Putnam patriot., 1928-10-18
HOOVER
Leading Journal Describes Can
 didate as a National Asset
lsatnrdnv Evenlng Postl

Saturday Evening Post)
 Every reader who is fond of bio. grgphy. ard who has taken pains 10 analyze the lives of notable men, has been struck by the fact that SO many of them nave made their greatest achievements in fields remote from those in which they began life. Fur ther study usually reveals the fact that their development and their training for the great tasks thrust upon them in later life trace back tol a genius for finishing what they start. To such men circumstances offer s new and different job as soon as the current one has been completed. Fate always has a new and strange prob lem in store for them. Biography af- fords countless examples of men with inborn ability who built themselves up into greatness by doing the thing nearest at hand and doing it SO well that harder and less familiar tasks naturally gravitated to them. Such men apparently never know where work will lead them. No distant goal diverts their thoughts from the work in hand. They do not even surmise the great and particular achievement for which they are in training. They do not chart out their careers in ad- vance. but are swept on by the tide of life into the jobs that need them most.
 Conspieious Example
 Herbert Hoover is one conspicious example of such schooling. In his carly professional life as a mining engineer he was one of the great pio- neers of American business in foreign lands. He examined mineral proper i es and made recommendations Amer ican capitalists spent millions upon his sayso. American mining machinery trailed him round the globe. His work and that of men like him opened up the markets of the world to America iust as surely as the work of our early pioneers opened up this continent to the hordes of settlers who followed them.
 During these years when he was learning to know men and metal and how to get the best out of both, when he was acquiring the art of portion ing out responsibility, of creating or ganizations, and was forging him self into an executive of high order who can suppose he suspected that the clouds of the World War were thick ening and that he was molding him self into the sort of man who could al a moments notice jump into the job of sending across the Atlantic thous- ands of fellow countrymen stranded in belligerent countries, and do 1t as If he had never done anything else?
 Or who can believe that in early life he dreamed that his activities would SO school him that he could head the vast operations of the Ameri- can Relief Work with signal success, feed starving European nations, achieve by diplomacy what would not be wrought by force, and at length become a cabinet minister with ge- nius for furthering commerce and in dustry?
 Hard to Discern
 The main pattern of such mems lives is hard to discern; but after a time it becomes plain, as the present lights up the past and reveals the link age between training and perform ance. As time goes on, the stages or development which at first seemed mere matters Of chance take on an air of plausible sequence and at length seem logical or even inevitable. Mr. Hoover's experiences as a min. ing man were strange schooling for a future food administrator, but his work for starving Belgium brought him made-to-order equipment for h's achievement in directing Red Cross activities in behalf of the homeless flood sufferers of the Mississippi Bas- in.
 In view of the expansion of our for eign trade, our un-exampled loans Co other nations and our commercial in- vasion of lands across the sea, We need, ms we never needed before, high executives who know the markets and bourses and chaneelleries of the whole world, men who are so familiar with over-sea conditions that they can tosi- CT and protect sound American busi- ness. investment and development ir whatever part of the globe they may have gained foothold. We can al- most count on our thumbs the men who have these qualifications to the extent that Mir. Hoover possesses them. American business and indus try are rich in great administrators. but all too few are in the service of Government. and of these, how many have had intensive over-sea trainingy
 Circumstances have favored MT Hoover in that they have given him
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