Master of famine relief and the 31st president, broken by the Great Depression
'Twenty million people are starving. Whatever their politics, they shall be fed!', Hoover's reply when asked whether feeding Russia would not help Bolshevism.
A mining engineer who made a vast fortune, Hoover built his public fame on famine relief across two world wars before becoming the 31st president of the United States in 1929. During the First World War he headed the Commission for Relief in Belgium and the U.S. Food Administration ('food czar') in feeding millions, and after the war he refashioned the American Relief Administration (ARA) into a private body directing relief across Eastern Europe and Russia. When famine struck the Volga in 1921 he answered Gorky's appeal at once and personally drove the Riga agreement, securing the ARA's autonomy in distribution and Soviet gold payments and feeding more than ten million people a day at the operation's peak. He struggled as president amid the Great Depression but remained active in retirement, chairing reform commissions for the Truman and Eisenhower administrations.
Activities and affiliations
Career Timeline
- 1874Born into a Quaker family in West Branch, Iowa
- 1895Graduated from Stanford; made a fortune as a mining engineer in China, Australia and beyond
- 1914–1919Chairman of the Commission for Relief in Belgium, feeding occupied Belgium
- 1917–1919Director of the U.S. Food Administration, celebrated as the 'food czar'
- 1919–1923Director of the American Relief Administration, leading relief in Eastern Europe and Russia
- 1921.08.20Conclusion of the Riga agreement, setting the terms of Volga famine relief
- 1921–1928Secretary of Commerce
- 1929–193331st president; lost reelection amid the Great Depression
Related historical events
- 1914–1918First World WarHead of wartime relief and food agenciesDuring the First World War, he led the Commission for Relief in Belgium and the U.S. Food Administration in feeding millions.
- 1921–1922The Russian Famine of 1921–1922Chairman, American Relief AdministrationThough an avowed anti-Bolshevik, he secured the $20 million congressional appropriation and expanded the mission to adult feeding, framing American aid as a demonstration against the spread of communism.
The Riga Agreement and the terms of relief in Soviet Russia, 1921–1923
The Riga agreement defined relief as a humanitarian undertaking while writing its political conditions into the text. The preamble stated that Hoover and the American people wished to assist Russia solely for humanitarian reasons, and defined the ARA as an unofficial volunteer American charitable organization under Hoover's chairmanship. The Soviet authorities undertook to admit whatever personnel the ARA judged necessary and to guarantee them full liberty and protection inside Russia; distribution was placed under personnel designated by the ARA, with the central and local Soviet authorities retaining only a right of representation. These were terms accepted by Soviet negotiators who were wary of a large foreign presence but found outside assistance unavoidable given the scale of the hunger.
Control of distribution was the core issue. Relief supplies were intended only for children and the sick designated by the ARA, remained ARA property until actually consumed by them, and were to be distributed in the ARA's name. The Soviet authorities undertook to ensure that supplies did not reach the general adult population, the army or navy, or government employees, and to reimburse the ARA in dollars at CIF cost or replace in kind any misused supplies. Conversely, no one receiving an ARA ration was to be deprived of the local supplies given to the rest of the population. Costs were also divided: after delivery at Petrograd, Murmansk, Archangel, Novorossiisk or other agreed ports, the Soviet side bore discharge, handling, and transport to interior base points, and supplied storage, fuel, offices, housing, communications, medical personnel, and railway carriages, giving ARA supplies the same priority as its own relief traffic. Hoover's initial offer had been supplementary relief for up to a million children; the operation that followed went far beyond that scope.
As a document, the agreement sought to keep relief insulated from Soviet institutions and free of political interference while stipulating the scale of Soviet material support, and it became a model for later agreements with other relief groups.