>> each week, american history tv's "reel america" brings you archival films that help tell the story of the 20th century. republican herbert hoover served as president from 1929 to 1933. remembered most for his time in the oval office at the start of the great depression, hoover also served as the secretary of commerce under presidents harding and coolidge. in this hour-long 1960 nbc interview, hoover discusses his life beyond the presidency. speaking with reporter ray henle, he delves into topics including his childhood, his time in china during the boxer rebellion and involvement in supplying food to civilians in german occupied belgium during world war i. this is part of the stanford library's department of collections and university archives.

♪ ♪ >> this is the campus of stanford university, one of america's great schools. this is the memorial church. this is memorial theater. and this is the library on war, revolution and peace. i am meeting a great american and an old friend. i am here to have a talk with the 31st president of the united states, mr. herbert hoover. ♪ ♪

♪ >> sit down, ray. >> thank you, sir. can you tell us what it means? >> well, it is the library on war, revolution and peace. the purpose of it is to present the complete history of this world since the beginning of first world war i. it has many objectives.

one of them is to aid in development of measures of peace. it covers economic, military, other questions. it is now the haven of historians from all over the world. because the german war library was destroyed in the last war, the french war library was destroyed and the british war library was greatly damaged, this is practically the only complete story of what has happened in the last 50 years. >> how do the idea of the library start? >> i was crossing the north sea on a usual journey to belgium in connection with relief and i had a book written by andrew d. white.

he was the great historian of the french revolution, and he complained in that book that he had not been able to present the life of the people in general of france because of the disappearance of literature, newspapers, bulletins, a thousand things that displayed the life of a people. i concluded that i was in a unique position to collect that material, so i established collection agencies in all of the countries at war in europe. i was going behind the lines once a month on a circuit in connection with my particular job so we started a collection of that type of literature and we moved into more important

documentation. >> the library must contain a huge number of documents. >> it contains, probably, 100 million documents. -- 20 million documents. many of them are the originals which from the time points in world history. the most pathetic of them, i think i would show you, and that is this. when the russians invaded poland, they took about 250 polish military prisoners. they sent them into work camps all over siberia. the later on, when the germans attacked the russians, the russians, anxious to increase their military strength, asked

the poles to reassemble those armies out of those work camps. they were able to find about 60,000 poles still alive out of the 250,000 that were originally sent. but every one of these poles coming out of a work camp had to get a permit, which was constituted as sort of a railway ticket to the headquarters where he was recruited. the poles were a small minority in each camp and they were later to learn from each depositions who else was there and how many and the tickets showed the location, so that one was able to reproduce the whole slave system at that particular period. and at that time, there were obviously about 14 million people in slave camps. we have here a map showing the location of these slave labor

camps made up from the 40,000 documents which we have in the library. you'll see those marked "t." you see. we have also the first issue of the communist newspaper, and this issue announces the victory of the communist revolution. we have a secret file of this newspaper and the other great communist newspaper right down till today, with the exception of three months, and that three-month gap was due to an over-energetic postmaster general who considered this was

subversive literature and he stopped it coming to us. so that we had to do something about that. >> did you take measures there to relax the situation? >> i certainly relaxed the postmaster general. but i don't think we've ever been able to recover the lost numbers. and here is a document that has been of profound interest to me. this is the intimate diary of the prime minister of japan at the time we went to war. he made an enormous effort, strenuous effort, to effect the peace of the united states and prevent the war and the pathos of this document is a warrant for its retention, of a man who made a real struggle to prevent

world war ii. >> excuse me, did you have something else there, mr. hoover? >> i have also some parts of the diary of one of the wickedest man that ever lived and he records his various wickednesses private and public in this diary. goebbels. apparently he never expected for us to have it. >> mr. hoover, there must have been mighty interested stories connected with the collection of these documents? >> a multitude of dramatic incidents. i recollect that after the communist revolution in hungary, at which time arose a man named bila as the dictator.

one of our energetic collectors went around to the headquarters and found there was nobody there, so he proceeded to load the whole files of that outpost of communism into a truck and they finally wound up here in the library. another case was the one where i made a request of president hebert, the first president of germany, the german republic. >> after the first world war. >> after the first world war -- for documentation that would be apropos to this effort and hebert gave me the complete minutes of the german war council presided over by the emperor, sitting once a week or oftener during the entire first

world war with all of the documentation attached to those minutes. that is the only set in the world. and finally, at the request of a german ambassador, i agreed that we would keep it in the vault for a number of years. it's not yet open to the public. >> why is the library located here at the leland stanford university, mr. hoover? >> mr. henle, i graduated from this university. and after that, mrs. hoover had a house on the campus here while i journeyed all over the earth. i was also a trustee of the university and very naturally i was interested in building up the institution.

yo >> i know you were born in wt branch, iowa, and people generally know that after your mother and father died, an uncle asked you to share his home in oregon. could you tell us how it happened then that you got down here and attended leland stanford university? >> this uncle of mine was a country doctor with all of the fine attributes of country doctors of the united states. i lived with him and his family, parts of it, for a matter of about seven years. and during that time, i got a job at an office boy. and on one occasion, a gentleman having some business with the firm came in and while he waited he talked with the office boy, and he was inquiring what i wanted to do, so forth. and he said, well, you ought to take up engineering. and he was himself an engineer.

so we discussed it and he rather inspired my mind. and soon i noticed that stanford university had announced the institution would be opened that autumn and the tuition would be free. that more or less fit my necessity. they announced they would hold entrance examinations in portland, oregon. i went to the appointed place. i took the examinations as well as i could, never having been to high school, but having attended a night school where i had picked up some latin and some mathematics. i passed the mathematics examinations with such distinction that the professor conducting the examinations sparked a good deal of interest in me.

inquired about my family background. he, himself, was a quaker. he was a great professor of mathematics and the president of swarthmore college for about a year. he said to come down to the university and planned a tour. and he thought i could get in and he said he would be glad to help me work my way through the university. >> i see. the so really, you have two cases where older men showed a keen interest in a young man trying to get along. >> oh, i have a number of unforgettable obligations to men who took an interest in a youngster. they do it yet all over the united states. there were two or many more to follow. >> of course, that was the beginning, then, of your engineering career, was it not, mr. hoover?

>> i presume you don't call yourself an engineer until you get somewhere out of college, but that was where i began, at stanford university. >> could you tell me, mr. hoover, after you got your diploma, then, at leland stanford, what was your first job? >> i had work during the summer vacations during my entire time at stanford on the united states geological survey. i earned most of the money that i needed. and after having finished that season, not having a job, that's after i graduated, i went into the mines at grass valley in california, being familiar with those mines from previous work i had done for the geological survey. i saw the job and i thought my diploma might be of importance and i might even get on the staff of some mine.

but that diploma didn't seem to impress anybody. and finally i got to a position where i took a job in the mine as a common miner and it was not a bad experience. >> i understand you to say, sir, that you took a job as a common miner? >> yeah, sure. >> what kind of mine was this in, sir? >> it was a gold mine. i didn't even have the distinction of being a miner. i was -- started by loading trucks. a miner is a fellow who ran a drill, and i rose to that position some two or three months later. >> how many hours did you work? >> the regulation hours at that time was 10 hours a day and six days a week. >> do you remember your wages? >> $2 a day. i think i got $2.25 after i was promoted to run the drill. >> well, sir, then on your very first job, you learned how to

work with your hands, didn't you? >> that wasn't quite the whole story. i worked with my hands when i was a boy, and what i really learned at that time was the agony of walking and going from mine to mine looking for a job. >> i take it, then, that during that period, you were able to lay aside a little money for future activities. >> well, i certainly laid enough money to get down to san francisco and look for a better job. >> mr. hoover, then, how did you happen to get into professional engineering after those underground mining days? >> i developed a great friend of dr. brauner here at stanford. he was one of those men who always boosted youngsters along. he introduced me to the leading engineer in san francisco, mr. lewis janon.

he made a temporary apartment. he had an application for an engineer to go to australia and there i went on my first $10,000 job. >> then subsequently to that, your work took you to countries all over the world, didn't it, mr. hoover? >> yes, as a partner in an international engineering firm, we managed mines in china and india and burma and australia and russia. i didn't know where all, including the united states and canada, so that during the first seven years of this century, i went around the world seven times with my entire family. >> it must have been good to get home after one of those long trip in those days. >> always a thrill to come back to america. this is the place where freedom really lived.

>> did you not practice engineering in russia during the czar's days? >> yes, sir. we had very large operations which we managed in russia. one of them was at a place where we had over 100,000 men and a very successful operation. the main interest in it was that it was a complicated chemical and metallurgical operation. subsequently, the bolsheviks, when they seized it, weren't able to manipulate it because they had locked up all the brains in the staff and expelled all of our american staff so it shut down and it was closed, i think, for 15 years or more, and all those people put out of a job. >> i see. during your experience in russia, how did you get along with the russian people? >> we got along extremely well

because at that time the government was anxious to see the development of the natural resources of the country and we were the first americans to come in. we had no political implications. british and french and all the other nationalities carried with them certain political possibility so the russians welcomed the americans. we had no trouble getting on with the people because that type of an operation, we tried to get the best intelligence. we paid wages far higher than the common wage of the country. we never had a strike or a labor difficulty. >> mr. hoover, did you ever hear from any of those russian workers afterward? >> some years after that, i undertook a relief of communist russia on behalf of the american people, and i picked some of our staff who spoke russian, american staff, and sent them back in connection with relief.

they went to look around. there they were met by a deputation that came to them with a petition saying, will you not get mr. hoover and his men to come back? life was so much better. >> do you have any souvenirs of those days, mr. hoover? >> yes, mr. henle, i have what i think is an interesting souvenir. come along. ray, this was presented to me by the workmen in the kishtim mines in russia. it's a typical russian piece. it has one curious quality, aside from its artistic merit which is really very good, and that is the curious plaque which resembles bronze. it comes from the most pure iron

in the world in order to make it. no american iron smelted would touch more than .1%. but nevertheless, they built quite an artistic industry on the basis of that curious iron and the artistic quality of the russian workman. >> what is that over there? >> those are ancient chinese porcelains. >> shall we go over and take a look at them? >> ray, this is a very unusual display of the ancient chinese porcelain art in form and in had arrangement. they are the very height of chinese concepts in artistic arrangement and in workmanship.

we thought it would be appropriate that this set should be placed in the memorial room to mrs. hoover downstairs, and that has been done. she, of course, collected these items. she collected porcelains for over 40 years. well, let's go and sit down. >> you were many times in china, then, weren't you, mr. hoover? >> yes, i went to china originally as a part of the engineering firm i've mentioned to you, as the chief engineer to the then department of mines. it had been created by a reformed government. that job came to an end by the boxer uprising, which threw the government out. and mrs. hoover and i had to

spend a month under artillery and rifle fire in the town of tinsin until the american marines came in and rescued us. >> outside of your experience in the boxer rebellion, mr. hoover, how were your relations generally with the chinese? >> oh, the chinese are a very friendly people. i traveled over a great part of china during the two years prior to that and had nothing but courtesies from everybody. i, of course, was supposed to have an official position and had certain protections in the shape of a company of cavalry, usually. there's nothing to comment on it in particular. they're infinitely friendly people. they have a sense of humor. they're highly individualistic. and of course poverty is the main aspect of china except in a

narrow circle. >> now that the communists are in power, what do you think will happen to the chinese people? >> when the armies drove chaing kai-shek out of the mainland, the first thing he did was to take away the arms of the population. the consequence is that regime is fixed until such a time until such a time as the failure of its methods, failure of productivity, should cause the regime itself to change. and no doubt they will have fights amongst the chinese leaders. they've already shown that and often enough revolutions of that kind in history are blown up by fights among the leaders, and

there are some of those fights going on now. >> the russians, of course, will have influence on the chinese. the do you think that the russian attitude on easing world tension may have some effect on the chinese red? >> well, i think they may have to restrain them if they want to get their own objectives. we may be witnessing a phenomena as well to that which we saw at the time that stalin came into power. he wanted time to build up his industry and his armies, and he was in the most peaceful thing there was running around the earth at that time. he joined the league of nations, he signed the pact. he made the peace treaties with some 30 of his neighbors. nothing could have been more promising for lasting peace. in 1939, he violated every one of those agreements.

so that one can wonder that perhaps this new regime, wanting time to consolidate, being troubled by a failure in agriculture under hunger among their people, would like to have an interval of peace. i have no confidence with the objectives of those people that it would be a lasting peace with goodwill towards men, but it might be endurable. we might be able to reduce the armament of the world somewhat, all of which might come out of geneva and that's what we must pray for. >> this book here, mr. hoover, looks familiar. >> i think i recognize it as being commonly called the agricola. >> this book was first published just 400 years ago.

it is in latin, it was in latin, and comprehended the whole gamut of the mining and metallurgical and chemical industries of their time. there were difficulties in the translation from the latin because the technical terms had been invented by the author in latin 600 years after the language was dead. but mrs. hoover was an accomplished linguist. she was able to read it and with her background of technical training and the fact that i knew something about the subjects, we were able to make a translation of it for the first time. it was purely a labor of love. it had no great practical value of modern times, although many of the processes illustrated here are still in action. in any event, for a couple of

hundred years, it was the textbook of those industries, and at one time, they chained it in an iron binding to the alter and cathedrals in mining towns such as san luis, and the priests translated it for the benefit of the miners, plus the illustrations, so that the book had at one time a great weight. of course now it's only a matter of interest. there is nothing particularly public about the book. at the time there were 2,000 copies printed and distributed amongst engineers. since that time, it's become a rare item and it now sells for $250, but we don't have any more of them. >> it must have been a tremendously difficult job to translate it.

>> it was a difficult job. it took five years and it furnished the family interests during that entire period. >> mr. hoover, when did your career as an engineer come to an end? >> it came to an end when i -- shortly after i took over the belgian relief in 1914. i didn't know it at the time. we all expected the war would be over very shortly and we'd get back to work but as the war went on and on, my clients and partners had to have some other interests, so i never went back to the profession. >> who was it who asked you to get into the relief work? >> that was the combined pressures of leading belgians, the belgian ambassador, the belgian prime minister, the

american ambassador in london and the american ambassador in brussels. they all seemed to concentrate on me to undertake that job. >> so that this operation carried on during the war, you certainly must have been in some exciting experiences from time to time. >> well, most of it was a pretty humdrum business. you had to transport a tremendous volume of food overseas with a fleet of 300 ships. you had to distribute it, transport it inland, ration the population and take possession of their agricultural product and so forth. and, in fact, it was the first food administration in the history of the world. the incidents that came out of it were nothing very startling. one of them i remember rather distinctly. the service across the north sea was maintained by the dutch, and

they frequently lost their channel steamers. but they always provided methods of establish so nobody much was drowned. one day i went down to take the boat and i had usually paid the bill for my food and cabin at the end of the trip. but the steward came to me. he said you'll have to pay cash. i said, how come? well, he said, last voyage, the queen wellaminna went down and the passengers owed me 9 pound 10 and i never got the money. >> i believe you're being unduly modest, mr. hoover. i remember a story of you're having been under fire. >> i was under fire many times but the only time i really got wounded was when the germans were bombing a town where i was stopping overnight.

and i got up and looked out the window to see the performance. and the germans dropped a bomb in the street opposite the hotel, and i got showered with glass. i got cut up a lot, but i never got a purple heart. >> now, didn't some of the authorities fight the feeding of starving children during your belgian relief career? >> we had to transport all of our materials through the british blockade, and a great division rode in the british cabinet as to the military desirability of our going on. the military side of the cabinet insisted that 10 or 12 million, starving frenchmen would inconvenience the germans a lot and it might bring the war to a quicker end. that was their argument. i was called before the cabinet and i found in a short time that sir edward grey and lloyd

george, h.h. asquith, the prime minister, were all on my side. so i pushed the issue even further and ultimately i got a subsidy of $5 million a month out of the british to carry on the work and in the end, before we were done with four years of it, i was receiving $10 or $12 million a month from the british. >> you may have inversely answered a question that is in my mind, mr. hoover, but may i ask at this point, what do you think of the policy of starvation as an instrument of warfare? >> well, it may be an instrument of warfare. it might conceivably bring war to an earlier end. but starvation leaves a mass of human beings that are a liability to the world for all time, both themselves and their descendants. >> your work in bel-- belgian

relief did not end your food operations, did it, stir? >> no, the relief continued throughout the war and i continued to conduct it. when we came into war, i withdrew the american staff and substituted dutch inside of belgium. at that time, the british and french were beginning to find food difficulties and they began to call upon me for advice, and about that time, president wilson asked me to take over the united states food administration. so i became food administrator of the united states, continued in that until the time of the armistice in 1918, and then i was asked to go to europe on behalf of all of the allied governments to take over the rehabilitation of food supply of some 350 million people in eastern europe.

>> that work ended in what year, sir? >> well, i took it up again in russia in 1923. so you might say i had spent about nine years on that kind of a job. >> by that time, of course, you were in the president's cabinet as secretary of commerce. >> i was. >> then you also had some relief work that was put on your shoulder as secretary of commerce, did you not? >> well, that was the russian problem and we had one job in mississippi. >> yes, sir, that's what i was referring to. can you tell us something about that? >> well, the flood of 1927 was the greatest flood that had ever been known along the mississippi from cairo down. and the protections were weak, and they all gave way and the country, for 1,000 miles north and south and from 70 to 150

miles wide went under water. so president coolidge asked me to take over that job. we moved about a million and a half of people out of the low ground and pulled them out of the water and put them in had camps on the high ground and looked after them for three months and put them back in their homes again. we lost only three lives in that operation, three lives. and it was conducted entirely by american charity. we never called on the government for a dime except that i had the services of the navy and the coast guard. >> you referred briefly to russian relief, in 1923. could you tell me more about that? >> a dreadful drought struck russia.

-- in 1923. gorky on behalf of the communist government, i was appealed to undertake american help. i organized the operation. we sent some 200 americans into russia. they gave them completely free movement. i raised congressional appropriations of $70 million of american money and we unquestionable saved about 17 million russian lives. they accredited us with that. and when we finished, they got out a beautiful scroll and addressed to me and the american people with gratitude, and you'll find it somewhere here in the library in russian. but when the american communists get too entirely abusive, i send out a photograph of it in translation by way of stopping them up a little. >> then, mr. hoover, as i recall, your next great work in

relief was the organization of relief during the depression. can you tell me something about that? >> unemployment, of course, grew with the depression, and especially when the whole economy of europe collapsed and brought us down. and i organized relief in the united states. at the time i left office, we had about 18 million people on relief in the united states. and mr. roosevelt found he had to continue the same number up until about pearl harbor. >> your own next operations in the field of relief then came when, sir? >> well, at the beginning of the second world war, i was appealed to by some eight or nine different governments in europe who had been occupied by the germans, to again come to their relief. we organized some relief for them, but in the course of three

or four years, the military people in control of the allied side adopted the old british doctrine and they closed off our operations. it was not until the war was over when the inevitable post-war famine began that i again was called back into service. bear in mind that every world war will create a worldwide famine. i don't need to go into reasons for that but it's a solemn fact and mr. truman was faced with a famine in 1946, even greater than the world had ever seen before. he asked me to take a part in the management of the famine and i did so by organizing the necessary setup in washington and again i visited 38 different nations by plane, organized there food administrations, got their cooperation, and in the end, we pulled through.

when we started, we were convinced there were at least 800 million people that would die in that famine but we found food all over the world that we hadn't expected and in the end we pulled them all through. there was no mass starvation anywhere that i know of. >> your operations in the field of relief have been literally tremendous. may i ask you this, quite frankly. during all these years, did you accept any compensation in connection with your relief work? >> i've never accepted compensation either for relief or for federal service except in this sense, that i have at time taken federal salaries and expended them on matters outside of my own needs and use. i was led to that by an overall

question of conviction of my own, and i don't say this in disparagement of men accepting salaries from the government, because most of our officials must have them to live. but it happened that i had prospered in my profession at a time when the income tax was only 1%. i was able to save a competence, and i felt that i owed to my country a debt that was unpayable and i had no right to ask her to pay me, so that that was the practice right up until 31st day of june this year. >> and yet, sir, i think that on occasions you possibly have been smeared. >> yes, every public man has been smeared and i take it that the final test as to whether smears have any effectiveness is when congress makes an

investigation of a fellow. i have been in federal service off and on for 40-odd years and i haven't yet been investigated by congress. >> i see. that certainly is the answer to it, isn't it? >> maybe. >> mr. hoover, i know that you have had a special interest in children and i believe that you set up a special relief for children. can you tell us about that, please? >> that originated during the belgian problem. there were two million belgian children and the normal ration for an adult is deficient in the type of food that will support child life. so we had set up an extra meal every day for all of children in belgium, two million of them. when we came into the relief of europe as a whole, after the armistice, we expanded that service and we carried about 12 or 14 million children. if you catch them young enough,

you can feed them up, so that they become normal. if it's gone too far, they are really ancestors of all of the bandits and racketeers in the world. >> that brings to mind, did i interrupt you, sir? >> well, when world war ii came on, i, having set up these arrangements all over the world in 39 countries to meet that famine, i found that there was a tremendous impoverishment and undernourishment in children all over the world, in a desperate situation. there were some 30 million of them as we calculated them. so i took that matter up with the united nations and the american administration. and they set up an organization and i suggested the men who should operate it, and these

were the men who had operated in europe and world war ii, and world war i, and they're still operating until this day. and so as far as i know, they've looked after nearly 50 million children in the last five years. >> i see. as you were speaking there, of child welfare and child relief work, mr. hoover, my mind went back to a rather notable statement that you made on subject. as i recall, it was back in 1930 when you were president and i believe you had summoned a child welfare council at that time. i have -- i think it's in here in this book -- i was wondering if it wouldn't be appropriate for you to tell us about it at this time? >> i can read it to you if that's telling about it. >> all right, sir. >> that statement has been republished many times and is rather an old statement to the

american people, i'm afraid. "the older i grow, the more i appreciate children. we approach all the problems of childhood with affection. theirs is the problems of joy and of good humor. they are the most wholesome part of the race. they are the sweetest, for they are fresher from the hands of god. whimsical, ingenuous, mischievous. we live a life of apprehension as to what their opinion may be of us, a life of defense against their terrifying energy. we put them to bed with a sense of relief and a lingering of devotion. we envy them the freshness of adventure and the discovery of life. we mourn over the disappointments which they will meet." >> thank you, sir. i think that probably brings us up to your work with the government reorganization commission.

two presidents, i believe, called you to washington to take up that work. could you tell me what your reaction is from that labor? >> the problems, perhaps, are entirely too long to go into here. but this government of ours multiplied itself from about 600,000 officials up to 2,500,000 as a result of 23 years of war and trouble, and it multiplied itself budget from $3.5 billion to as high as $75 billion, with a growth of government agencies from about 300 up to some 1600, and the fabulous waste and duplication and lack of efficiency, so that the congress, with the approval of the president in each case, set up a commission. in both cases, i was asked to take the chairmanship. the first organization

commission of six years ago secured the adoption of a great many of its recommendations, about 70%. they related largely to reorganizations of different agencies and setting up a new structure of the government. the korean war and the realignment came along, unobscured, whatever savings there were. the second commission examined the government from a functional and a policy point of view and we have made recommendations which, if adopted, would enable the balancing of the budget and a very substantial reduction in taxes. the last commission required five years to get its proposals adopted. it may take us some years to get these. but i feel certain that they will accomplish it. >> i believe you intend to keep working on it to see what you can do to make it through? >> the press seems determined to

get me to retire but i can't stop until we get these recommendations adopted. >> mr. hoover, seems to me that this is an appropriate time for me to ask you this. in view of world conditions in our own country and abroad, what do you think, with respect to the chances of private enterprise, returning, and the chances of our having greater individual freedom again? >> you mentioned abroad. there has been a total economic revolution in germany. germany has gone back to a free enterprise system. likewise belgium retreated from socialism into free enterprise. it's been prosperous ever since. the last election in britain guaranteed the retreat from socialism and a free enterprise. in our own country, we haven't made as much progress as we should. the second reorganization

commission, however, proceeded on the thesis that this was a country where the economic and social system was based on private enterprise and individual action. both of them naturally regulated to prevent unfair practice and prevent monopoly, and that the government should only intervene with the people in matters in which the people could not support and take care of themselves. well, our department has departed a long way from that basis and the recommendations of the reorganization commission are very largely in the nature of the methods of return back to the fundamental thesis on which this country was founded. >> we've covered a vast number of subjects here today. covered a lot of ground, and i

think the thing that comes out of it possibly is the fact that you've been a mighty hard working man all your life. however, i do think that you're also known for your relaxation. could you tell us how do you get your relaxation? >> well, i go fishing whenever i get a chance. also, i go to baseball games and the other exercise of that kind. i have a rather yen for fishing because the ripple of a book and the slap of the wave against the side of the boat will brainwash most anybody into a much cleaner position. >> didn't you once make a very famous statement about fishing? >> i don't know. i may have said a lot about it. i explained why presidents all went fishing, they all have, even though they never fished before, and that was because the american people respect for

privacy only on two occasions. one of them is prayer. and the other is fishing. and presidents can't pray all the time. the fishing question is often a problem of getting away from here to somewhere else and getting out of an awkward spot and it didn't matter much how many fish you get. if you get any, you know perfectly well that all men are equal before fishes. there's no ascendancy of these evil thoughts that seem to infect our social system. >> that, of course, brings me to another subject that i wanted to ask you about before we part. your interest in boys club. i refer to that because i was thinking of your talking about baseball and fishing. you have a very vital interest in the boys club. will you tell me what that means to you.

>> well, i have been the chairman of the board of the boys clubs now for nearly 20 years. and i was connected with it even before that. but it appeared to me as being a completely systematic method by which elder people could be of help to youngsters outside of their normal schooling and parents and so forth. the boys club is all slum boys. it's a slum movement. it is probably the best preventive of youth delinquency there is in the united states. these boys are taken in and they are given certain manual training. they're given music and they have ample games, and they're organized into teams instead of gangs. and they have equipment that is growing in dimensions. today it would cost $120 million to replace the equipment we have

in those institutions. and i might mention to you, that the boys clubs, these boys clubs, develop five major league players in the last series. >> and it also gives a chance for the older man to do something for the boys, just as older men have done -- did things for you as you were growing up, isn't that right? >> that's a large part of it, is based on voluntary help of older people. the carpenter goes in and takes charge of the carpenter shop and if he develops a boy that looks like a carpenter, he helps him along in life and so forth. >> yes. mr. hoover, while i have been sitting here, i have been wanting to ask you something about these flags. this flag is the president's flag, is that not right? >> that's quite right. >> would you tell me, please, why you have it here? >> it is the only gift that your president receives from the american people. he gets no pension.

he gets no title. but he gets his own flag. he has a right to fly it. >> unlike a senator who is called a senator, a governor who's called a governor after he leaves office, a president is -- >> you better mention the kentucky colonels and all the generals. the president is just nothing but plain "mister" and i think it's a comfortable feeling. >> mr. hoover, i want to thank you for this session that you and i have had here together today. there's just one other thing. i wonder if you would be willing to give me something of your philosophy, something of your feeling about your fellow americans and about your country. >> ray, that's rather an extensive subject. one time i wrote a passage on the subject and i think you've got it in that book. if you give it to me, i don't think i could phrase it as well

as i did at that time, extemporaneously. so if you'd like, i don't mind reading it to you. >> i wish you would, sir. >> "perhaps without immodesty i can claim to have had some experience in what the word 'america' means. i've lived in many lands, many kinds of american lives. after my early boyhood in an iowa village, i lived as a ward of a country doctor in oregon. i lived among those for whom hard work was the price of existence. the opportunities of america opened to me through the public schools. they carried me to professional training in a great american university. i began by working with my own hands for my daily bread. i have tasted the despair of fruitless search for a job. i even know the kindly encouragement of a boarding house keeper.

i've seen america in contrast with many nations and many races. my profession took me into many foreign lands and many kinds of governments. i worked in governments of free men, of tyranny, of socialists, of communists, and i have met with princes and kings and despots and desperados. i've seen the frozen class barriers of europe. i was not a tourist. i was associated in their working lives and in their problems. i had to deal with their social systems and their governments. and outstanding everywhere to these great masses of people, there was a hallowed word, 'america.' to them, it was the hope of their whole world. every homecoming was, for me, a reaffirmation of the glory of america.

each time our soul was washed by the relief from grinding poverty of other nations, by the greater kindness and frankness which comes from the acceptance of equality and the wide-open opportunity to all who want a chance. it is more than that, it is a land of self respect born alone of free man. i have had every honor of which any man could aspire. there is no place on this whole earth except here in america where all of the sons of man can have this chance in life that has come to me. i recount all of this in order that in quaker terms i may give my own testimony. the meaning of our word 'america' flows from one pure source. within the soul of america is

freedom of mind and spirit in man. there alone are the open windows through which pour the sunlight of human spirit. here alone is human dignity not a dream, but an accomplishment. perhaps it is not perfect, but is more full in its realization here than any other place in the world." rution ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪

♪ >> next on american history tv, william kristol discusses -- stal discusses the advice passed on by john adams. why that advice was so valued in developing the emerging american identity. this is about one hour. >> i am glad to be with you, although we are not technically in fraunces tavern.