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Take a knee? Hoover would keep quiet ... up to a point
by Gregory R. Norfleet · News · October 12, 2017
To those football players taking a knee: One Herbert Hoover historian said the 31st president might fire you.
Hoover signed the bill on March 3, 1931, that made the Star-Spangled Banner the national anthem. The West Branch native also played short stop for Stanford University, and managed both the baseball and football teams.
Glen Jeansonne is himself a former high school quarterback and was part of a college intramural football team. He grew to admire West Branch Bears football when spending more than a year here from 2006 and 2007 researching Hoover for his book, “The Fighting Quaker.”
Jeansonne said the Quaker president, who valued and practiced peace, honesty and straightforwardness, probably would say little on the NFL “Take A Knee” controversy to anyone except his closest friends. He would not tweet about it like President Trump, the historian said, and even if he owned an NFL team would likely not rebuke players who disrespected the U.S. flag, no matter how much he disagreed.
Unless, Jeansonne said, that team saw revenue drop due to upset fans. Hoover, an engineer, made his millions by turning marginal mines into profitable enterprises.
“If there was somebody who did something that hurt his business in one of his mines, or through trading or transportation, he would probably reprimand them and, if they continued, then he would fire them,” Jeansonne said.
“Showing off”
Hoover played short stop for Stanford’s baseball team until breaking his finger and taking a job as team manager. Jeansonne said he could not find anything that indicated Hoover’s thoughts as an athlete, but said he was one of the most intelligent and honest people he ever studied, but also possessed Quaker modesty.
“I think he would have opposed what players are doing as kind of showing off,” he said. “He would have thought it disgraceful to the flag and anthem, but also putting yourself out there (for) self-publicity, deliberately drawing attention to yourself.”
The historian said Hoover, when signing the bill for the national anthem, “thought that the song fit his feelings about the country and expressed it eloquently.”
“I don’t know if any previous president had the idea of a national anthem or song, but Hoover was an original thinker and he was very patriotic,” he said.
Hoover also had great respect for everyone, from the person holding the “highest office of the land to the lowest, poorest person in America.”
“I think he would have disliked people, as they’re doing today, mocking the national anthem, but I don’t think he would have talked about it so publicly and vehemently as our current president is doing,” Jeansonne said. “I know he would have not used profanity in calling the players SOBs. … He had a lot more self-control than Donald Trump does. … He would have thought it beneath the president to get into that dialogue.”
Kaepernick sits
Jeansonne, a Green Bay Packers fan, attended the Aug. 26, 2016, preseason game where 49ers quarterback Colin Kaepernick was first noticed sitting during the national anthem. Kaepernick two days later confirmed he sat for the first two preseason games as well, saying his reason was “to stand with the people that are being oppressed … people that don’t have a voice, people that don’t have a platform.”
“I have great respect for the men and women that have fought for this country … And they fight for freedom, they fight for the people, they fight for liberty and justice, for everyone. That’s not happening. People are dying in vain because the country isn’t holding their end of the bargain up,” he told the media.
After a conversation with U.S. military veteran Nate Boyer, Kaepernick changed from sitting to kneeling on one knee.
Jeansonne said he did not see a difference between the meaning of the two gestures, and he said he still does not understand what exactly Kaepernick and other athletes are protesting.
“What are they objecting to and how do they want to change it?” the historian asked. “I read two newspapers every day … and I’ve never seen it anywhere … exactly what it is they want to be different than it is.”
Trump talks
When Trump started commenting on the controversy, suggesting NFL team owners fire anyone who kneels, more players started to take a knee, and some teams would lock arms as a sign of unity, and at least one team remained in the locker room during the anthem. A few players kneeled prior to the anthem, then stood.
The Indianapolis Colts released a statement from its players over the weekend, stating that they “did not intend to disrespect our flag, our National Anthem or those who serve our country.”
“Our intention was to raise awareness and continue critical conversations about real equality, the injustices against black and brown people, police brutality, respect, unity and equal opportunity,” read the statement. “Our players are hurting, our people are hurting, our neighborhoods are hurting, and kneeling was in direct response to that.”
Jeansonne said neither he nor, he thinks, Hoover, would stop attending NFL games due to players kneeling during the anthem. However, he did suggest the players take further action.
“If they really want to help the black cause, donate money to black orphanages, (charities) or schools — there’s a lot they could do to help,” the historian said. “(The players) are in a position to fund high schools and grammar schools and colleges, and that would do a lot more good than kneeling or holding arms.”
He criticized players who refer to “police shootings” because “they make a prejudgment that the person who was shot was innocent.”
“You can’t just automatically say that every black shot by a policeman was innocent, or the policeman had no purpose other than race (to fire),” Jeansonne said. “I’m a historian, and I can’t think of any particular example (of that). It would be in history books if a police officer shot for no other reason than because someone was black.”
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