Baseballs autographed by six Presidents. 'Big Train's' gift to Baseball Hall of Fame. Washington, D.C., April 29. Walter Johnson's contribution to the National Baseball Museum at Cooperstown, New York, will be these six baseballs autographed by six presidents: Theodore Roosevelt, William H. Taft, Woodrow Wilson, Warren G. Harding, Calvin Coolidge, and Herbert Hoover. With the exception of the ones autographed by Presidents Theodore Roosevelt and Herbert Hoover, the balls are those which were thrown out at opening games pitched by Johnson during his regime as star pitcher for the Washington Senators. The ball autographed by President Hoover was presented to Johnson while he was manager of the Washington team while the one with the signature of Theodore Roosevelt was a special gift to the Big Train

Herbert Clark (August 10, 1874 – October 20, 1964) was an American politician who served as the 31st President of the United States from 1929 to 1933. He was a professional mining engineer and was raised as a Quaker. As a Republican Secretary of Commerce, he promoted government support for standardization, efficiency, international trade and partnerships between government and business. Hoover's ambitious programs were hit by the Great Depression, that get worse every year despite the increasingly large-scale interventions he made in the economy. The Wall Street Crash of 1929 struck less than eight months after he took office. Hoover tried to combat the Great Depression with large-scale government public works projects such as the Hoover Dam. He also called on industry to keep wages high but the economy kept falling and unemployment rates rose to about 25%. This downward spiral, as well as his support for prohibition policies that had lost favor, led to 1932 elections defeat in a landslide by Democrat Franklin D. Roosevelt, who promised a New Deal. In 1947, after WWII end, President Harry S. Truman appointed Hoover to head the Hoover Commission to foster greater efficiency throughout the federal bureaucracy. "Blessed are the young, for they shall inherit the national debt."

America’s Richest Families, 1900-1940