User:Cap'n Ben/Herbert Hoover

Herbert Hoover - guest article by: a sterotypical grandfatherly storyteller figure.

Howdy, younguns! Sit yourselfs a spell, while I tell you the story of Ole Herby Hoover. Now, Herby was born a long time ago, before all you kids was into your jukeboxes and your sock hops and your nanotechnological transhumanism, yes siree. America was a very different place in those days. Why, in those days, a gasoline only cost you a nickle, plus the two cent deposit on the carboy. Of course, we didn't have cars in those days, so when we bought gas, it was most' just to get high off of the fumes.

Of course that did permanent damage to the old noggin, heh heh, but we didn't crungholhs sm. I mean, I ain't no eskimo, but that don't mean I don't eat raw seal meat, get me?

Early Life

Now, Ole Herby was born in West Branch, Iowa. Those were the days before Paul Bunyan had dammed the Mississippi, so water was scarce. Ole Herby had to walk twenty miles a day carrying water from the local vaporators. Now, you kids probably haven't seen much in the way of vaporators, but they were all the rage in the days before jet-planes and post modern literary deconstruction. But my first job was a'programin' binary load lifters, very similar to vaporators, and let me tell you they're ornery critters, yessiree, an' my heart goes out to pore Ole Herby havin' to deal with 'em every day.

Now, when Herby was just a wee sprat of ten, his parents died in a freight train/Segway collision and Herby had to go live in Oregon, until he went to college at Stanford. Back in those days, students didn't spend a whole lot of time studyin' like you young sprats do. Mostly they just went to football games in big old fur coats, and waved tiny pennants. It didn't even matter who was playin' there they'd be in their coats, a plunkin' away on their ukuleles. Sometimes, there weren't even any players on the field, but thaaaat's just the way we rolled, old school, heh heh.

Mining Engineer

Now, you might not think it, but Ole Herby was not only the first President to be born west of the Mississippi, he one of the first presidents to held a real job before becoming president. Yessir, most presidents cut their teeth on shouting, whether at slaves or soldiers or juries. Ole Herby actually came up with innovative processes for ore extraction, which he used when minin' tin or gasoline. You don't have any gasoline on you, do you, son? I can give up any time I like, but I just like a sniff now and then.

Humanitarian

Ole Herby's career in public life began when he tried to help the victims of World War I. Herby started on this early, by trying to resuscitate Archduke Franz-Ferdinand. When that failed, he tried to pretend that the Archduke was alive, a la Weekend at Bernies in an attempt to stave off the Great War. Ah, Weekend at Bernies. I remember back in the day when we didn't have that sort of highfallutin' entertainment. There was just minstrels and greased hog catchin' and that was all the entertainment we had! We didn't need no Olympics or hardcore furry porn to keep us amused, although I guess the furry porn didn't hurt.

When the shooting started, Ole Herby put his good ole' Western upbringing to work, started the Great Refugee Drive of '14. In this, Herby hired a bunch of cowboys to round up thousands of refugees and drive them out of Europe, towards Chicago and freedom, using the little known sea-route known as the Atlantic Trail. Sea cowboys are a tough breed, you don't see their like nowadays, with their salty wisdom and their country shanties, like Ghost Whalers in the Sea, Home on the Mid-Atlantic Range and Yippee Yo Ho Ho, Git Along Little Dugong. Now that was music, none of this modern malarky with the hippin' and the hoppin' and the croonin' and the spoonin.

In the 1920s, the Soviet Union was in the midst of an old famine, and Good Ole Herby started doin' his humanitarian thing by sending food over. Some Republican Senators objected, saying that this was effectively supportin' Bolshevism. But Herby, a Republican himself, told them to shut up, and went back to feeding tiramisu to Stalin, spooin' that ole Italian delicacy into his hungry totalitarian maw, heh heh.

Secretary for Commerce

As a peacenik who put humanitarian concerns ahead o' anti-Communism, Ole Herby ran for the Republican nomination for president in 1920. Surprisingly, he didn't get that ole nomination, nohow.

No, Ole Herby was passed over in favor of that greatest of US Presidents, Warren G. Harding. Consarn it, it surely brings a lump to my cancer-ridden throat to think of that great man. As Harding himself said,

“I would like the government to do all it can to mitigate, then, in understanding, in mutuality of interest, in concern for the common good, our tasks will be solved.”

~ Warren G. Harding on WTF?

Harding resolved to make this nation a better place for all, by taking the most corrupt, dishonest, no-good cheatin' low-lifes to be found, and giving 'em Cabinet positions. That way, he could keep an eye on 'em, y'see, and make sure they didn't get up to their usual shenanigans. Ole Herby, y'see, he desperately wanted a Cabinet position and so - against his better nature - had to mug old ladies and burn down an orphanage or two in order to make the team.

Achievements as Secretary for Commerce

Harding appointed Hoover Secertrary for Commerce. No, that didn't mean he had to take phone messages for all of US industry. Or maybe it did. I ain't thinkin' too clear without my unleaded.

No, wait, I reckon as his job mostly had to do with helpin' American commerce run smoothly. See, there was a lot of new stuff folks in the 1920s wanted to spend their money on. The 1920s were a time of great technerlog'cal advancement. The development of commercial radio, the birth of the passenger plane, the domestication of the horse and the rise of the film industry. All these new investment opportunities! Now what's a businessfeller to do? Where's he gonna put his moolah, greenbacks and/or lettuce?

Well, if you can't make up your mind, don't mind that nohow. Neither could they! Fortunate-like, they didn't need to. They could invest in everthing they wanted, thanks to all the credit they could eat! Ain't no way that could go wrong, surely?

That's a rhetorical question, so don't go answerin' of it, nohow.

Personal Life

But Ole Herby, he weren't just ensuring the future success of the US economy for all time without exception, nosir! Nosir, nosir. Nooooo-sir. Nuh. Nuh-uh. No no no no no. Non. Nyet. Nein. Not... at... all.

Uh, remind me, what...

Oh, yeah, Ole Herby's personal life. Now, it seems that he wasn't able to marry his first, what with her bein' prisoner of the Robot-Men of Pluto, so he had to look elsewhere for thrifty, Depression era lovin'.