Description:

Hoover Herbert

Herbert Hoover, Freelance Mining Consultant, TLS Re: Mining Stock Trading

 

1p TLS signed by then freelance mining consultant Herbert Hoover (1874-1964) as "HC Hoover" at center. Written in London, England on June 30, 1911. Typed in purple ink on cream stationery paper with "H.C. Hoover, / No 1, London Wall Buildings, / London, E.C." letterhead. Bearing a cancelled Edward VII red one penny stamp at lower left. Expected light paper folds throughout as well as creased left margin, else near fine. 8.125" x 10.125".

 

Herbert Hoover wrote this letter to William J. Loring (ca. 1869-1952), one of his former colleagues at Bewick, Moreing & Co., in the spring of 1911.

 

In part:

 

"I have to acknowledge receipt of cheque for £1,793.9.7, as per your letter of even date."

 

Hoover and Loring had both been employed by the London-based mining corporation Bewick, Moreing & Co. (BMC). Hoover had met Loring, a fellow American, on assignment in the Australian bush in the early 1900s. The sum indicated in this letter represented a sizable investment: £1,793.9.7 is the equivalent of approximately £205,000 in 2018 currency.

 

Hoover made his fortune at the turn-of-the-century as a mining engineer, consultant, administrator, and investor. After joining BMC in 1897 as an underling, Hoover was promoted to junior partner by 1898 and full partner by 1901. Hoover was a corporate "fixer" tasked with evaluating and revitalizing failing BMC holdings in Asia, Australia, and Africa.

 

William J. Loring was one of twentieth-century America's most successful mining industrialists. He entered the trade at age 12, and by his early 30s had become BMC's superintendent of the Sons of Gwalia Mine in Australia. When Hoover left the company's employ in 1908, he sold his BMC shares (amounting to 33 1/3% of the entire corporation) to Loring. He and Hoover were initially friendly, but relations became strained after Hoover violated a non-competition agreement. Following a 1917 lawsuit, and especially after Loring's Western U.S. investments failed in the late 20s, he deeply resented and even hated Hoover.

 

Hoover gained his first political experience as Director of the U.S. Food Administration and, between 1921-1928, U.S. Secretary of Commerce. Hoover was blamed for mismanaging Depression recovery efforts; many viewed his 1932 presidential loss to 32nd U.S. President Democrat Franklin D. Roosevelt as a referendum. Both Presidents Truman and Eisenhower appointed Hoover to head post-World War II fact-finding and aid-giving commissions. This later political involvement rehabilitated Hoover’s image.

 


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