Republican Herbert Hoover, who served as Secretary of Commerce from 1921 to 1928, succeeded Coolidge after winning the 1928 presidential election. As the third consecutive Republican president to take office, Hoover retained many of the previous administration's personnel, including Secretary of the Treasury Andrew Mellon Henry Stimson, the Governor-General of the Philippines and a former Secretary of War, became Hoover's Secretary of State. In late October 1929, the Stock Market Crash of 1929 occurred, and the worldwide economy began to spiral downward into the Great Depression. In the midst of a worldwide depression, Hoover and Secretary of State Henry Stimson became more closely involved in world affairs than Hoover's Republican predecessors had been. According to Leuchtenberg, Hoover was "the last American president to take office with no conspicuous need to pay attention to the rest of the world." But during Hoover's term, the world order established with the 1919 Treaty of Versailles began to crumble.