Happy Birthday, Herbert Hoover: The Lost Legacy of a Hated President

Today marks the anniversary of the birth of Herbert Hoover, our nation's 31st president. Where other presidential birthdays are cause for public holidays (see: Washington, Lincoln) or public reflection (see: Reagan's centennial), this one is likely to pass without notice. That's not entirely surprising: Hoover is the president America loves to hate. His name is a staple on the regular lists of "history's worst presidents." And there's little wonder why: The Great Depression that reduced the country to rubble is laid, fairly or not, at Hoover's feet.

These days, because of America's brush with a second such Depression, Hoover has enjoyed something of a revival, if only as a cautionary tale, the epitome of what not to do in an economic crisis. Liberals delight in using Hoover to demonstrate what happens when government does too little during tough times; for them, Hoover was the American Nero, playing the fiddle and refusing to dispense relief as more and more penniless Americans crowded into makeshift "Hoovervilles." Conservatives, for their part, can use Hoover to argue the opposite: Because Hoover insisted on signing Smoot-Hawley, the tariff act that pushed an already ailing economy over the brink, he is the finest example of what happens when government falsely believes it knows best.