But history’s most unfair treatment of Hoover is its inattention to his life before he was president. An engineer who parlayed his talents into immense wealth, Hoover was an organizational genius, which is why, after World War I, Hoover was tasked — actually, he volunteered — with caring for the millions of Europeans left homeless and starving in that war’s wake. Hoover’s Commission for Relief in Belgium, and his later American Relief Commission, helped ensure the recovery and reconstruction of war-ravaged nations across the European continent, earning Hoover the nickname “The Great Humanitarian.” It also earned him The New York Times’ designation as one of the “Ten Most Important Living Americans.”
