Noble Failures

Say what you will about the old WASP ascendancy, it did tend to be a bit stronger on stoicism than the recent waves of frenetic, obsessive status-seekers who have chipped away at it. One misses the calm sense of duty and comparatively uncomplaining attitude to-ward public service of such worthies as Herbert Hoover and John Foster Dulles—men who sought power not because it was a glittering prize, but because they thought (often erroneously, as it turned out) that they might do some good and had a duty to try. In this respect, like the early abolitionists, they were “do-gooders” in the purest sense, custodians of what they believed to be a set of principles, a national ethos. And because the ethos was based on a fairly explicit moral code and a definite constitutional foundation, they were less likely to careen all over the field, savaging friends and foes alike and ending up in a bottomless mire of botched, vaguely humanist good intentions—the almost universal fate of the modern liberal do-gooder.

Two recent biographies, both well written and researched, offer us poignant reminders of these upright, albeit slightly starchy, knights of old: the detailed, sometimes gossipy chronicle of the Dulles trinity (Eleanor, Allen, and John Foster) by British historian and foreign correspondent Leonard Mosley, and the befittingly sober public life of Herbert Hoover by David Burner. As a biographer, Mr. Burner had a tougher job than Mr. Mosley had: he was faced with resurrecting a rather less likely Lazarus. George Creel once remarked that “Writing about Herbert Hoover is like trying to describe the interior of a citadel where every drawbridge is up and every portcullis down.” The countless acts of personal kindness and generosity Hoover performed over a long life were always cloaked in anonymity by the benefactor himself, and his keen sense of humor was reserved for very private moments with a small circle of friends. At meetings or on the stump, Herbert Hoover, like many sensitive, introverted people, turned to cardboard.

AB

About the Author

Aram Bakshian Jr.

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Say what you will about the old WASP ascendancy, it did tend to be a bit stronger on stoicism than the recent waves of frenetic, obsessive status-seekers who have chipped away at it. One misses the calm sense of duty and comparatively uncomplaining attitude to-ward public service of such worthies as Herbert Hoover and John Foster Dulles—men who sought power not because it was a glittering prize, but because they thought (often erroneously, as it turned out) that they might do some good and had a duty to try. In this respect, like the early abolitionists, they were “do-gooders” in the purest sense, custodians of what they believed to be a set of principles, a national ethos. And because the ethos was based on a fairly explicit moral code and a definite constitutional foundation, they were less likely to careen all over the field, savaging friends and foes alike and ending up in a bottomless mire of botched, vaguely humanist good intentions—the almost universal fate of the modern liberal do-gooder.

Two recent biographies, both well written and researched, offer us poignant reminders of these upright, albeit slightly starchy, knights of old: the detailed, sometimes gossipy chronicle of the Dulles trinity (Eleanor, Allen, and John Foster) by British historian and foreign correspondent Leonard Mosley, and the befittingly sober public life of Herbert Hoover by David Burner. As a biographer, Mr. Burner had a tougher job than Mr. Mosley had: he was faced with resurrecting a rather less likely Lazarus. George Creel once remarked that “Writing about Herbert Hoover is like trying to describe the interior of a citadel where every drawbridge is up and every portcullis down.” The countless acts of personal kindness and generosity Hoover performed over a long life were always cloaked in anonymity by the benefactor himself, and his keen sense of humor was reserved for very private moments with a small circle of friends. At meetings or on the stump, Herbert Hoover, like many sensitive, introverted people, turned to cardboard.