There is a president in American history who has close ties with China and can use Chinese fluently, that is, the 31st president of the United States, Hoover, who built a dam near Las Vegas and was scolded for being incompetent in the face of the great crisis of 1929.
President Hoover was originally named Herbert Clark Hoover (August 10, 1874 – October 20, 1964), and he actually had a Chinese name called "Hu Hua", but Chinese he later used his English translation "Hoover".
President Hoover
Hoover was born in West Blanche, Iowa, as a bitter child, orphaned at the age of 9 and raised by his uncle. He studied hard, but because his family was poor, he enrolled in the then newly established Stanford University in 1891, because the newly founded school did not have tuition fees at that time, so he was also known as the first batch of Students in Stanford.
Hoover childhood photos
Stanford University was founded by the railroad tycoon Stanford at that time to commemorate the early death of his son, when the well-known universities in the United States were on the East Coast, Stanford University was the first university to be built on the West Coast, and the New York newspaper had predicted that no one would go to the western part of the wild land to attend this university, jokingly saying: "Professors will lecture in marble classrooms, facing empty benches." Because the campus was built on a farm donated by Stanford, people at that time also called Stanford University "Farm University".
Hoover studied mining at university, and after graduating in 1895, he went to the British mining investment company BK-Merlin, and in 1899 was assigned to the Tangshan Kaiping Coal Mine as a mining engineer, a state-owned mine founded by Li Hongzhang himself, then China's largest enterprise.
Hoover in 1897
During the Eight-Nation Alliance, Zhang Yi, the mine's official in charge, was arrested by the British for raising pigeons at home to send a message to the Boxers. Zhang Yi's British adviser "kindly" helped, saying that this coal mine would be confiscated, it would be better to transfer the coal mine to my assistant, turn it into a foreign industry that can be protected by the British army, and then transfer it to you after the situation is stable, and the assistant who took over is Hoover. Zhang Yi was already frightened by the six gods and no master at this time, and quickly agreed, and signed the "Contract for the Sale of the Kaiping Mining Bureau", the main contents of the contract were: the real estate, wharves, railways, houses, machinery, goods owned by the Kaiping Mining Bureau, and the rights and interests belonging to, receiving, holding or should be enjoyed, and all of them were allowed, transferred, transferred, transferred, cut off and Hoover... Hoover has the right to transfer, transfer and transfer all rights, information and benefits hereby agrees to and kaiping Limited.
Hoover thus served as the general manager of the Kaiping Coal Mine and received part of the shares, receiving the first pot of gold in his life.
After the Boxer Rebellion, when the Qing government learned of this incident, Yuan Shikai personally came forward and could not get it back, so at the end of 1904, he sent Yan Fu to the Lawrence Tribunal in London to fight an international lawsuit. On the surface, the Qing government won the lawsuit, but it could not be enforced, it was just a blank piece of paper, and the Qing government could not take back the Kaiping coal mine at all. There is no way China had to build a new mine near the Luanzhou Coal Mine, after Yuan Shikai became president, the British side proposed that the two mines in Kaiping Luanzhou be merged into a Sino-British joint venture, so it was renamed Kailuan Coal Mine, in the new enterprise, according to Chinese data, Hoover got 0.8% of the shares, the US data is 2.5%, about 7-200,000 US dollars (related to today's 5 million to 6 million US dollars).
Hoover's stock that year
Although Hoover soon fell out with foreign parties, but the shares of the Kailuan Coal Mine remained until 1912, Hoover later invested in minerals around the world, and also engaged in the glorious cause of selling Chinese coolies from Qinhuangdao to South African gold mines, Chinese data is to sell more than 40,000 people, sell a person to earn 10 US dollars (14 two silver), the United States data is to sell more than 60,000 people. At that time, the daily wage of American coal workers was about 2.5 taels of silver, and the daily wages of black miners in South Africa were 0.3 taels, but the Chinese coolies only needed 0.2 taels, even if they were compared with blacks, they could save 30 taels a year, and only 50 taels of compensation were needed for human life, even if it was still a cost-effective thing to cross the ocean, because at that time, the monthly income of Chinese sharecroppers was only 1 or 2, and one or two silver was about 120-150 yuan today.
Soon Hoover was a $4 million rich man (about $100 million today) and returned to the United States in 1908. In 1909, Hoover lectured at Columbia University and Stanford University, where he lectured on engineering. These lectures were later compiled into a book called Principles of Mining, which was published in the same year and became textbooks for both universities.
In 1914, when World War I broke out, Hoover went to London to serve as chairman of the American Relief Committee, tasked with assisting penniless Americans trapped in Europe, and helping 120,000 impoverished Americans return to their home countries. Because of his outstanding work on the American Relief Board, he became a social figure and brought great honors. He is known as the "Great Humanitarian".
After World War I, Hoover returned to Washington to serve as director of the U.S. Food Administration. After taking office, Hoover vigorously encouraged food production, eliminated waste, and successfully reduced domestic food consumption and stabilized prices by imposing a tax on excess profits, using voluntary rather than quantitative supply. At the time, his so-called "Hooverized management" meant economic and stable household food arrangements.
In 1927, Hoover ran for president on behalf of the Republican Party, and the Democratic Party ran for the United States during the campaign, exposing a large number of hoover's corruption and human trafficking in China, saying that he had at least $1 million in ill-gotten gains from China. Because hoover saved Tang Shaoyi's daughter (Gu Weijun's wife) during the Eight-Nation Alliance, at this critical moment, Tang Shaoyi specially sent a telegram to defend Hoover and let him get rid of the accusations of the Democratic Party, which should be regarded as the first time Chinese intervened in the US election.
Sworn in after election
Hoover and his wife learned Chinese together when they were in Tangshan, and they spoke fluently. After entering the White House, if there is any secret between the husband and wife that he does not want others to know, he will tell his wife that Chinese. So Hoover's Chinese is most likely with a Tangshan accent, think of the Chinese of the President of the United States and the First Lady in the White House speaking with a Zhao Lirong accent, what are you doing changed to a sentence of "what are you playing", or a little funny.
Hoover and his wife at the White House