thereafter, she enrolled at Stanford. There, she met Bertie and the two became inseparable. A year after her graduation, Bertie and Lou married. Soon thereafter, Bertie accepted a position as leading engineer in a private Chinese engineering and mining company. The newlyweds packed their meager belongings and moved to Tientsin, China.
At the time, tensions were rising in China. In June 1900, the Boxer Rebellion erupted in Tientsin. The Boxer Rebellion was an anti-foreign, anti-imperialist, and anti-Christian uprising in North China between 1899 and 1901 by the Society of Righteous and Harmonious Fists, known as the “Boxers” in English due to many of its members having practiced Chinese martial arts, which at the time were referred to as “Chinese boxing.” For almost a month, Tientsin was under heavy fire. While Lou worked in the hospitals, Bertie directed the building of barricades. On July 14, 1901, a multi-national military force defeated the “boxers” in the Battle of Tientsin.
After the rebellion, Bertie and Lou moved to London where Bertie specialized in fixing failing mining companies. Rather than being paid a salary, Bertie took a percentage of the profits if he was able to rejuvenate the companies. Within a short time, Bertie had investments in mines on every continent and had offices in several countries. His talents as a geologist quickly made him wealthy. By 1914, Bertie’s wealth reached approximately $4 million. That would be over $125 million in today’s money.
Bertie wrote the book on mining. Seriously. In 1909, he published a book called “Principles of Mining” which became a standard textbook for geologists. Bertie and Lou were huge fans of Georgius Agricola’s 16th century work on mining and metallurgy called “De re Metallica.” In 1912, they published the first English translation of “De re Metallica.” At about the same time, Bertie joined the board of trustees at his alma mater, Stanford. Bertie was happy with the trajectory of his life. He had a loving wife and two wonderful children. Then something happened which forever changed his life’s trajectory.
In 1914, Germany declared war on France. The American Consul General asked for Bertie’s help in getting stranded American tourists back home. With the backing of Congress and President Woodrow Wilson, Bertie was selected as the committee’s chairman. He acted immediately. Within two weeks, his committee helped more 100,000 Americans return to the United States. Bertie said later, “I did not realize it at the moment, but on August 3, 1914, my career was over forever. I was on the slippery road of public life.”
In August 1914, Germany invaded Belgium, which created a food crisis. Germany refused to take responsibility to feed citizens in captured territory. At this point, the United States declared neutrality in what was the early part of World War I. Something had to be done. With the cooperation of President Wilson’s administration, Bertie led a Belgian relief organization called the Commission for Relief in Belgium. Bertie made 40 trips to meet with German authorities in the North Sea and persuaded them to allow food shipments. Under Bertie’s leadership, the commission delivered millions of tons of foodstuffs to Belgium. In 1915, the commission expanded and delivered supplies to people in the German-occupied Northern France. American diplomat Walter Page said Bertie was “probably the only man living who has privately negotiated understandings with the British, French, German, Dutch, and Belgian governments.” Remember, Bertie held no political office.
When the United States entered World War I, President Wilson remembered how well Bertie had handled the Commission for Relief in Belgium and France and appointed him to head the U.S. Food Administration. Bertie’s herculean task was to manage the country’s food supplies during the war. To avoid rationing, which other wartime countries were forced to undertake, Bertie established set days for people to avoid eating certain foods including the cleverly named meatless Mondays and wheatless Wednesdays. The plan worked and allowed the Food Administration to send foodstuffs to allies of the United States. Bertie was referred to as an expert administrator for his work.
After the war, Europe still faced food shortages. The Food Administration, whose name changed to the American Relief Administration, provided food to central and eastern Europe. Bertie also founded the European Children’s Fund to provide food and aid to some fifteen million children from 14 countries. Despite his request that he not be named in publicity for the food program, Bertie’s selfless work during the war made him a public hero. His abilities were also praised when he worked as Secretary of Commerce under presidents Warren G. Harding and Calvin “Silent Cal” Coolidge. Despite going from being an orphan to a multimillionaire, personally negotiating with leaders of warring nations to provide aid which potentially saved the lives of millions of people in multiple countries, Bertie is often considered a failure. How is this possible? When the stock market crashed in the fall of 1929 followed shortly thereafter by the Great Depression, Bertie was the president of the United States. Bertie was the family nickname for Herbert Hoover.
Sources:
1. “Herbert Hoover,” The White House, https://www.whitehouse.gov/
2. The Herbert Hoover Presidential Library and Museum, https://hoover.archives.gov/.
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