The silver state. [volume] (Winnemucca, Nev.) 1909-1925, 1917-08-21
THE MAN OF THE HOUR
HOOVRRl

Strange TO say. Herbert Clark
Hoover is little known. That is, while
the whole world has heard Of aim
and while a very large part Of the
world admires. respects and honcrs
him because Of his mastery admin
~istration of Belgian relief. compare
lively few know anything Of the past
of the man, or of his struggles and
successes in private life.
He is a native of West Branch, Iowa,
in which place his boyhood was spent.
He had none Of the advantages which
the sons of people in easy circum-
stances may enjoy. His parents were
poor Quakers, and the first great fact
to present itself to the consciousness
Of Herbert Hoover was that he must
get out and make his own way"
But he had one possession of which
he could not be deprived by poverty
or by any other circumstance within
the domain of his " effort and con
troll. This was an aspiration to sue
toward engineering. an inclination
developed by reading of the achieve
ments of John Hays Hammond and
others who had won eminence and
position in the field of mining engi-
neering. He longed, like these, to do
big things in many lands. and he
realized that the first thing he must
do was to get an education, at any
cost of personal exertion and indi-
vidual sacrifice.
To get an education involved get
ting money, and the getting of money
involved earning it in any honorable
way that might present itself. 1t is
related to his credit that, while study
ing engineering in Leland Stanford
Junior University, he worked as a
laundry agent and took on other jobs
equally mental. All this, however, he
had fully discounted. 1t mattered
nothing to him where he worked, or
what he had to do, so long as it was
toward the attainment OF his legiti-
mate principal object. AS usual in
such cases, he made his way through
college creditably. and from this point
onward his progress was not only
remarkable. but exceptional.
The sketch of his career which is
oftenest consulted is necessarily 50
compressed and condensed as to be
little more than the recital of a string
of bone-dry facts punctuated with
dates. He is appointed to geological
surveys in Arkansas. and in the Sierra
Nevadas; he is made assistant man
ager of the Carlisle mines Of New
Mexico; he becomes engineer of the
Morning Star mine in California; he
goes on. holding higher and higher
positions, gaining steadily in reputa-
ton, until we find him filing the
post of engineer of the Imperial Blu
reau of Mines in China. Then the
details merge almost into the roman
tic, for the little barefoot Iowa boy
becomes in succession the trusted
consulting engineer of mining corpo-
rations in different parts of the world
the authorized representative of a
hundred millions OF capital. director
of properties almost beyond price, and
the employer of $4,000 men. He is
brought to London for consultation by
the heads OF international enterprises.
He Is recognized, in reality, as a sec
and John Hays Hammond. He IS
looked up to as a potential Cecil
Rhodes. He is accorded distinction as
n of the big men of the world. He
Is consulted by cabinets. He is put
at the head of the greatest philan-
thropic undertaking of modern times,
If not of all times.
One of the circumstances that have
escaped the scrutiny of his biogra-
piers or that have been ignored by
them as u%nessential or uninteresting,
is the fact that, while engaged in
analyzing, ~assaying and estimating
mineral deposits of priceless value.
while negotiating with world capital
lists. while managing huge properties,
while submerged. as it were, in the
material and the practical, in the
technical and the scientific, this big.
brawny. bustling business man, clos
eted with his wife, Lou Henry Hoover,