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As I've said before about Hayes, Taft, Coolidge, Bush, Ford (who barely qualifies), et al, my second favorite variety of President is the one-term Republican defeated for re-election. My favorite configuration is, of course, the two-term Democrat. I am sad to report that in my now lengthy lifetime, I've seen--and voted for--only one: POTUS 42 William Jefferson Clinton.
Run from office on a rail in 1932 by the FDR juggernaut, President Hoover's star has risen over the years.
In the book, The Herbert Hoover Story, Eugene Lyons writes: "A Fantastic Hoover Myth. . .It presents our thirty-first President as a heartless ogre, inept and callous and reactionary, who 'caused' a depression, then 'did nothing' to mitigate its horrors."
President Hoover is no longer blamed for causing the Depression. However, he was trounced by FDR and the nation then began the excruciatingly slow march toward recovery, and, a decade later, war with the Axis.
Years later, in 1947, President Truman enlisted Hoover to help with various issues, including flying to Europe to fix the food production pipeline in defeated and occupied post-Hitler Germany.
Flags in the classrooms at Kent Elementary were draped with black bunting for a month when Hoover died in the fall of 1964. It was a relief I think, going back to a time when Presidents died in bed, of old age.
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