Herbert Hoover

After the Field of Dreams I drive south to West Branch, Iowa - The boyhood home of Herbert Hoover. Hoover was like John Quincy Adams. Both were hugely successful in everything they did in life and then had a very rough time as president. Adams' rough time was because Andrew Jackson and his boys were such sore losers they did everything they could to roadblock anything Adams wanted to do.

For Hoover, of course, it was the Great Depression. It started near the very beginning of his term in office. The popular story is that Hoover did nothing to try to help the country. Nothing got better until FDR came in. There probably not a lot anyone could have done to fix it until it had run its course for a while. Hoover did quite a bit to help the economy, but the whole world's economy was messed up then for various reasons.

Before he became president, following WWI, Europe was a mess. Hoover was sent there to help feed the starving. Hoover was one of those workaholic, uber-organized guys. They estimate Hoover might have saved the lives of a billion people. Hoover should be held up as one of the greatest people in history. Instead he always get low ratings.

The museum is very nice. It also has the house he was born in and his burial site. There were quite a few people there, but I'm guessing it's one of the least visited presidential sites. First of all, it's in the middle of Iowa. Almost all the others are in fairly big cities. Also, its Herbert Hoover.