The Indianapolis times. [volume] (Indianapolis [Ind.]) 1922-1965, 1928-11-07
BY ROBERT TALLEY

TXTASHINGTON, Nov. mo
w body back in the tiny hamlet
of West Branch, Ia, fifty years ago
ever dreamed that Bert Hoover, the
barefoot little orphan whose father
had been the village blacksmith,
would ever be President of the
United States.
And likewise nobody back in To-
peka, Kan, fifty years ago ever
dreamed that 18-year-old Charlie
Curtis, another orphan, who had a
good job as a hack driver and was
studying law in his spare time,
would ever be Vice-President of the
United States.
Yet, today these two orphans who
fought their way upward in the
world, stand elected to the highest
offices within the gift of the Amer
lean people.
Their goal was the same-but
their routes thereto were vastly diff
ferent.
The orphaned Hoover came up by
a route that brought him a college
education, worldwide reputation
as a mining engineer and wealth
almost beyond the dreams of ava
rice.
The orphaned Curtis struggled his
way from an Indian reservation
through career as a jockey, a hack
driver, a self-educated lawyer, a
county prosecutor, congressman
and a senator of slender means.
Curtis has spent almost a life
time in politics; the first and only
office that Hoover ever ran for was
that of President.
THE curtain rose on the life of
l. Herbert Clark Hoover in
clapboard cabin on a scrawny farm
in rural Iowa on Aug. 10, 1874.
His father-a powerful bear of a
man-was Jesse Hoover, a farmer,
who also ran blacksmith shop at
the village of West Branch. Both
OF his parents were deyout Quak-
ers, sober of mien and stern of
speech.
Before young Hoover was 10
years old both his father and his
mother had died. For a time he
lived with relatives on a nearby
farm and then, when he was 10, an
uncle took him to Oregon. There,
young Hoover worked in his uncle's
real estate office, for the Oregon
land boom was on.
Lured by the tales Of a rowing
mining prospector, Hoover decided
to become a mining engineer.
Leland Sanford university was
just opening in California so he
went there and worked his way
through. He waited on tables, col
lected laundry for fellow students,
managed college lyceum bureau
and did almost anything else that
would turn an honest penny.
After graduation Hoover worked
as day laborer in California mines
to gain experience and then went to
work in the office of Louis Janin,
famous mining engineer. Janin
recommended him to London firm
of mining engineers and, in 1897,
the latter sent him to Australia to
take charge of its gold mines there.
n
A COUPLE of year later, on one
IA of his brief trips to the United
States, he married Miss Lou Henry,
who had been a clasSmate at Leland
Stanford.
They were the first and only
sweetheartS each ever had.
Entering business for himself,
Hoover began developing mining
properties in China, India, Burma
and other far-away lands.
Fortune smiled on his enterprises
and he became a man of tremend-
Gus wealth.
The outbreak of the World war
found Hoover at his office in Lon
con.
The story of his career from that
day is too well known to need repe-
tition.
Briefly, it is the story of a genius
who organized the Belgian Relief
commission that fed eight million
homeless souls through weary years
of war, that spent $170OO,OOO a
month, employed $4,000 workers, OPP
Grated its own ships, flew its own
flag and issued it's own passports.
Briefly, it is the story of the man
whom President Wilson called home
In 1917 to become food administra-
tor of the United States-who i'm
posed "Meatless Tuesday" Wheat
less Wednesdays" on a free people
and, what is more, made them
like it.
1t is the story of a man who, in