in U.S. history, and probably world history as well. Today is the anniversary of his passing back in the 1960s, and I'm flying my flag at half staff in remembrance. Here's a post I wrote about it online. I'm curious if anyone will guess who it is before the end of the post:
"When you teach, some of the best moments are when students utter in amazement "ARE YOU SERIOUS?!" because you just told them something that blows them away. Today, we were talking about selflessness, and how there can be rich people who do good with their money, and one student asked "can one rich person really do a lot?" This is a government & economics class, so keeping my example connected to U.S. government, I responded, "What would you think if one person--born into poverty, orphaned at 9, and self-made multi-millionaire by 30-- completely of their own initiative, was able to in 26 different countries after both World Wars organize and oversee 130,000 volunteers while raising 50 billion dollars in today's value to feed 10 million people a day and ultimately save nearly 150 million lives? And he did all this without a whiff of scandal and only taking 1% of the funds to cover overhead costs, then used the rest to create a fund to provide scholarships for students in those 26 countries to be sent to America for a college education, with nearly 4000 students to date having received college degrees from these scholarships. Oh, and by the way, your average history book will tell you this man was a failure because he didn't care about the common man and had a heart so aloof he couldn't relate to those who suffered because of his inability to end the Great Depression during his presidency. This man was Herbert Hoover, one of the worst ranked presidents in our history." The students were all amazed, and all agreed that no government agency in existence--then or now--could have done as efficient a job as he did. I love history, and the good people whose deeds are inspiring and worth remembering."