America’s First Crusade.

First Edition of Herbert Hoover's America's First Crusade; Inscribed by Him to Close Friend Robert A. Taft

America’s First Crusade.

HOOVER, Herbert.

Item Number: 93432

New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, 1942.

First edition of Hoover’s look at the impact of World War I. Octavo, original gray cloth. Association copy, inscribed by the author on the front free endpaper, “To my good friend Robert A. Taft. from Herbert Hoover.” The recipient Robert A. Taft was a politician, lawyer, and scion of the Taft family. When the United States entered World War I in April 1917, Taft attempted to join the army but was rejected due to his poor eyesight. Instead, he joined the legal staff of the Food and Drug Administration where he met Herbert Hoover, who became his idol. In 1918 and 1919, he was in Paris as legal adviser for the American Relief Administration, Hoover’s agency to distribute food to war torn Europe. He came to distrust governmental bureaucracy as inefficient and detrimental to the rights of the individual, a principle he promoted throughout his career. He urged membership in the League of Nations but generally distrusted European politicians. He endorsed the idea of a powerful world court to enforce international law, but no such idealized court ever existed during his lifetime. He returned to Cincinnati in late 1919, promoted Hoover for president in 1920, and opened a law firm with his brother, Charles Taft. In 1920 he was elected to the Ohio House of Representatives, where he served as Speaker of the House in 1926. In 1930, he was elected to the Ohio Senate. Near fine in a near fine price-clipped dust jacket. An exceptional association copy.

In Hoover's foreword he writes of the book, ''...The particular importance of this material is as a reminder of the gigantic lessons of 1919...We need preparedness for the peace table even as we need it for defense.''

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