The most tragic president in history

Editor's note: This is the 31st entry in the writer's project to read one book about each of the U.S. Presidents in the year prior to Election Day 2016. Follow Marcus' progress at the @44in52 Twitter account and the 44 in 52 Spreadsheet.

It has taken me nearly six weeks to write about Charles Rappleye's Herbert Hoover in the White House. This isn't the fault of the book, which does a fairly good job of walking the reader through Hoover's years in the presidency, and how his mistakes as president helped worsen the onset of the Great Depression.

Given the myriad causes and effects of the Depression, how could I encapsulate a book about a president who was defined by it? I've continued reading, plowing my way through his successors, but got to hung up on the big picture of Hoover's presidency.

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I kept thinking about how Hoover failed, despite appearing to be the perfect leader for a Depression-era United States, and how that failure was used against him in the 1932 presidential election. It's this tragic irony of Hoover as a person that stuck with me the most, even softening my original views on him.

Hoover rose to fame based on his work organizing food relief for the victims of World War I. As Germany invaded Belgium, Hoover found a way to get food to thousands in need in the country. That relief work extended to Germany after the war, and Russia, where famine killed millions in 1921 and 1922.

Americans saw this work first-hand when Hoover took part in the relief effort after the Great Mississippi Flood of 1927 (though that work has its own sordid, dark chapter in its treatment of African-Americans).

He campaigned in 1928 on the slogan "a chicken every pot and a car in every garage," promising America further prosperity as it came out of the Roaring Twenties.

And, yet, Hoover's relief management couldn't translate to the fiscal issues facing the country.

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One of Hoover's biggest faults was, according to Rappleye, his "shy" and "reticent" nature which often led to bungled public statements and the perception of decision paralysis.

He couldn't get out of his own way. The man who had been so successful in managing crises fumbled his way to failure when his country needed him most.

Hoover's inability to calm the nation's partly came from his cranky, loner nature. But it also came from his own experience: a product of abject poverty, this sort of crisis didn't instill in him the same fear that many in the nation faced. He felt he'd been through worse.

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Hoover's poor handling of such public relations stands in contrast to the way many of his predecessors (particularly Lincoln and Teddy Roosevelt) had communicated. And this failure is cast in even sharper relief once FDR took office and began his famed fireside chats.

Rappleye's books shows how Hoover's actions (and occasional inaction) aided the downward spiral into the depression -- but it also says he didn't deserve all the blame. Still, it was a stain he'd never be able to wash off.

What I took away from it all was how human Hoover was. That he seemed to be deserted by his own skills and talents, just when he needed them most, is one of American history's greatest tragedies.

Days to read Washington: 16 Days to read Adams: 11 Days to read Jefferson: 10 Days to read Madison: 13 Days to read Monroe: 6 Days to read J. Q. Adams: 10 Days to read Jackson: 11 Days to read Van Buren: 9 Days to read Harrison: 6 Days to read Tyler: 3 Days to read Polk: 8 Days to read Taylor: 8 Days to read Fillmore: 14 Days to read Pierce: 1 Days to read Buchanan: 1 Days to read Lincoln: 12 Days to read Johnson: 8 Days to read Grant: 27 Days to read Hayes: 1 Days to read Garfield: 3 Days to read Arthur: 17 Days to hear Cleveland: 3 Days to read Harrison: 4 Days to read McKinley: 5 Days to read T. Roosevelt: 15 Days to read Taft: 13    Days to read Wilson: 10   Days to read Harding: 3 Days to read Coolidge: 7 Days to read Hoover: 9

Days behind schedule: 9