Herbert Hoover: On Woodrow Wilson's Concept of Liberalism

"My association with him was such that I formed convictions as to his philosophy of life, his character and his abilities which have deepened during these four decades. My approval of him is based solely on my own experiences with him and my knowledge of the forces with which he had to deal. ...

"He possessed great clarity of thought, with a quick ability to reduce problems to their bare bones. ... ​His public addresses were often clothed with great eloquence.

​"As a Jeffersonian Democrat, he was a "liberal" of the nineteenth-century cast. His training in history and economics rejected every scintilla of socialism, which today connotes a liberal.

"His philosophy of American living was based upon free enterprise, both in social and in economic systems. He held that economic system must be regulated to prevent monopoly and unfair practices. He believed that federal intervention in the economic or social life of our people was justified only when the task was greater than the states or individual could perform for themselves. ...
​
"Coming from an academic ivory tower with only a brief political career, he at times stumbled badly in the thicket of politics, ... but ... ​with his courage and eloquence, he carried a message of hope for the independence of nations, the freedom of men and lasting peace. Never since his time has any man risen to the political and spiritual heights that came to him. His proclaimed principles of self-government and independence aided the spread of freedom to twenty-two races at the time of the Armistice."

Herbert Hoover, The Ordeal of Woodrow Wilson, 1958

---

Sometimes we forget that terms - such as liberal that we cast about flippantly today - carried a different meaning to those who used the words just a half century ago. I believe from all I have read, including Woodrow Wilson's The New Freedom [link to review], I would have enjoyed knowing this man.

Peter E. Greulich

Select this button or the image to read A review of Hoover's "The Ordeal of Wilson"