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> HERBERT HOOVER

k THE MAN AND HIS WORK

VERNON KELLOGG

AUTHOR OF "headquarters NIGHTS," ETC

D. APPLETON AND COMPANY

NEW YORK LONDON

1920

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^^'';^ ■'

^x'^'''

D. APPLETON AND COMPANY

• ••• •• •*•* •••••• • •*

PRINTED IK THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA

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DEDICATED

TO UY COMPANIONS OF THE
C. R. B.

4 1 ^J: i) 5 I Digitized by GoOglC

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PREFACE

No man can have reached the position in the
public eye, can have had such influence in the
councils of our own government and in the
fate of other governments, can have been so
conspicuously effective in public service as has
Herbert Hoover, without exciting a wide pub-
lic interest in his personality, his fundamental
attitude toward his great problems and his
methods of solving them. This American, who
has had to live in the whole world and yet has
remained more truly and representatively
American than many of us who have never
crossed an ocean or national boundary line, is
an object of absorbing interest today among
the people of his native land. He is hardly
less interesting to millions in other lands. He
has carried the American point of view, the
American manner, the American qualities of
heart and mind to the far comers of the earth.
He has no less revealed again, as other great
Americans have done before him, these Ameri-
can attributes to America itself.

vii

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PREFACE

Many questions are being asked about the
life and experiences of this man before he en-
tered upon his outstanding public service and
about the details of his personal participation
in the work of the great wartime private and
governmental organizations under his direc-
tion.

This book is the attempt of an observer, as-
sociate and friend to tell, simply and straight-
forwardly, the personal story of the man and
his work up to the present,

V. K.

viu

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CONTENTS

CHAPTER PAGB

Preface vii

I. Children 1

II. The Child and Boy 10

III. The University 31

IV. The Young Mining Engineer 59

V. In China 80

VI. London and the Rest of the World .... 102

VII. The War: The Man and His First Service . . 124
VIII. The Relief of Belgium ; Organization and

Diplomatic Difficulties 140

IX. The Relief of Belgium; Scope and Methcm)s 165
X. American Food Administration; Principles,

Conservation, Control of Exports .... 199

XI. American Food Administration ; General
Regulation; Control of Wheat and Pork,

Organization in the States . . . . . . 225

XII. American Relief Administrahon 256

APPENDICES

Appendix I 283

Appendix II 291

v-^ -**Appendix III 311

Appendix IV 334

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HERBERT HOOVER

THE MAN AND HIS WORK
CHAPTER I

CHILDBEN

It was a great day for the children of War-
saw. It was a great day for their parents, too,
and for all the people and for the Polish Gov-
emment. But it was especially the great day
of the children. The man whose name they all
knew as well as their own, but whose face they
had never seen, and whose voice they had never
heard, had come to Warsaw. And they were
all to see him and he Was to see them.

He had not announced his coming, which
was a strange and upsetting thing for the gov-
ernment and military and city officials whose
business it is to arrange all the grand receptions
and the brilliant parades for visiting guests to
whom the Government and all the people wish
to do honor. And there was no man in the
world to whom the Poles could wish to do more

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:• • .:Lt

honor than to this uncrowned simple American
citizen whose name was for them the synonym
of savior.

For what was their new freedom worth if
they could not be alive to enjoy it? And their
being alive was to them all so plainly due to
the heart and brain and energy and achieve-
ment of this extraordinary American, who sat
always somewhere far away in Paris, and
pulled the strings that moved the diplomats
and the money and the ships and the men who
helped him manage the details, and converted
all of the activities of these men and all of these
things into food for Warsaw — and for all Po-
land. It was food that the people of Warsaw
and all Poland simply had to have to keep
alive, and it was food that they simply could
not get for themselves. They all knew that.
The name of another great American spelled
freedom for them; the name Herbert Hoover
spelled life to them.

So it was no wonder that the high officials
of the Polish Government and capital city
were in a state of great excitement when the
news suddenly came that the man whom they

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CHILDREN

had so often urged to come to Poland was
really moving swiftly on from Prague to
Warsaw.

Ever since soon after Armistice Day he had
sat in Paris, directing with unremitting eflFort
and absolute devotion the task of getting food
to the mouths of the himgry people of all the
newly liberated but helpless coimtries of East-
em Europe, and above all, to the children of
these countries, so that the coming generation,
on whom the future of these struggling peoples
depended, should be kept alive and strong.
And now he was preparing to return to his
own coimtry and his own children to take up
again the course of his life as a simple Ameri-
can citizen at home.

But before going he wanted to see for him-
self, if only by the most fleeting of glimpses,
that the people of Poland and Bohemia and
Servia and all the rest were really being fed.
And especially did he want to see that the chil-
dren were alive and strong.

When he came to Paris in November, 1918,
at the request of the President of the United
States, to organize the relief of the newly liber-

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HERBERT HOOVER

ated peoples of Eastern Europe, terrible tales
were brought to him of the suffering and whole-
sale deaths of the children of these ravaged
lands. And when those of us who went to
Poland for him in January, 1919, to find out
the exact condition and the actual food needs
of the twenty-five million freed people there,
made our report to him, a single impremedi-
tated sentence in this report seemed most to
catch his eyes and hold his attention. It did
more: it wetted his eyes and led to a special
concentration of his efforts on behalf of the suf-
fering children. This sentence was: "We see
very few children playing in ^he streets of
Warsaw.'* Why were they not playing? The
answer was simple and sufficient: The chil-
dren of Warsaw were not strong enough to
play in the streets. They could not nm ; many
could not walk; some could not even stand up.
Their weak little bodies were bones clothed
with skin, but not muscles. They simply could
not play.

So in all the excitement of the few hours pos-
sible to the citizens of Warsaw and the Grov-
emment officials of Poland to make hiu^ried

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CHILDREN

preparation to honor their guest and show him
their gratitude, one thing they decided to do,
which was the best thing for the happiness of
their guest they could possibly have done.
They decided to show him that the children of
Warsaw could now walk I

So seventy thousand boys and girls were
simamoned hastily from the schools. They
came with the very tin cups and pannikins
from which they had just had their special
meal of the day, served at noon in all the
schools and special children's canteens, thanks
to the charity of America, as organized and
directed by Hoover, and they carried their lit-
tle paper napkins, stamped with the flag of
the United States, which they could wave over
their heads. And on an old race-track of War-
saw, these thousands of restored children
marched from mid-afternoon till dark in
happy, never-ending files past the grand stand
where sat the man who had saved them, sur-
roimded by the heads of Government and the
notables of Warsaw.

They marched and marched and cheered and
cheered, and waved their little pans and cups

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HERBERT HOOVER

and napkins. And all went by as decorously
aiid in as orderly a fashion as many thousands
of happy cheering children could be expected
to, until suddenly from the grass an astonished
rabbit leaped out and started down the track.
And then five thousand of these children broke
from the ranks and dashed madly after him,
shouting and laughing. And they caught him
and brought him in triiraiph as a gift to their
guest. But they were astonished to see as they
gave him their gift, that this great strong man
did just what you or I or any other human sort
of human being could not have helped doing
under like circiunstances. They saw him cry.
And they would not have imderstood, if he
had tried to explain to them that he cried be-
cause they had proved to him that they could
run and play. So he did not try. But the
children of Warsaw had no need to be sorry
for him. For he cried because he was glad.

But the children of Warsaw were not the
only children of Poland that Hoover was in-
terested in and wanted to see. His Polish fam-
ily was a large and scattered one; there were
nearly a million children in it altogether, and

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CHn.DREN

some of them were in Lodz and some in Cra-
cow and others in Brest-Litovsk and Bielostok
and even in towns far out on the Eastern fron-
tier near the Polish-Bolshevist fighting lines.
But of coiu'se he could not visit all of them,
and much less could he hope to visit all the
rest of his whole family in Eastern Ettfope.
For while an especially large part of it was in
Poland, other parts were in Finland, Esthonia,
Latvia and Lithuania, and some of it was in
Czecho-Slovakia and Austria, and other parts
were in Hungary, Roumania, and Jugo-Slavia.
Altogether this large and diverse family of Mr.
Hoover's in Eastern Europe niraibered at least
two and a half million himgry children. And
it only asked for his permission to be still
larger. For at least a million more babies and
boys and girls thought they were unfairly ex-
cluded from it, because they were sure that
they were poor and weak and hungry enough
to be admitted, and being very himgry, and not
being able to get enough food any other way,
was the test of admission to Mr. Hoover's
family.

When the American Relief Administration,
7

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HERBERT HOOVER

which was the organization called into being
under Hoover's direction in response to Presi-
dent Wilson's appeal to Congress soon after
the armistice, saw that its general assistance
to the new nations could probably be dispensed
with by the end of the summer of 1919, the
director realized that some special help for the
children would still be needed. The task of
seeing that the underfed and weak children in
all these coimtries of Eastern Europe, extend-
ing from the Baltic to the Black Sea, received
their supplementary daily meals of specially fit
and specially prepared food, could not be sud-
denly dropped by the American workers.
There could be no confidence that the still un-
stable and struggling governments would be
able to carry it on successfully. But with the
abolition of the blockade and the incoming of
the year's harvest, and with the growing pos-
sibility of adequate financial help through gov-
ernment and bank loans, the various new na-
tions of Eastern Europe could be expected to
arrange for an adequate general supply of
food for themselves without fiuiher assist-
ance from the American Relief Administration.

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CHILDREN

Just what the nature and methods of thisr
assistance were, and how the one hundred mil-
lion dollars put into the hands of the Relief
Administration by Congress were made to
serve as the basis for the purchase and distri-
bution to the himgry countries of over seven
hundred million dollars' worth of food, with
the final return of almost all of the original
hundred million to the United States Govern-
ment (if not in actual cash, at least in the form
of government obligations), will be told in a
later chapter. Also how it was arranged, with-
out calling on the United States Government
for fiu'ther advances, that the feeding of the
millions of himgry children of Eastern Europe
could go on as it is now actually going on every
day under Hoover's direction, until the time
arrives, some time this summer, when it can be
wholly taken over by the new governments.

But just now I want to tell another story.

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CHAPTER II

THE CHILD AND BOY

The account of Mr. Hoover's sympathetic
interest in the child sufferers from the Great
War, and of his active and effective work o^i
their behalf, makes one wonder about his own
childhood. He is not so old that his childhood
days could have been darkled by the one wtjr
which did mean suffering to many American
children, especially those of the South. He
was not bom in the South, nor of parents actu-
ally afflicted by poverty, and did not spend his
early days in any of the comparatively few
places in America, such as the congested great
city quarters and industrial agglomerations of
poor and ignorant foreign working-people,
where real child distress is common; so he cer-
tainly did not, as a growing child, have his ears
filled with tales of child suffering, or with the
actual crying of himgry children.

There was one outstanding fact, however,
10

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THE CHILD AND BOY

in his relations as a child to the world and to
the people most closely about him, which may
have had its influence in making him especially
susceptible to the sight of child misfortime.
This is the fact that he, like many of his later
wards in Europe, was orphaned at an early
age. But he was by no means a neglected or-
phan. So I hardly think that his own per-
sonal experience as an orphan is a sufficient ex-
planation of the passionate interest in the spe-
cial fate of the children, which he displayed
from the beginning of the war to its end.

Nor can the explanation lie in the coldly rea-
soned conclusion that the most valuable relief
to a people so stricken by catastrophe that its
very existence as a human group is threatened,
is to let whatever mortality is unavoidable fall
chiefly to the old and the adtdt infirm for the
sake of saving the next generation on which
alone the future existence of the group de-
pends. This actual fact Hoover always
clearly saw; but the thing that those close to
him saw quite as clearly was that this alone
accounted for but a small part of his intensive
attention to the children.

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THE CHILD AND BOY

It is, then, neither any sad experience in his
own life, nor any sociologie or biologic under-
standing of the hard facts of human existence
and racial persistence, that does much to ex-
plain his particular devotion to the health and
comfort of the millions of suffering children in
Europe. The explanation Ues simply, although
mysteriously, in his own personality. I say
mysteriously, for, despite all the wonderful new
knowledge of heredity that we have gained
since the beginning of the twentieth century,
the way by which any of us comes to be just
the sort of man he is is still mostly mystery.
Herbert Hoover is simply a kind of man who,
when brought by circumstances face to face
with the distress of a people, is especially
deeply touched by the distress of the children,
and is impelled by this to use all of his intel-
ligence and energy to relieve this distress.
What we can know of his inheritance and early
environment may indeed reveal a little some-
thing of why he is this kind of man. But it
certainly will not reveal the whole explanation.

Herbert Hoover, or, to give him for once
his full name, Herbert Clark Hoover, was bom

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THE CHILD AND BOY

on August 10, 1874, in a small Quaker com-
mimity of Iowa which composed, at the time
of his birth, most of the village of West Branch
in that state. That is, he usually says that he
was bom on August 10, but sometimes he says
that this important day was August 11. He
seems to slide his birthday back and forth to
suit the convenience of his family when they
wish to celebrate it. He does this on the basis
of the fact that when, in the midst of the gen-
eral family excitement in the middle of the
night of August 10-11, one of the busy Quaker
aunts present bethought herself, for the sake
of getting things straight in the family Bible,
to say: "Oh, doctor, just how long ago was
it that baby was born?" she got the following
answer, "Just as near an hour ago as I can
guess it.'' Thereupon she looked at the clock
on the wall, and the doctor looked at his
watch, and both f oimd it exactly one o'clock of
an important new morning!

Herbert's Quaker father, Jesse Clark
Hoover, died in 1880, and his Quaker mother,
Hulda Minthom, in 1884. The father had
had the simple education of a small Quaker

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HERBERT HOOVER

college and was, at the time of Herbert's birth,
the "village blacksmith," to give him the con-
venient title used by the town and comitry
people about. But really he was of that am-
bitious type of blacksmith, not imcommon in
the Middle West, whose shop not only does
the repairing of the farm machines and house-
hold appliances, but manufactures various
homely metal things, and does a little selling
of agricultural implements on the side. Jesse
Hoover's mind was rather full of ideas about
possible "improvements" on the madiines he
repaired and sold. And his two sons, Her-
bert and Theodore, and Herbert's two sons,
Herbert, Jr., and Allan, are all rather given
to the same "inventiveness" about the home.

Hulda Randall Minthom Hoover, Her-
bert's mother, was a woman of unusual
mental gifts. After her husband's death
she gave much attention to church work,
and became a recognized "preacher" at
Quaker meetings. In this capacity she re-
vealed so much power of expression and ex-
hortation that she was in much demand. Her
death, in 1884, came from typhoid fever.

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THE CHILD AND BOY

Those ti^o knew her speak of her "personal-
ity.** They say that she had color and attract-
ireness, although she was unusually shy and
reserved. One can say exactly the same things
of her son Herbert.

The immediate Hoover ancestry is Quaker.
The more remote is Quaker mixed with Dutch
and French Huguenot. The Dutch name was
spelled with an e instead of the second o. All
of Herbert's grandparents were Quakers, and
the Quaker records run back a long time. One
of the family branches nms into Canada, with
the story of a migration there of a group of
refugees from the American colonies during
the Revolution. These emigrants came from
prosperous farms in Pennsylvania, but while
they wanted to be free from England's control,
they could not, as Quakers, agree to fight for
this freedom. So as the neighbors were inclined
to be a little "unpleasant" about this, and as
Canada was just then offering free farms to
colonists, they packed up their movables and
trekked north.

Another Canadian branch, French Hugue-
not in origin, has traditions of hiuried removals

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HERBERT HOOVER

from France into Holland before St. Bar-
tholomew's Night, and of later escapes into
the same coimtry. But all finally decided that
Europe anywhere was impossible, and haice
they determined on a wholesale emigration to
Canada. Here by chance they settled down
side by side with the little Quaker group which
had come from Pennsylvania. Close associa-
tion and intermarrying resulted in the Quak-
erizing of the European Huguenots — ^their be-
liefs were essentially similar, anyway — so in
time all the descendants of this double Canad-
ian line were Quakers.

There were two other children in Jesse and
Hulda Hoover's family: one a boy, Theodore,
three and a half years older than Herbert, and
the other a girl, Mary, who was very much
yoimger. Theodore, like his younger brother,
became a mining engineer, and after a dozen
years of professional and business experience
with mines all over the world — ^part of the time
in connection with mining interests directed
by his brother — is now the head of the gradu-
ate department of mining engineering in Stan-
ford University.

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THE CHILD AND BOY

After the father's and mother's death, the
three Hoover orphans came under the kindly
care of various Quaker aunts and uncles, and
especially at first of Grandmother Minthom.
This good grandmother took special charge of
little Mary, and pretty soon carried her with
her out to Oregon, where she had a son and
daughter living/ There had been a little prop-
erty left when the father died, enough to pro-
vide a very slender income for each child. But
if the dollars were few the kind relatives were
not, and the little Hoovers never suflFered from
himger.

These relatives were not limited to Iowa, and
the boy Herbert soon found himself in a new
and strange environment, surrounded by a dif-
ferent race of himian beings, whose red-brown
skin and fantastic trappings greatly excited
his boyish wonder and imagination. For he
was sent to live with his Uncle Laban Miles,
U. S. Government Indian Agent for the Osage
tribe in the Indian Territory, who was one of
the many Quakers who had dedicated their
lives to the cause of the Indians at that time.
Here Herbert spent a happy six or eight

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HERBERT HOOVER

months, playing with some little cousins and
learning to know the original Americans. For
when other pastimes palled there were always
the strange and wonderful red people to watch
and wonder about.

But his life among the original Americans
was interrupted by the solicitous aunts and
uncles, who, realizing that an abundance of
barbarians and a paucity of schools might not
be the best of surroundings for a child coming
to its first years of understanding, decided on
bringing him back into a more civilized and
Quakerish environment; at least one less
marked by tomahawks, bows and arrows, and
other tangible suggestions of a most un-
Quakerish manner of life.

So he was sent back to lowa^ where he lived
for two very happy years in the home of Uncle
Allan Hoover. To this uncle, and to his wife.
Aunt Millie, the impressionable boy became
strongly attached. And there were some en-
ergetic young cousins always on hand to play
with. The older brother Theodore, or T^d, was
living at this time with another uncle, a pros-
perous Iowa farmer, also much loved by both

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THE CHILD AND BOY

of the boys. He lived near enough to permit
frequent playings together of the two, and on
another farm, with Grandmother Minthom,
was still the baby sister Mary, who was, how-
ever, too young to be much of a playmate for
the brothers- Indeed, the coimtry all aroimd
bristled with the kindly imcles and aunts and
other relatives and playmates, all interested in
making life comfortable and happy for the
little orphans.

There was also an especially attractive lit-
tle black-eyed girl, Mildred Brook, who lived
on a near-by farm, who later went to the same
Quaker academy at Oskaloosa as Theodore,
and is now Mrs. Theodore Hoover. In those
days she was known as "Mildred of the berry-
patches,'* as all the children for miles around
associated her in their minds with the luxiu'iant
vines on the farm of her Uncle Bransome with
whom she lived. Her home was the children's
Mecca in the berry season.

Herbert Hoover's memories of those days
are filled with lively incidents and boyish farm
adventiure. There was the yoimg calf, mutual
property of himself and a cousin of like age,

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HERBERT HOOVER

which was fitted out with a boy-made harness
and trained to work, eventually getting out
of hand in a com field and dragging the single-
shovel cultivator wildly across and along rows
of tender growing grain. Later the calf was
restored to favor when it was triumphantly at-
tached to a boy-made sorghum mill, which
actually worked, and pressed out the sweet
juice from the sorghima cane.

Winter had its special joys of skates and
sled; spring came with maple-sugaring, and
simmier with its long days filled with a thou-
sand enterprises. There were fish in the creek
which you might catch if you could sit still
long enough, without too violent wiggling of
the hook when the float gave its first faint in-
dications of a bite. It was two miles to school,
and most of the time the children had to walk.
But that was only good for them, and there
was, of coiu-se, a good deal of chiu-chgoing and
daily family prayers, but there were always
convenient laps for tired little heads — ^being in
chiu-ch was the necessary thing, not being
awake in cTiiu-ch.

It was a joyous and wholesome two years,
20

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THE CHILD AND BOY

the kind that thousands of JMississippi Valley
farms have given to hundreds of thousands of
American little boys ; the kind that gives them
a good start in health and happiness towards
a sturdy and simple adolescent life. But the
time had come for young Herbert to learn
new siu-roundings. For some reason, appar-
ently not clearly remembered now, it was de-
cided by the consulting uncles and aunts that
young Herbert should go to Oregon, and join
the Hoover and Minthom relatives there.
Perhaps, even probably, it was because of the
presumably superior educational advantages
of Oregon in the existence of the Newberg
Pacific Academy that led to the decision. We
may imagine that Herbert uttered no aflSrma-
tive vote in the conclave that decided on his
departiu'e from the Iowa farm, and when he
once got out to the superior place, he was less
than ever in favor of the proceeding. But the
conscientious imcles and aimts were inexorable
as the Fates.

They meant to be the kindest of Fates, of
course. They knew that they knew so much
better than the little boy what was best for

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HERBERT HOOVER

him. And probably they did. But this little
pawn on the chessboard of life, moved about
with ever so excellent intention by firm and
confident hands, must have thought sometimes
that he would have liked to have some little
part in deciding these moves. But if one starts
as pawn, one must find the way as pawn clear
across the board to the king row before one can
come to the higher estate of the nobler pieces.
The actual going from Iowa to far-away
Oregon was not so unbearable, because of the
excitement of the tremendous journey and the
actual fun of it. It was not made, to be sure,
as Herbert would have preferred it, in a long
train of picturesque prairie schooners, drawn
up in a circle each night to repel attacking In-
dians, as his storybooks described all trans*
continental journeys; but in an overfull tour-
ist-car on the railroad. Herbert's most vivid
memories of the week's joiu-ney are of the won-
derful lunch baskets and boxes filled witii
fried chicken, boiled hams, roast meats, count-
less pies and layer-cakes, caraway-seed cookies,
and great red apples. Herbert Hoover had no
food troubles in those days!

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THE CHILD AND BOY

Arrived in Oregon he found himself in the
family of Uncle John Minthom, his mother's
brother, a comitry doctor of Newberg, and the
principal of the superior educational institu-
tion. Uncle John did not live on a farm, but on
the edge of a small town, which was a mistake,
according to Herbert's way of looking at it.
And the Pacific Academy of Newberg, Ore-
gon, could not be compared in interest with
the district village school of West Branch,
Iowa,

After two or three years of life with Dr.
John, young Herbert was handed over to the
care of a Grandfather Miles, for Dr. John de-
cided to give up coimtry doctoring in order
to go into the land business "down in Salem,"
the capital city. Therefore, as little Herbert's
schooling in the academy which he was attend-
ing all the time he was living with Dr. John,
could not be interrupted, he was placed in the
home of this Grandfather Miles on a farm just
on the edge of the academy town.

Herbert's life with Grandfather Miles does
not seem to have been a very happy one, for
the old gentleman did not believe in spoiling

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HERBERT HOOVER

little boys by too much kindness. There were
many chores to do before and after school, and
little time for playing. And the chores just
had to be done, and not be forgotten as they
sometimes were. Probably this strictness of
discipline was a good thing for the small boy.
But, like other small boys, he did not like it.
So, also, like many other small boys, he decided
to nm away.

Running away may not be the exclusive pre-
rogative of young Americans, but some way
it is hard for me to picture Eiu-opean boys of
fourteen going oflF on their own. And yet per-
haps they do. At any rate it is such a favorite
procediu-e with us that hardly one of us — I
mean by us, American males — ^has not had a
try at it or connived at some neighbor's son
trying it. My own experience was only that
of a conniver. A schoolmate of thirteen, whose
father believed in a more vigorous method of
correcting wayward sons than my father did,
ran away from his house to as far as our house.
There my brother and I secreted him in a
clothes-closet for the nearly three hours of
freedom that he enjoyed in half -smothered

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THE CHILD AND BOY

state. Then the stem father came over, dis-
covered him and haled him away to proper
discipline. I shall never forget the howls of
the captiired fugitive, nor the triimaphant and
accusing remark to us, shouted by the terrible
capturer as he dragged off his victim: "Now
ye see what liars ye are!" For, of course, we
had done our impotent best to throw the hun-
ter off the track. It was several days before I
could lie again without a violent trembling.

But Herbert Hoover ran away for keeps.
He did not run away to ship before the mast
or to kill Indians. Nor did he run very far,
only to Portland and to Salem, which his geog-
raphy had already taught him were the prin-
cipal city and capital, respectively, of the state
of Oregon. And he ran away with the full
knowledge and even tolerance of his relatives.
But he went away to be independent, and to
fit himself for the special kind of college to
which he had already decided to go. In Salem
he lived again with his Uncle John, helping in
the real estate business, but in Portland he
lived entirely on his own.

That part of his reason for nmning away
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HERBERT HOOTER

wbidi WM coanected with preparing for a coir
Itg^ ot his own dioonng seems to have eome
about because ot a difference of opinion tiiat
had arisen between young Herbert and his
Quaker relatives with regard to tiie future
course ot his education* They had taken it
quite as a matter of course tiiat f nun tiie lit*
tie Quaker academy in Newberg he would go
to one of the reputable Quaker colleges of the
country. But Herbert had come to a different
idea about this matter of further education,
and, as is characteristic of him, this idea had
led to a decision, and the decision was on the
rapid way to lead to action. In other words,
Herbert had made up his mind that he wanted
to study science, and for that purpose wanted
to fit himself for and go to a modem scientific
imiversity. Also, he wanted to be, just as soon
as he possibly could, on an independent finan-
cial footing. He probably did not express these
wishes, in his boy's vocabulary, by any such
large mouthful of phrases; he probably said
to himself, "I want to earn my own living, and
go to a university where I can learn science."
Just what led him to the decision about the
26

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THE CHILD AND BOY

modem university and science is not easy for
the grown-up Herbert Hoover of to-day to
tell. But he is pretty sure that a large part of
this determination came from the casual visit
of a man whom he had never seen before and
has never seen or heard of since, but who was
an old friend of his father.

This man, on his way through the town to
look at a mine he owned somewhere in eastern
Oregon, dropped oflF at Newberg so that he
might see the little son of his Iowa friend. He
was a "mining man,'* and, from the impression
that Mr. Hoover still has of him, probably a
mining engineer. He stayed at the local hotel
for two or three days, and saw what he could
of yoimg Herbert between school-hoiu-s and
chore-times. His conversation was apparently
mostly about the diflFerence in the work and
achievements in the world of the man who had
a profession and the one who had not. It was
illustrated, because the speaker was a miner,
by examples in the field of mining. The talk
also was much about engineering in general
and about just wh^t training it was necessary
for a boy to have in order to become a good

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HERBERT HOOTER

akfpDCCTf with mudi emphasis put on Ae part
in tiiis training ndiidi was to be got from a uni-
rersitjr. He also explained the difference be-
tween a miiYersity and a smaU academy-col-
lege.

And then the man went on to his mine. He
invited the fascinated boy to go with him for
a little visit, but permission for this was
not obtained. The trails of this man and Her-
bert Hoover have never touched again, and
yet this stray mining engineer, whose name,
even, we do not know, almost certainly was
more responsible than any other external in-
fluence in determining Hoover's later educa-
tion and adopted profession.

In Portland Herbert got a job in a real es-
tate office as useful boy-of -all-work, including
particularly the driving of prospective pur-
chasers about to see various alluring corner lots
in town and inviting farmsteads in the siu*-
rounding cotmtry. For his work he received
sufficient wages to pay for all of his very mod-
*»«* living. He had hoped to go to the high
ol to prepare himself for college, but found
he could not do this and earn his full
28

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THE CHILD AND BOY

wages at the same time. So as the wages were
a first necessity, he gave up his high-school
plans and devoted himself to study at nights
and odd hours of the day. He discovered a
little back room in the real-estate oflBce half
filled with old boxes and bags, of which no one
else seemed to be aware, and this he fitted up
with a bed, a little table and a lamp, and made
of it, with a boy's enthusiasm — especially the
enthusiasm of a boy who had known Indians —
a secret cave in which he lived in a mysterious
and exciting way. He slipped out to little
restam-ants and cheap boarding-places for his
meals.

He remembers once standing fascinated be-
fore a sign that read: "Table d'hote, 75 cents";
but after thinking twice of indulging in a single
great eating orgy, he decided that no himian
stomach, much less his own small one, could
possibly hold all the food that seventy-five
cents would pay for, and that therefore he
could not get all of his money's worth. So he
went on to some fairer bargain.

There was a bank- vault just across the alley
from his secret back room in the real estate

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HERBERT HOOVER

office, and many a night did young Herbert lie
awake in his cave hearing his imaginary bank-
robbers mining their way into the vault and
escaping with much rich treasure. But mostly
young Herbert studied in that secret cave of
hiSf and that he studied hard and to good pur-
pose is proved by the fact that in little more
than two years he felt himself ready to attempt
the entrance examinations for college.

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CHAPTER III

THE XJNIVEBSITY

Fob some time the newspapers had been full
of accounts of the founding and approaching
opening of Stanford University at Palo Alto,
California. Soon after Leland Stanford, Jr.,
the only child of Senator and Mrs. Leland
Stanford, died in Rome in 1884, the Stanfords
announced their intention to found and endow
with their great wealth a new university in
California. The romantic character of the
founding and the picturesque setting of the
new university in the middle of a great ranch
on the shores of lower San Francisco Bay, with
the foothills of the Santa Cruz Mountains ris-
ing from its very campus, its generous pro-
vision for students unable to meet the expenses
of the older institutions of the East, and the
radical academic innovations and freedom of
selection of studies decided on by the Stanfords
and David Starr Jordan, the eminent scientific

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HERBERT HOOVER

man selected to be the first president of the
new university — all this, together with the evi-
dent strong leaning of the institution toward
science, as revealed by the character of the
president, faculty and curriculum, combined
to assure young Hoover that this was the
modern scientific university of his dream, just
made to order for him. It was exactly the
place where he could become a mining engineer
like the wonderful man he had always remem-
bered.

So when it was announced in the Portland
papers that a professor from Stanford would
visit the city in the early simamer of 1891, to
hold entrance examinations for the university,
which was to open in the autumn, Herbert
decided to try the examinations. But when
he came to compare thoughtfully his store of
knowledge with the published requirements he
would have to meet, he foimd that his self-
preparation had been rather one-sided. For
in this preparation he had followed his inclina-
tions more than the prescribed schedules of
college entrance requirements. Why should
one waste a lot of time, he had thought, and be

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THE XJNIVERSITY

bored during the wasting, by studying gram-
mar if one could abeady talk intelligibly to
people? And why should one not revel in
complicated problems of figures and geometri-
cal designs that really took some hard thinking
to work out, if hard thinking was just what
one liked to do?

So, much to his distress he f oimd out, as the
examinations went on, that he was decidedly
unprepared in some of the required lines such
as grammar, rhetoric, etc. And even in mathe-
matics, his favorite study and the one in which
he made his best showing, he had not been able
to cover, in his limited time for study, the
whole ground required for college entrance.
He seemed doomed to be refused the coveted
certificate of admission.

But the Fates worked for him. In the first
place. Professor Swain, the examining profes-
sor — ^now president of Swarthmore College —
was the head of Stanford's department of
mathematics. In the second place, he was a
Quaker, and a man who liked the right sort of
boys. And so a candidate who was a little
weak in the languages, but was strong in arith-

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HERBERT HOOVER

metic and geometry — and was a brave Quaker
boy, besides — ^was not to be too summarily
turned down.

This kind and wise examiner has described
to me, recently, how he was first attracted to
the young Quaker in the group of candidates
before him by his evident strength of will. "I
observed," said President Swain, "that he put
his teeth together with great decision, and his
whole face and posture showed his determina-
tion to pass the examination at any cost. He
was evidently summoning every pound of en^
ergyiie possessed to answer correctly the ques-
tions before him. I was naturally interested
in him. On inquiry I learned that he had stud-
ied only two books of Plane Geometry, and
was trying to solve an original problem based
on the fourth book. While he was unable to
do this, he did much better; for the intelligence
and superior will he revealed in the attempt
convinced me that su^^h a boy needed only to
be given a chance. So although he could not
pass all of the tests, I told him to come to my
rooms at the hotel after the examinations, as
I would like to talk with him. He came

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THE UNIVERSITY

promptly at the appointed hour with a friend
of his, the son of a banker in Salem, Oregon.
The two boys invited me and Mrs. Swain to
stop at Salem to visit them, which we did. I
learned there that Herbert Hoover, for that
was the boy's name, was an industrious,
thoughtful, ambitious boy earning his own liv-
ing while he studied."

All this was enough for the wise teacher.
And an arrangement was mutually agreed on
between examiner and examined to the eflPect
that if yoimg Hoover would work diligently
for the rest of the simimer on the literary neces-
sities of the situation, and come on early to
Stanford for a little special coaching, he might
consider his probabilities for admission to the
university so high as to be reckoned a sure
thing.

Well, it all turned out as desired by both
candidate and examiner. And Herbert Hoover
was enrolled the following October among the
first students, the "pioneer class" of Stanford
University, and was actually the first Stanford
student to inhabit the beautiful great new dor-
mitory called Encina Hall. It was not only

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HERBERT HOOVER

his university of dreams come true, but it was
really to be the university of his graduation, the
alma mater of a boy without any other mother.
And it was the university of which he was to
become, in later successful years, a patron and
trustee, Stanford did much for Herbert
Hoover; but so has he done much for Stan-
ford.

Any imiversity means many things, for all
their lives, to those who have come timidly and
wonderingly to its doors as boys and girls,
and have gone out on that final day of happy
reward and tearful good-byes as men and
women eager to try themselves against the
world outside of sheltered school-rooms. And
most of these things are to most persons who
have known them, things of pleasant and loving
memory.

Stanford is like any other imiversity in this
relation to its graduates. But there seems to
be something unusually strong and yet at the
same time imusually intangible in the ties that
bind its former students to it. Perhaps the
explanation lies as much in the special character
of its students, at least its pioneer ones, as in

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THE UNIVERSITY

the special character of the institution itself.
The students who came to Stanford in its earl-
ier years came because it was different from
other colleges, aijdT)ecause they did this it is
likely that they themselves were different from
other students. Like the restless, seeking pio-
neers that came over the desert and mountains
to the Pacific Coast to find a different life
from that of worn tradition and old ways, their
descendants and the later coming youth, who
had mixed with them and been infected by
their seeking spirit, flocked to this institution
that oflFered a diflPerent kind of college atmo-
sphere.

Its low-arcaded quadrangle of mission build-
ings of yellow stone and heavy red tiles, nest-
ling imder high hills that nm back to moun-
tains, siUTOimded by wide grain fields flecked
with rounded live-oaks and tall strange euca-
lyptus trees, and neighbored by great bams
and well-kept paddocks and exercising tracks
in which sleek trotting horses of famous Palo
Alto breeding lounged or trained, was a
strange new setting for studying Greek and
Latin and mathematics and science.

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HERBERT HOOVER

'^Die Luft der Freiheit wehf is the Stanford
motto ; and there was truly no more likely place
for the winds of freedom to blow than over
and through this college on a California ranch.
And its founders did well to find for its first
head a man than whom no other American
scholar had given clearer indications of being
anxious to break with clogging scholastic tra-
dition.

The imiversity itself, so tenderly conceived
as a memorial to a boy lost to his parents, and
so generously established as an opportunity
for other boys, some of whom, like the hero of
our story, might have had their parents lost
to them, is an almost unique example of a great
educational institution maintained by the f or-
time of a single family. All of the Stanford
millions are returned today to the country in
which they were accumulated in the form
of a great endowment and of the beautiful
halls in whidi thousands of students have
found a free training for independent ex-
istence and right citizenship. These students
wear the Stanford cardinal as a red badge of
obligation, not anarchy. No other college in

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THE UNIVERSITY

the country had more of its sons and daughters,
in proportion to their total number, devoting
themselves to their eoimtry's service during the
Great War. If Herbert Hoover was the most
distinguished of the serving sons of Stanford
he was not more eager and devoted than many
others.

But we leave Our Hero waiting too long
upon the threshold of his dream university
come true. It had been agreed, you remember,
between young Hoover and his friendly ex-
aminer in Portland that the candidate for ad-
mission should come to the Stanford Farm —
which is the students' name for the campus,
and which literally described it in those begin-
ning days — ^before the time of the opening of
the university to be coached in the two or
three studies in which his preparation was
deficient.

So he came down from the North a month
before the annoimced time for opening, a lone-
some boy without any friends at Stanford ex-
cept the good Quaker professor of mathe-
matics, and with all of his savings from the
"real estate business" tucked away in an inside

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HERBERT HOOVER

pocket. They amounted in grand total to
about two hundred dollars.

It was less simple getting to Stanford in
those fost days than it is now. There was not
even a beginning then of the beautiful thriving
town of Palo Alto that stands today with con-
venient railway station^ just at the entrance to
the long palm-lined avenue that runs straight
up to the main imiversity quadrangle. It was
all grain field then, part of the great Hopkins
estate, where now the college town welcomes
the annually incoming Freshmen, and oflFers
them convenient lodging places of all grades
of comfort and quick trams and motor busses
to the imiversity.

Young Hoover had to get off at Menlo
Park, the station for a few great country
houses of California railway and bonanza
kings, which offered no welcome for small boys
with a few saved dollars in their inside pockets.
He had to find a casual hackman to Carry him
and his bag and trunk to the university a
couple of miles away. But even there he f oimd
no place yet ready to house him. So someone
advised him to go to Adelanta Villa, a mile or

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THE UNIVERSITY

more back from the imiversity, in the hills,
where a nimiber of the early arrivals among
the men of the new faculty were living. And
there he did go, and f omid a warm and simple
welcome and hospitality. He was soon en-
sconced in the old mansion and doing odd jobs
about the establishment to help pay for his
board and lodging.

Between jobs he was feverishly at work on
the finishing touches for his final entrance tests,
and probably quite as feverishly worrying
about them. He felt pretty safe on every-
thing but the requirements in English com-
position. As a matter of fact, when he
came to that fearful test he ignominiously
failed in it, and, indeed, did not finally get
the required credit in it until nearly ready
to graduate I But he was passed in enough of
the entrance requirements to be given Fresh-
man standing, "conditioned in English,'* a
phrase not unfamiliar to other college stu-
dents. He had, however, added something to
his score by a Hooverian tour de force.

Noting that a credit was oflFered in physi-
ology, about which he knew nothing techni-

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HERBERT HOOVER

cally, he reasoned that as everyone, of course,
knew abeady a little something about his in-
sides and how they worked, one ought to be able
to find out a little more from some textbook,
and that the two littles might make enough for
passing piu*poses. Thereupon with that
prompt and positive reaction to stimulus which
has been conspicuously characteristic of him
all his life, he got a book, read it hard all of
the day and night before the examination — ^and
passed in physiology I

The story of Herbert Hoover's college life
reveals no startling featiu'es to distinguish it
from the college careers of other thousands of
boys, endowed with intelligence, energy, and
ambition, but not with money, and hence forced
to earn their living as they went along. Nev-
ertheless it does reveal many of the ffiflifr ^^q^-
acteristics that we know so well today. For
he did things all through those f oiu* years in
the same way that he does them today,
promptly, positively, and quietly. They were
mostly already done before it was generally
recognized that he was doing them.

His two hundred dollars could not last long
42

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THE UNIVERSITY

even in a college of no tuition fees and an un-
usually simple student life. He had to earn
his way all the time, and he earned it by hard
work, directed, however, by good brains. Mimy
a story, most interesting but, imfortunately,
mostly imtrue, has been told of his various ex-
pedients to earn the money necessary for his
board and lodging, clothes, and books. Not a
few of these stress his expertness as waiter in
student dining-rooms. Undoubtedly he would
have been an expert waiter if he had been a
waiter at all. But he was not. A famous San
Francisco chef has often been quoted in inter-
esting detail as to the "hash-slinging" clever-
ness of the future American food controller in
the dining-room which this chef managed — ^by
the way, just after Hoover left college — ^in the
great JStanford dormitory in those early days.
But, though interesting, these details are
m3i;hical. As are also the accounts of the care
he took of professorial gardens, although that
would have been an excellent substitute for
the outdoor exercise and play which he foimd
little time for in college except in geological
field excursions and camps. Nor was he ever

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HERBERT HOOVER

nurse to the professorial babies, which ako has
been often placed to his credit by imaginative
story-tellers.

For at the very beginning of his college life
Herbert Hoover and another distinguished son
of Stanford, known to the early students as
Rex Wilbur and to the present ones as Prex
Wilbiu* — for he is now the university's presi-
dent — ^put their heads together and decided
that if they had any brains at all in those heads
they would make them count in this little mat-
ter of earning their way through coUege. And
both of them did.

In most of the things that Herbert Hoover
did as a college boy to earn his needed money
he revealed an imusual faculty foi: "organiz-
ing" and "administering" which is precisely a
faculty that as a man he has revealed to the
world in highest degree. He organized, at
some profit to himself, the system of collecting
and distributing the laundry of the college boys
which had been done casually and imsatistac-
torily by various San Jose and San Francisco
establishments. He acted also as impresario,
at a modest commission, for various lecturers

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THE XJNIVERSITY

and musicians^ developing an arrangement for
bringing visiting stars from San Francisco to
the near-by imiversity.

More important in its permanent influence
on student activities was his work in reorgan-
izing the system of conducting general student
body affairs, especially the financial side of
these affairs. In his Senior year he had been
made treasurer of the student body and on tak-
ing oflSce found little treasure and much con-
fusion. Each of the many student activities
had its own separate being, its own officers and
own fimds — or debts — and a dangerous free-
dom from general student control. Hoover
worked out a system by which all control was
vested in the officers of the general student
body, and all funds passed into and out of a
general treasury. The Hoover system of stu-
dent affairs management prevails, in its essen-
tial features, in the imiversity today.

In later years, as trustee of the imiversity,
he was the initiating figure in reorganizing the
handling of all the institution's many million
dollars worth of properties, and so his organ-
izing genius is evidenced today at Stanford

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HERBERT HOOVER

both in the management of student activities
and in the handling of the financial affairs of
the whole imiversity.

But the work that he did in his student days
that paid him best, because it brought him more
than money, was that which he did partly for,
and partly at the recomomendation of his "ma-
jor" professor. Dr. John Casper Branner, a
great geologist and remarkable developer pf
geological students.

Dr. Branner has been one of Stanford's
greatest assets from the day of its opening in
all his successive capacities as professor, vice-
president, and president, and he still wields a
benign influence on the institution as resident
professor and president emeritus. It was the
particular good fortime of young Hoover to
find that his early decision to become a mining
engineer, like the wonderful man who had vis-
ited him in Newberg, led him, when he came
to the imiversity, into the class-rooms and lab-
oratories of this kind and discerning scholar.
Dr. Branner quickly discovered "good ma-
terial,'' something that he was always looking
for, in this industrious, intelligent, and ambi-

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THE UNIVERSITY

tious Quaker boy; and Herbert Hoover found
in his major professor not only a teacher but
a friend, who, in both relations, has had a great
influence, all for the best, in his life. It is
an interesting illumination of the democracy
of American education to note that while the
professor became the university's president the
student became one of its trustees.

The first money-earning work that student
Hoover did for Dr. Branner, except for vari-
ous little jobs about the laboratory or office,
was a summer's work on a large topographic
model of Arkansas which that state was hav-
ing prepared by Dr. Branner after a new
method devised by him. Part of this siunmer
was spent in the field in Arkansas and the rest
of it wrestling with the model in the basement
of the professor's house.

Two siunmers were spent in work with the
U. S. Geological Survey in the California
Sierras around Lake Tahoe and the American
River under Waldemar Lindgren, one of the
greatest of American scientific mining engin-
eers. This work was on the relations of the
famous Sierra placer gold deposits to the

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HERBERT HOOVER

original gold-bearing veins and lodes, and re-
sulted in tracing those comparatively recent
placers back to the old mountain slopes and
valleys. It was a fascinating problem success-
fully carried through. The young geologist's
association with Lindgren, whose standards of
personal character and regard for the dignity
and ethics of his profession were of the highest,
was a source of much valuable education.

All this summer activity was of value to
young Hoover not only for the help it afforded
him in his struggle for existence, and for the
outdoor exercise it involved, but for the prac-
tical experience in geological work which it
gave him to mix in with his lectvu*e room and
laboratory acquisitions and to test them by.
He seemed to have no difficulty in getting all
of this kind of work he had time to do. In
fact, some of the other students used to
speak a little enviously and suggestively
about "Hoover's luck" in this connection. Dr.
Branner happened to overhear some re-
marks of this kind from a group around a
laboratory table one day and promptly broke
out on them in his forcible manner.

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THE UNIVERSITY

"What do you mean," he said, "by talking
about Hoover's luck? He has not had luck;
he has had reward. If you would work half as
hard and half as intelligently as he does you
would have half his luck. If I tell any one of
you to go and do a thing for me I have to come
around in half an hour to see if you have done
it. But I can tell Hoover to do a thing, and
never think of it again. I know it will be done.
And he doesn't ask me how to do it, either. If
I told him to start to Kamchatka tomorrow to
bring me back a walrus tooth, I'd never hear of
it again imtil he came back with the tooth. And
then I'd ask him how he had done it."

Dr. Branner was as kind to his boys as he
was stem when sternness was needed. Hoover
came down with typhoid in his Jimior year, just
at a time when his finances could not afford
such an expensive luxury. So Dr. Branner
sent him to a hospital and saw that he was
cared for by the best of physicians and nurses
and told him to forget about paying for it all
until after he had graduated. And that prob-
ably meant that the good professor had to go
for some time without buying books, which

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HERBERT HOOVER

was what he usually did with his extra money.

Another unfortunate illness was announced
to the busy student by an outbreak of little red
spots on his body which were declared by the
college physician to be the result of poison
oak. But they were not;- they meant measles,
and measles needs prompt attention. Un-
fortunately young Hoover's neglected case
affected his eyes to such an extent that for
several years afterward he had to wear glasses.
And out of this grew the familiar Stanford
tradition that Herbert Hoover ruined his eyes
while in college by over-much night work on
his studies!

As a matter of fact Hoover was no college
grind. He studied hard enough at what he
liked or thought important for his fitting to
be a mining engineer, but he did not dodge get-
ting a few credits from well-known "snap**
courses, and he got through other required, but,
to his mind, superfluous ones without doing
much more work on them than necessary. He
had a disconcerting habit of starting in on a
course and then if he found it uninteresting or
unpromising as a ccmtributor to the special edu-

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THE UNIVERSITY

cation he was interested in, of simply dropping
out of the class without consultation or per-
mission. But he did dig hard into what he
thought really counted; his record in the ge-
ology department was an unusually high one.
But with all his work and study he found
time for some other kinds of activity. At least
the two Irwin boys, Will and Wallace, who
were Stanford's most ingenious distvu-bers of
the peace in pioneer days, claim that Hoover,
in his quiet effective way, made a few contribu-
tions of his own to the troubles of the faculty.
But such contributions from others were gen-
erally credited — or rather debited — ^to the
more notorious offenders, so that they had to
suffer not alone for their own brilliant inspira-
tions but for those of other less conspicuous col-
laborators. Wallace, for what seemed to the
faculty sufficient reasons, was, as he has him-
self phrased it, "graduated by request," while
Will had his Senior year encored by the fac-
ulty, so that it took him I've years, instead of
the more conventional four, to graduate. In
fact, I remember that even as this fifth year
was drawing near its close, the faculty com-

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HERBERT HOOVER

mittee of discipline, of which I was a reluctant
member, seriously considered letting Will go
in the same way that Wallace had gone. But
some of us argued that if we should let Will
graduate in the more usual way we should be
rid of him soon anyway and without risking
the bare possibilities of doing him an injus-
tice. President Jordan always maintained that
Will had good stuff in him, and he used his
ameliorating influence with the faculty com-
mittee. So Will Irwin is today one of Stan-
ford's best-known alumni.

Herbert Hoover's haunting trouble all
through his college course was that impassed
entrance requirement in English composition.
Indeed, he did not pass in it until about a week
before he graduated, although he tried it regu-
larly every semester all through his four years.
How he finally got his passing mark has
been told me by Mrs. Hoover, She knows be-
cause she was there through most of the long
agony.

After failing regularly at each semester's
trial principally, he thinks (and Mrs. Hoover
is inclined to agree), because he always had

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THE UNIVERSITY

to take it under a particularly meticulous
instructor, his predicament began to worry
even his professors in the geology department.
It looked as if their star student might not be
allowed to graduate. Finally a date was set
by the English department for a last trial be-
fore the end of his Senior year.

A day or two before this date the professor
of paleontology, J. P. Smith, famed not only
for his erudition but for his especial kindness
to all geology students — especially if they did
well in paleontology — came to the worrying
Senior with a paper that Hoover had written
sometime before on a paleontological subject,
and said to him: "Look here, you will never
pass that examination in the state you are in.
Take this paper ; it's fine. Copy it in your best
hand; remember that handwriting goes a long
way with professors of English; look up every
word in the dictionary to be sure you have got
the right one; then put in all the punctuation
marks you ever saw, and bring it back to me."
Hoover did it.

Then Professor Smith disappeared with the
paper in his study, but soon came out with it,

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HERBERT HOOVER

abundantly blue-penciled. "Now take it and
re-copy it with all these indicated changes, and
bring it back again." Again the interested
Senior obeyed his mentor. Then the professor
left the laboratory with the paper in his hand.
Hoover awaited his return with ever-increas-
ing interest. Pretty soon he came back with
a cheerful smile, handed Hoover the paper, and
said: "Well, youVe passed; although you prob-
ably don't deserve it."

Professor Smith, it seems, had carried the
paper, not to the fatal instructor, but to the
head of the English department and had said
to him: "See here; yom* instructor is holding
up the best man we have from graduating.
Now look at this paper of Hoover's. Is there
anything the matter with it? Doesn't it make
good sense? Isn't it well written? Isn't it
well punctuated?"

The English head glanced over it impa-
tiently — ^he was translating Dante, his dearest
recreation, at the moment — and then roared
out: "Well, it looks all right. I suppose In-
structor X has to live up to the rules, but if
the boy can do this well for you it's good

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THE UNIVERSITY

enough for us/' And with his Dante pencil he
wrote a large "Passed" across the paper.

Someway all this does not sound like an ac-
count of life at the conventional university.
Nor does Professor J. P. Smith, who used to
interrupt his lecture to wake up a dozing stu-
dent with a sharp but kindly "Here, Jack,
wake up, this is an important point and I will
surely ask about it in examination," seem to be
of tiie conventional type of professor. And
most Freshmen coming to Yale or Harvard
would hesitate a little before taking the advice
of some workman about the campus to go, with
bag and trunk, in search of board and lodging
to a house full of professors.

But as I said at the beginning, Stanford was*
diflPerent. It is precisely because it was, that
Hoover's particular college experiences and ac-
quisitions were what I have tried to suggest,
and not what you might think they would be
from your Tmowledge of other universities.
And while Stanford has converged somewhat
with years toward the more usual university
type — colleges get more alike as they get older
— ^ft has still an atmosphere peculiarly its own.

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HERBERT HOOVER

But it was in the first days that this atmosphere
was so very distinctive. Its president and fac-
ulty and students, all living closely together in
the middle of a great ranch of seven thousand
acres of grain fields, horse paddocks, and hills
where jack rabbits roamed and coyotes howled,
were thrown together into one great family,
whose members depended almost entirely on
one another for social life. And each depart-
ment was a special smaller family within the
great one. Life was simple and direct and
democratic. Real things counted first and
most; there was little sophistication. Work
was the order of the day; recreations were
wholesome.

The geology family was an especially close
and happy one. Some of Dr. Branner's for-
mer assistants and students had followed him
out to California. They were the older mem-
bers of the family. Almost all of them are now
well-known geologists and mining engineers.
So also are many of his younger ones. The
family went on long tramps and camps to-
gether. The region about Stanford is singu-
larly interesting from a geologist's point of

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THE UNIVERSITY

view; and in those days it was a terra more or
less incognita. Everybody was discovering
things. It was real live geology. Lectures
dnd recitations were illustrated, not by lantern
slides, but by views out of the window and
revelations in the field.

And at the same time these young geologists
learned real life; they had come to know inti-
mately real men and women, all fired with the
enthusiasm of a new venture, new opportuni-
ties, and a high ideal. With all this, Herbert
Hoover learned, in particular. One additional
very important thing. He learned that a cer-
tain unusual girl, beautiful, intelligent, and im-
spoiled, a lover of outdoors, and, as proof of
her unusualness, a "major" student in geology,
was the girl for him. Having learned this he
decided to marry her. And later, she decided
that he had decided right.

And so with all his experience at earning his
living by organizing anything needing organ-
izing, and with his stores of geological lore
gained from lecture room and textbook and
field work and close personal association with
his able and friendly professors, and, finally,

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HERBERT HOOVER

with the knowledge that he had abeady found
exactly the right girl for him, Herbert Hoover
went out from Stanford, in 1895, with his Pio-
neer Class, ready to open his oyster. But he
had only himself to rely on in doing it.

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CHAPTER IV

THE YOUNG MINING ENGINEER

Herbert Hooter began his mining career
very simply and practically by taking his place
as a real workman in a real mine, with no fav-
ors shown, following in this the emphatic ad-
vice given by Dr. Branner to every student
graduating from his department. He went up
into the mining region near Grass Valley in
the Sierras where he had already studied with
Waldemar Lindgren, and became a regular
miner, a boy-man with pick and shovel work-
ing long hours underground or sometimes on
the siu^face about the plant. But always he
had his eyes wide open and always he was
learning. He preferred the underground work
because he wanted first to know more about
the actual occurrence of the ore in the earth
than about the mill processes of extracting the
mineral from it.

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HERBERT HOOVER

Here he worked for several months, and
gradually rose to the position of night shift-
boss or gang foreman. But he began to realize
that he was exhausting the learning oppor-
tunities of this particular place and kind of
work, and so one night deep down in the mine,
when for sudden lack of ore-cars or power or
some other essential, work was held up for the
last half hom" of his shift, he went off into a
warm corner, ciu-led himself up in a nice clean
wheelbarrow and slept away the last half hour
of his pick and shovel experience.

He had decided to get into association, some
way, with the best mining engineer on the
Coast. There was no question about who this
was at that time. It was Louis Janin in San
Francisco. So he appeared at Mr. Janin's of-
fice as a candidate for a job, any job so that it
was a job imder Louis Janin.

But the famous engineer, well disposed as
he was toward giving intelligent, earnest
young men who wanted to become mining en-
gineers, a chance, had to explain that not only
was there no vacant place in his staff but that
a long waiting list would have to be gone

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THE YOUNG MINING ENGINEER

through hef ore Hoover's turn could come. He
added, as a joke, that he needed an additional

typist in his office, but of course •

The candidate for a job interrupted. "All
right, I'll take it. I can't come for a few days,
but I'll come next Tuesday, say." Janin was
a little breathless at the rapidity with which
things seemed to get settled by this boyish, very
boyish, young man, but as they were appar-
ently really settled he could only say, "All
right."

Now the reason that the new typewriter boy
could not begin until next Tuesday — ^this was
on a Friday — ^was that he had in the meantime
to learn to write on a typewriter I Trivial mat-
ter, of com-se, in connection with becoming a
mining engineer, but apparently necessary.
So learning what make of machine he would
have to use in the office, he stopped, on his
way to his room, at a typewriter shop, rented
a machine of proper make, and by Tuesday
had learned to use it — ^af ter a fashion.

That kind of boy could not remain for long
a typist in the office of a discerning man like
Louis. Perhaps certain idiosyncrasies of

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HERBERT HOOVER

spelling and a certain originality of exe-
cution on the machine helped bring about a
change of duties. But chiefly it was because
of a betted reason. This reason was made espe-
cially clear by an incident connected with an
important mining case in which Janin was
serving as expert for the side represented by
Judge Curtis Lindley, famous mining lawyer
of San Francisco. The papers which indicated
the line of argument which Judge Lindley and
Mr. Janin were intending to follow came to
Hoover's desk to be copied. As he wrote he
read with interest. The mine was in the Grass
Valley region that he knew so well. He not
only copied but he remembered and thought.
The result was that when the typewriter boy
delivered the papers to the mining engineer
they were accompanied by the casual statement
thaj the great expert and the learned attorney
were all wrong in the line of procedure they
were preparing to take! And he proceeded to
explain why, first to Mr. Janin's indignant sur-
prise but next to his great interest, because the
explanation involved the elucidation of certain
geologic facts not yet published to the world,

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THE YOUNG MINING ENGINEER

which the type-writer boy had himself helped
to discover during his work in the Grass Valley
region.

The outcome was that Janin and his new boy
went around together to Judge Lindley's of-
fice where after due deliberation the line
of argunaent was altered. The further
result was that the boy parted from his type-
writer, first to begin acting as assistant to vari-
ous older staff men onirips to various parts of
the Coast for mine examinations, then to make
minor examinations alone, and finally to handle
bigger ones. The letters from the young min-
ing engineer to the girl of the geology depart-
ment, still at Stanford, came now in swift suc-
cession from Nevada, Wyoming, and Idaho,
and then very soon after from Arizona and
New Mexico. Little mines did not require
much time for examination and reports signed
"Hoover'* came into Janin's office with bewild-
ering rapidity. Janin liked these reports; tliey
not only showed geological and mining knowl-
edge, but they showed a shrewd business sense.
The reporter seemed never to lose the perspec-
tive of cost and organization possibilities in

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HERBERT HOOVER

relation to the probable mineral richness of the
prospects. And the reports said everjrthing
they had to say in very few and very clear
words,

Herbert Hoover was not only moving fast;
he was learning fast, and he was rising fast in
Janin's estimation- He had a regular salary
or guarantee now with a certain percentage of
all the fees collected by Janin's office from the
properties he examined. What he was earning
now I do not know, but we may be sure it was
considerably more than the forty-five dollars
a month which he had begun with as typewriter
boy, a few months before.

The work was not entirely limited to the
examination of prospects and mines. In one
case at least it included actual mine develop-
ment and management. Mr. Janin had in
some way taken over, temporarily — ^for such
work was not much to his liking: he preferred
to be an expert consultant rather than a mine
manager — a small mine of much value but
much complication near Carlisle, New Mex-
ico. This he turned over to his enterprising
assistant to look after.

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THE YOUNG MINING ENGINEER

It was Hoover's first experience of the kind,
Mid it was made a rather hectic one by condi-
tions not technically a regular part of mining.
The town, or "camp," was a wild one with
drunken Mexicans having shooting-bees every
pay day and the local jail established at the
bottom of an abandoned shaft, not too deep,
into which the prisoners were let down by
windlass and bucket. It was an operation
fairly safe if the sheriff and his assistants
were not too exhilarated to manage the wind-
lass properly, or the malefactors, too drunk
to hang on to the bucket. Otherwise, more or
less regrettable incidents happened. Also, it
led to a rather puzzling situation when the
sheriff had to take care of his first woman pris-
oner, a negro lady of generous dimensions and
much volubility.

But the mine was well managed and Hoover
acquired more merit with his employer. And*
soon came the new chance which led to much
bigger things. It was now the spring of 1897,
two years after Hoover's graduation, and the
time of the great West Australia mining boom.
English companies were sending out many

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HERBERT HOOVER

engineers, aid and young, to investigate and
handle mining properties in the new field, and
were looking everywhere for competent men.
Janin was asked by one of these London firms
to recommend someone to them. He talked it
over with Hoover, telling him that it might be
a great opportunity. It might, of course, not
be; it would depend on the pfospect — ^and the
man who handled it. Janin expressed his en-
tire confidence in the young man before him,
and his belief that the opportunity was greater
than any the Pacific Coast then had to oflPer.
He would be more than glad to keep Hoover
with him, but he wanted to be fair to him and
his future. The young man was all for giving
hostages to fortune, and so the recommenda-
tion, the oflFer, and the acceptance flew by cable
between San Francisco and London, and
Hoover prepared to start at once to England
for instructions, as had been stipulated in the
oflFer.

Just before he started, however, Janin
caused him some uneasiness by saying, "Now
look here. Hoover, I have cabled London
swearing to your full technical qualifications,

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THE Y0UN6 MINING ENGINEER

and I am not afraid of your letting me down
on that. But these conservative Londoners
have stipulated that you should be thirty-five
years old. I have wired that I was sorry to
have to tell them that you are not quite thirty-
three. Don't forget that my reputation de-
pends on your looking thirty-three by the time
you get to London !" And Hoover had not yet
reached his twenty-third birthday, and looked
at least two years younger even than that. He
began growing a beard on his way across the
continent.

The London firm had stipulated, too, that
their new man should be immarried. Hoover
was still that, although he had begun to get
impatient about what seemed to him an im-
necessary delay in carrying out his decision
already made in college. As a matter of fact,
there was still no definite engagement between
him and the girl of the geology department,
but there was an informal understanding that
some day there might be a formal one. So
Hooved appeared before the head of the great
London house— perhaps the greatest mining
firm in the world at that time — ^without en-

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HERBERT HOOVER

cumbering wife and with the highest of recom-
mendationSy but with a singularly youthful
appearance for an experienced mining engin-
eer of thirty-five. In fact, the great man after
staring hard at his new acquisition burst out
with English directness, "How remarkable you
Americans are. You have not yet learned to
grow old, either individually or as a nation.
Now you, for example, do not look a day over
twenty-five. How the devil do you do it?'*

The days were days of wonder for the home-
grown young Quaker engineer. Across
America, across the ocean, then the stupendous
metropolis of the world and the great business
men of the "city," with week-ends under the
wing of the big mining financier at beautiful
English country houses with people wUose
names spelled history. And then the P. and
O. boat to Marseilles, Naples, Port Said, Aden,
and Colombo, and finally to be put ashore in
a basket on a rope cable over a very rough sea
at Albany in West Australia. There he was
consigned, with the dozen other first-class pas-
sengers, mining adventurers Kke himself, to
quarantine in a tent hospital on a sand spit out

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THE YOUNG MINING ENGINEER

in the harbor with the thermometer never reg-
istering below three figures, even at night.

And then he came to the Australian mine
fields themselves in a desert where the tem-
perature can keep above one hundred degrees
day and night for three weeks together. Also
there is wind, scorching wind carrying scorch-
ing dust. And surface water discoverable only
every fifty or sixty miles. Of course one ex-
pects a desert to be hot and dry — ^that's why
it is a desert — ^but the West Australian desert
rather overemphasizes the necessities of the
case. It is a deadly monotonous country al-
though not wholly bare; there is much low
brush just high enough to hide you from others
only half a mile away; a place easy to get lost
in, and hard to get found in when once lost.

All of this desert was being prospected by
thousands of men of a dozen nationalities, all
seeking and suffering, for gold. The railroad
had got in only as far as Coolgardie, but the
prospectors were far beyond the rail head.
They carried their water bags with enough in
them to keep themselves and their horses alive
between water holes. In the real "back blocks''

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HERBERT HOOVER

they could not carry enough for horses, so they
used camels with jangling bells and gaudy
trappings of gay greens, orange, scarlet, and
vivid blues, making strange contrasts with the
blue-gray bush. Along the few main roads
moved dusty stages, light, low, almost spring-
less three-seated vehicles, with thin sim-tops
overhead and boxes and bags in front, behind
and underneath, and all swarmed about by pes-
tilential flies, millions of flies, sprung from no-
where to harass the thirsty, weary travelers.

But only the agents and engineers rode in
the stages; it cost too much for the little pros-
pectors, the "dry-washers," who carried tiieir
few provisions and scanty outfit in packs on
their backs, and tramped the trails, stopping
here and there to toss the dry soil into the air
and watch for the gold flakes to fall into the
pan while the lighter earth blew off in the wind.

In the camp were gathered a motley crew,
mostly hard, reckless men, who drank and bet
their gold dust away as fast as they f oimd it.
But everywhere they were finding gold, and
all the time came new reports and rumors of
more farther on. The headquarters of Hoov-

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THE YOUNG MINING ENGINEER

er*s employers were in Coolgardie when he ar-
rived, but were soon moved on to Kalgoorlie,
following the railroad. The offices were in one
of the three or four stone, two-story buildings,
which lifted themselves proudly above the
ruck of sweltering little toy-like houses of cor-
rugated iron. Forty thousand people were
supposed to be living in this "camp" at one
time, buying water at two shillings six pence
tiie gallon, which was cheap — ^they were pay-
ing seven shillings in some other camps. At
first it was all brought by rail from the coastal
plains four himdred miles away, but when the
mines began to get down they struck water at
a few himdred feet. But it was salt, and ex-
pensive condensing plants had to be set up,
which kept the price still high. Coolgardie
once boasted of having the "biggest condens-
ing plant in the world," with rows on rows of
enormous cylindrical corrugated iron tanks ly-
ing on their sides, over acres of ground, with
aU the pumps and boilers and steam pipes to
keep these tanks supplied. Water was cheap
there, only twelve or fifteen shillings the hun-
dred gallons.

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HERBERT HOOVER

But out in the prospects and on the trails
there was no such aqueous luxury. There was
no water for washing and little to drink. And
that little was mostly drunk as a terrible black
tea, like lye, heated and re-heated, with now a
little more water added, now another handful
of leaves. I have a well-vouched-f or story of
an Australian girl who went into this gold-
paradise with her husband who was manager^
at a large salary, of one of the first mines. She
used to take a cupful of water and carefully
wash the baby and afterward the little girl, and
then herself. After that it was saved for the
husband to rinse the worst off when he came
home from the mine. But he could have an
additional half cup to finish with because he
was so dirty. And they tried not to use soap
with it so that finally, after letting it settle, it
could be added to the horses' drinking water.
It was not that the family could not afford to
pay for water, but there was simply no water to
buy.

Into this cheerful hell came the young
Quaker engineer, from the heaven of Cali-
fornia and the "city** ofiices of London where

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THE YOUNG MINING ENGINEER

sat the big men who were intent on having
their share of the big things in West Aus-
tralia. He was to do his best for his particular
big men, but how he was to do it was mostly
for him to find out. His firm had already ac-
quired interests in several promising proper-
ties. He was to help develop these mines and
perhaps to find new ones to be taken on. A
junior member of his firm was already on the
ground when Hoover arrived, but he remained
only a few months. It was a long way to Lon-
don and Hoover could get few instructions.
It was up to him. It was a hard life with
many opportunities to go wrong in any of
many ways. But he kept his brain clear, his
body and soul clean, and just everlastii;igly
worked.

There were all kinds of work to do, and all
sorts of new things to learn about mines and
mining. The ore occurred in the rock in a man-
ner diflPerent from that in any other known
gold field, so finding it and getting it out, and
then getting the mineral out of the strange new
kind of ore, required resourcefulness, "original
research,'* as the scientists say, and constructive

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HERBERT HOOVER

imagination. And the technical problems of
discovering and manipulation once solved^
there was still needed organization^ system, and
administration to make the mine a paying one.

But all these things were exactly the young
engineer's specialties. He was from the be-
ginning, as we already know, and conspicuously
is today, resourceful, original, capable of
prompt decision, an organizer and adminis-
trator. Although there were many trained en-
gineers in West Australia, there Was no one to
equal him in these specialties of his. And very
soon his firm's mines, which had so far had lit-
tle benefit of executive ability coupled with
technical knowledge and originality, began to
pay and their stocks went up on the London
market — ^which was the criterion of success in
the eyes of the men in the "city." About the
stock ratings Hoover knew little and perhaps
cared less. He did care, however, about mak-
hig good mines out of bad ones. And that was
exactly what he was doing.

And very soon he did the other successful
thing that the big men in London hoped for
and that he kept always working for. He un-

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THE YOUNG MINING ENGINEER

covered Hie big new mine. He had turned up
several promising leads but liieir development
proved disappointing. But the ''Sons of
Gwalia" realized his hopes from the beginning.
It was out from Kalgoorlie f oiur or five days
hard riding, near a smaller camp called Leo-
nora. He went out and took personal charge
of the opening up and equipping of the whole
mine and plant, living in a little ''tin" house and
gathering about him a staff of the best of the
firm's assistants collected from all over the
Colony. It was hot, although the climbing
mercury usually stopped at about one hundred
degrees. But that only further inflamed the
enthusiasm of the group. They had the real
thing, and they had a real leader — a very boy-
ish looking boy of scant twenty-five. They
forgot to watch the thermometer. They were
fnore interested in water and transportation
and labor and all the other things that are as
necessary to a good mine as the gold in the
ore-veins.

Occasionally, however, they had some re-
laxation. For one thing, they thought some-
times about food. One of the men had his wife

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HERBERT HOOVER

with him, and she imported chickens and later
even ducks which never, however, set web-foot
in water. And they had a garden because they
decided they were so in need of green vege-
tables. They turned a little priceless water
from the condenser into the garden; but not
enough for the vegetables and too much for
the accountant's books. After estimating that
the one imdersized cabbage they raised cost
them £65 worth of water, he discouraged
further gardening.

They had also a pet emu. So did the wife
of the manager of another mine near-by. They
used to arrange to have the emus meet occa-
sionally and there was always a glorious fight.
Once when they had got the lady's emu over
for a visit, one of the Australian boys thought
it would look amusing in trousers. So he took
off his overalls and after immense exertion got
them on the legs of the creature, with the straps
securely fastened over its neck and back. But
the great bird became so enraged that the men
could not safely get near enough to it to get
off its clothing, and even its mistress feared
ever to approach it again. There was also a

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THE YOUNG MINING ENGINEER

pet goat named Sydney that ate several boxes
of matches and had to have its internal fires
extinguished by the only available liquid, which
was the tinned butter that had yielded to the
one himdred and ten degrees. Sydney lived
through the experience but had always after
that a delicate interior and was petted more
than ever in consequence. And there was a
tennis court occasionally wetted down with the
beer that always went stale while they were
saving it for state occasions. It was all a
happy, glorious time — ^because they had discov-
ered and were making one of the great mines
of West Australia.

Hoover was now twenty-four, and a man of
large reputation in mining circles in Australia
and London, with a salary to correspond. He
had spent about twenty-four months in West
Australia, although they ran over all of one
and parts of two other years, so that he is gen-
erally credited with having remained there
three years. And he could have gone on among
the Australian mines for as many years as he
liked, for the big men in, London now fully
realized that they had in this yoimg American

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HERBERT HOOVER

engineer the unusual man, and that his only
limit in Australia would be the limit of the pos-
sible. But the new opportimity and the new
experience were calling.

Just about this time a young Chinaman of
royal family in Peking had made a successful
coup d'Stat and had formed a cabinet for the
first time in the history of China, and this cab-
inet decided, natiu-ally also for the first time
in the history of China, to effect a coordinated
control of all the mines of the Empire. There
was, therefore, established a Department of
Mines, with a wily old Chinaman, named
Chang Yen Mow, at its head. He understood
that Chinamen knew little about mining, and
hence decided to find a foreigner to help him
manage the mines of the Empire. He also
thought that a foreigner, thus attached as an
ofiicial to his department, could be of particu-
lar help to him in dealing with other foreigners
inclined to exploit Chinese mines more for their
own benefit than China's. This official was
to be in a position much like that of an under-
secretary in a cabinet department, and
was to be given the title, in the Chinese equiva-

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THE YOUNG MINING ENGINEER

lent, of "Director-Greneral of Mines." He was
to have a salary appropriate to such a large
title. With all this decided, it only remained
to find the proper foreigner, who should be a
man who knew much about mines and was hon-
est. There was, as we know, just such a man in
Western Australia.

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CHAPTER V

IN CHINA

When Chang Yen Mow, the new head of
the new Department of Mines of the new Chi-
nese Government, began to look about for the
foreigner who should know much about mines
and be honest, and who would therefore be a
fit man to occupy the new post of Director-
General of Mines, he bethought himself of an
English group of mining men with whom he
had once had some business relations. The
principal expert advisor of this group had
been the man who was now the head of the
great London mining firm for which Herbert
Hoover was working, and working very suc-
cessfully, in West Australia. Chang applied
to this group for a recommendation of a suit-
able man for him. And this group in turn ap-
plied to the head of Hoover's firm. Or, per-
haps, Chang applied directly to the great Lon-

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IN CHINA

don mining man. The exact procedure, which
is not very important, anyivay, by which the
head of Hoover's firm came to have the oppor-
tmiity of making the recommendation, is a lit-
tle obscure today. The important points in
the whole matter, however, which are not at
all uncertain, are that he did have it, and that
he recommended Herbert Hoover, and that
Chang Yen Mow, acting on the reconmienda-
tion, oflFered the place, through him, to the
youthful Quaker engineer, and, finally, that
the competent and confident boy of twenty-
four, always ready for the newer, bigger thing,
promptly accepted it.

In two weeks after the cable oflfer and an-
swer, a feverish fortnight devoted to a rapid
clearing up of things in Australia, Hoover was
on his way to London, to report personally to
his employers about their own aflFairs as well
as to get some information about the new un-
dertaking. He wanted to find out before he
got to China, if he could, something of what
would be expected of a Director-General of
Mines of the Chinese Empire. Perhaps he had
in mind the possible necessity of "getting up"

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HERBERT HOOVER

a little special knowledge about Chinese mines
and mining ways before he tackled his new
job, just as he had got up enough physiology
in thirty-six hours to help get him into Stan-
ford University, and enough typewriting in a
week-end to fit him for entrance into Louis
Janin's office in San Francisco.

However, after two weeks in the metropolis,
eight or nine days on the Atlantic, two or three
in New York, and five on the transcontinental
trains, he found himself again in California and
ready to make from there his second start to
the far-away lands from which his loudest
calls seemed to come — ^ready, that is, except for
one thing. He was now, let us remember, at
this beginning of the year 1899, not yet twenty-
five years old, not that by half a year, indeed,
and a half year could mean, as we have already
seen, a great deal in his life. And he was a
boy-man with a record already behind him of
achievement and a position already in his hands
of much ^responsibility and large salary. So
he declared that the time had now come for the
carrying out of the decision he had made in his
college days of four years before. It was the

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IN CHINA

little matter, you will promptly guess, and
guess correctly, of marrying the girl of the
geology department. He arrived in San Fran-
cisco the first of February, 1899. He spent
the next few days in Monterey, "the old Pacific .
capital" of Stevenson's charming sketch, but of
chief interest to Hoover as the place where Lou
Henry — ^that was her name — ^lived. And here
they were married at noon of Friday, February
10. At two o'clock they left for San Fran-
cisco, and at noon the next day sailed for the
empire of China.

Into the sleepy, half Mexican, historic town
on the curving sands of the shores of the blue
Bay of Monterey this swifts breathlessly swift,
boy engineer had come from distant Australia,
by way of Marseilles and London, had clutched
up the beautiful daughter of the respected town
banker, and was now carrying her oflf to dis-
tant China, where she was to live in all the
state becoming the wife of the Director-Grcn-
eral of Mines 9f the Celestial Empire. It was
a bit too much for the old Pacific capital, which
did not know — ^f or it was not told — ^that the
sudden appearance of the meteor bridegroom

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HERBERT HOOVER

had been preceded by many astronomical
warnings in the way of electric messages that
came to the prospective bride from Australia
and London and New York. Anyway, it
wasn't quite fair to the town, which tries to
maintain old Mexican traditions, that go back
to Spain, of a full assortment of festivities in-
cident to any proper marrying. But Monterey
has long been reconciled to this missed oppor-
tunity, and now reveals a just pride as the
home town of the woman who has played such
an active role in the career of her distinguished
husband.

The hurrjdng couple, at least, had time for
breath-taking — and honeymoon — ^when once on
board ship. For it is a month's voyaging from
San Francisco to China — or, at least, was then.
They had for seat-mates at table Frederick
Palmer, the war correspondent, and wife, which
was the beginning of a friendship that still en-
dures. And there were for other interesting
companions a secretary of our legation at
Pekin and his wife, and a missionary pair who
may or may not have siu^ved the Boxer
massacres.

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IN CfflNA

The work in China was at first rather simple.
Mines, of course, there were and had been for
uncounted centiwies. But what was needed
by the new Department was some sort of
survey of the mineral resoiwces and mining
possibilities of the Empire, and a tentative
framing of a code of mining laws, so that the
new development of the mines of the coimtry
which Chang hoped to initiate could be carried
on to best advantage, and in such a way that
private enterprise could participate in it. For
centuries the mines had been Crown property
and the ruler had simply let them out directly,
or through the viceroys, for either a stipulated
annual rental or for as much "squeeze" as could
be wrung from the lessees in any of several
various ways. And there had to be some rental
or "squeeze'' for each of the many officials that
could get within arm's length of the mining
business. The tenure of the use of the mines
by the lessees was usually simply the period of
the continued satisfaction of the lessor.

All this had not made for any extensive new
opening up of the coimtry's mineral resoiu'ces,
or for the scientific development of the mines

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HERBERT HOOVER

already long known. One could not aflford to
put much capital into prospecting or into mod-
ernizing the mining methods when each im-
provement simply meant either more rent or
"squeeze," or the giving up of the mine. So
the ores were mined and the metals extracted
from them by the miners according to Ihe
methods of their ancestors as far back as his-
tory or tradition went, and it was all done under
a set of mining laws as primitive as the mining
methods themselves. There were enormous
possibilities of improvement. It would have
been hard for any mining engineer to do any-
thing at all to the situation without improving
it. For Hoover, with his technical education
in metallurgical processes, his experience in
handling various and difficult mining situa-
tions, and his genius for organizing and syste-
matizing, the opportunity was simply imique.
He plunged into the work of examining and
planning and codifying with the zest of a nat-
uralist in an imexplored jungle. In the day
time he made his examination; at nights he
studied the mining laws of all time and all tiie
world.

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IN CfflNA

He built up a staflf as rapidly as it could be
put together and correlated with the tasks be-
fore it. He had sent in advance for two or
three men he had worked with in America and
for some of his most able and dependable as-
sociates in West Australia, including Agnew,
a mill expert, and Newbery, a metallurgist,
son of a famous geologist, both of them de-
voted to "the Chief." That was Hoover's
sobriquet among his early mining associates;
just as it was later among the members of his
successive great war-time organizations. He
has just naturally — ^not artificially — always
been "the Chief" among his co-workers and
associates.

His Caucasian staff of perhaps a dozen was
greatly overshadowed in number by his Chi-
nese staff, composed chiefly of semitechnical
assistants, draftsmen, surveyors' assistants,
interpreters, etc. A few of the Chinese helpers
had had foreign training; there was one from
Yale, for example, and another from Rose
Polytechnic; the latter so devoted to American
baseball that he was greatly disappointed in the
new Director of Mines when he found he was

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HERBERT HOOVER

not a baseball player. But he thought better
of him when he learned that he had at least
managed his college team. The staflF had its
headquarters in Tientsin, where were also the
principal laboratories for the mineralogists, as-
sayers, and chemists. Some of the men gave
their time to the technical work, and others
were engaged in collecting and correlating
everything that had been published in the for-
eign languages about the geology and mineS
of China, while Chinese scholars hunted down
and translated into English all that had been
printed in Chinese literature. But the Di-
rector and most of his immediate experienced
assistants were chiefly occupied with the ex-
ploring expeditions into the interior and the
examination of the old mines and new pros-
pects. Especially did some immediate atten-
tion have to be given to the mines already be-
ing actually worked, for the Minister let it be
known that he expected the new Director to
pay the way of the Department as soon as pos-
sible from the increased proceeds of the mines
which were to arise from the magic touch of the
foreign experts.

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IN CHINA

These expeditions were elaborate affairs,
contrasting strangely with Hoover's earlier ex-
periences in America and Australia. The
Chinese major-domo in charge insisted that
the make-up and appearance of the outfit
should reflect the high estate of the Director
of Mines, so that every movement involved the
organization of a veritable caravan of ponies,
mules, carts, men on foot, and sedan chairs car-
ried by coolies. These chairs were for the Di-
rector and his wife, who, however, would not
use them, preferring saddle horses. But the
proud manager of the expedition insisted that
they be carried along, empty, to show the ad-
miring populace that even if the strange for-
eign potentates amazingly preferred to ride
in a rather common way on horseback they
could at least afford to have sedan chairs. Im-
agine a prospecting outfit in the California
Sierra or the West Australian bush with se-
dan chairs! And there were cooks and valets
and cot beds and folding chairs and mosquito
bed curtains and charcoal stoves and an array
of pans and pots hke Oscar's in the Waldorf
kitchens, and often a cavalry guard of tweniy-

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HERBERT HOOVER

five or fifty men, superfluous but insistent and
always hungry. Whether the expedition found
any mines or not it was at least an impressive
object lesson to the Celestial myriads that the
new Imperial Department of Mines knew how
to hunt for them in proper style. When Mrs.
Hoover once remonstrated with one of the in-
terpreters of the cavalcade about such an un-
necessary outfit, the answer was: "Mr. Hoover
is such expensive man to my country we
cannot afford to let him die for want of small
things."

A similar state had to be lived up to in the
Director's home in Tientsin. The house was a
large, four-square, wide-veranded affair, in
which a dozen to fifteen servants, care-
fully distinguished as "No. 1 Boy," "No. 2
Boy" and so on down the line, waited, accord-
ing to their own immemorial traditions, on the
Director and his wife. These servants had
curious ways, and a curious language in the
odd pidgin English that enabled the door boy
to announce that "the number one topside for-
eign devil joss man have makee come," when
the English Bishop called, and the table boy

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IN CHINA

to announce a dish of duckling as "one piecee
duck pups," or of chicken as "one piecee
looster/' The social scale among the few for-
eign residents was very precisely defined, and
the social life of the foreign colony highly con-
ventionalized, so that the unassuming, practi-
cal-minded young engineer of the high title and
social position who was terribly bored — as he
is today — ^by social rigmarole, and who was
thought rather queer by the conventional-
minded small diplomats and miscellaneous for-
eign residents because, as one of them put it,
"he always seems to be tMnking/^ was glad to
be out of all this as much as possible and on
the road, even if it had to be with the ludicrous
caravan of state. Sometimes even all the at-
tempted comfort and superfluous luxmy of
the caravan did not prevent the expedition from
having serious hardships and running into real
danger. An expedition across the great Gobi
desert that lasted for thirty-nine days was suc-
cessfully accomplished only after hard battling
with heat, himger and thirst, and even with hos-
tile natives.

Some of the results expected from this im-
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HERBERT HOOVER

ported miner were rather startling. For in-
stance, age-long rumor had it that the Emper-
or's hmiting park at Jehol overlay inmiensely
valuable gold deposits. The Minister inti-
mated to the Director that he would like to
know the real facts about this as soon as pos-
sible. As the park lay in a little-explored
region of southern Manchuria and was a place
of much historical as well as geological interest,
the Director decided to make a personal exami-
nation of it. After the expedition had been out
several days, he was told that on the next they
would come in sight of the Great Royal Park.
Accordingly on the next day the guide of the
caravan took hun, with one or two of the Cau-
casian members of his staff and an interpreter,
oflf from the road the grand retinue was fol-
lowing, and by winding paths up to a hill top
which commanded a superb prospect.

"There," said the interpreter, with a wave of
his hand toward the stretching prospect of
beautiful valleys, low broad hills and mountain
side, "there is the Hunting Park of Jehol."
Then, turning complacently to the Director of
Mines, he asked, simply: "Is there gold be-

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IN CHINA

neath it?" And interpreter and guide, and
later, even more importanf officials, were stupe-
fied to learn that the wonderful imported man
who knew all about gold could not say offhand,
from his vantage point, miles away, whether j
there was gold under the Park or not. And,
more distm-bing still, that he probably could
not say anything about it at all without actu-
ally tramping over the sacred soil and perhaps
sacrilegiously digging into it.

Such occasionally necessary confessions of
incompetence made a little trouble, but only a
little. However much the under men lacked
knowledge about minerals and mines and how
to find out about them, the head of the Depart-
ment, Chang, knew enough to know that if his
young Director confessed inability to meet cer-
tain demands it was because there was more
wrong with the demands than with the engin-
eer. But the real fly in the ointment soon be-
gan to make itself visible. It was not a dis-
illusionment on the part of the Chinese officials
in connection with their foreign expert, but a
disillusionment on his part in regard to his real
position and opportunities for accomplishing

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HERBERT HOOVER

something for China. He began more and
more clearly to realize that he could investigate
and advise as much as fie liked but that he could
really do, in his understanding of doing, com-
paratively little. The modem West cannot
make over the immemorial East in a day or
even a year.

Gradually the young engineer came to real-
ize that while his examinations and reports
were all very welcome, and whatever he could
suggest for improvement in technical detail,
resulting in immediate greater output of the
mines already working, was gladly accepted,
there was no willingness to accept advice lead-
ing to changes in administrative and general
organization matters. And to the modem en-
gineer eflSciency in these matters is as much a
part of successful mining as skilled digging
and good metallurgy. Suggestions looking to-
ward getting more work out of the men, or cut-
ting down the payrolls by removing the thirty
per cent of the names on them that seemed to
have no bodily attachments, were frowned on.
These things interfered with "squeeze,'* and
"squeeze" was a traditional part of Chinese

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IN CHINA

milling. Foreign advisors and helpers were
all very well when they found gold, but not so
well when they found graft. A crisis was vis-
ible in the oflBng. But this particular crisis
did not arrive, for another larger and more
serious one came more swiftly on and arrived
almost unheralded. It was the Boxer Upris-
ing.

The outbreak found Hoover at Tientsin
having but recently retimied from Pekin
with Mrs. Hoover, and both just recovering
from severe attacks of influenza. If oppor-
tunity for thorough organizing of the mines of
China had failed him he now had full scope for
organizing a military defense of his home and
wife and his many employees, foreign and nat-
ive, for Tientsin, for a month, was the scene of
hot fighting. It was a besieged household in
a beleaguered city. Hoover could have got-
ten out with his wife and few Caucasian as-
sistants at the beginning of the trouble, but he
would not desert his few hundred Chinese help-
ers and their families — ^and his wife would not
desert him. So they staid on together through
all the rifle and shell fire and conflagrations

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HERBERT HOOVER

of the Tientsin siege, building and defending
barricades of rice and sugar sacks, organizing
food and water supplies, and cheerfully "car-
rying on" in the face of certain death, and
worse, if the outnumbering fanatic Boxers
happened to win.

But there were occasional lighter incidents
amid the many grave ones of the fighting
weeks. Mrs. Hoover tells one, her favorite
story of those days, in something like the fol-
lowing words. "We had a cow, famous and in-
fluential in the community, which cow was the
mother of a promising calf. One day the cow
was stolen and Mr. Hoover set out to find her.
With three or four friends and half a dozen
attendant Chinese boys he took out the tiny
calf one night and by the light of a lantern
led the little orphan, bleating for its mother,
about the streets of the town. Finally, as
they passed in front of the barracks of the Ger-
man contingent of the international defending
army, there came, from within, an answering
moo, and Mr. Hoover, addressing the sentry,
demanded his cow. The sentry made no move
to comply, but, summoning all his Worterhuch

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IN CHINA

English, countered with the inquiry: *Is that
the calf of the cow inside?* Upon receiving
an aflSrmative reply to his OUendorflf question,
he calmly declared, 'Also, then, calf outside
must join itself to cow inside." And there-
upon by aid of a suggestive manipulation of
his bayonet, he confiscated the calf, and sent
Mr. Hoover home empty-handed."

As one of the precursors of the Boxer affair
Chang Yen Mow got into the bad graces of
the government, gave up his position and was
forced to flee from Pekin and take refuge in
Tientsin. Even here he was dragged out of
his palace and stood up before a firing squad,
and escaped with his life only through vigorous
interference by his Director of Mines. Be-
cause he thought that he might save from
probable confiscation a valuable coal mining
property at Tongshan about eighty miles from
Tientsin, he desired to transfer this property
outright to Hoover's name for the protection
of the foreign title. Hoover refused this, but
did undertake to go to Europe on a contract
with Chang to enlist the aid of the Belgian and
British bondholders of the Company to pro-

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HERBERT HOOVER

tect the property. These men rescued and re-
organized the Company, dispatched their own
financial agents to China, and appointed
Hoover chief engineer to superintend the real
development of the great property.

The wily old Celestial finding, after all,
that China was not to be partitioned by the
powers that had defended it against the Box-
ers, and that private property was not to be
confiscated, now proposed to break his contract
so eagerly made. And there seemed to be no
hope that the curious course of Chinese law
would ever compel him to recognize his previ-
ous agreements. But there was something in
the persistent, indomitable pressure of the
quiet but firm young Belgian agent, named
de Wouters, who had come back with Hoover,
and of the young American, which did finally
compel the old Chinaman, after much trouble
and delay, to live up to his contract.

Years later the situation, with kaleidoscopic
picturesqueness, took on another hue, and
Hoover found himself defending Chang's in-
terests from the overzealous attempts of some
of the foreign owners to get more out of the

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IN CHINA

mines than was their fair share. In making the
original contracts it had been agreed to have
a Chinese board with a Chinese chairman^ as
well as a foreign board. This led to much dif-
ficulty and some of the Europeans declared
that the young American had been much at
fault in consenting to an arrangement which
left so much share in the control to the Chinese,
and they repudiated this arrangement. Hoover
and de Wouters had a long hard struggle in
getting justice for old Chang, but just as their
persistence had earlier held Chang up to his
agreements for the sake of the European own-
ers of the undertaking, so now, directed in
the opposite direction, it succeeded in getting
justice for Chang and his Chinese group.

The affair brought him into business rela-
tions with another Belgian named Emile
Francqui, of keen mind and great personal
force, who, with de Wouters, were, strangely
enough, later to be chief and first assistant
executives, respectively, of the Great Belgian
Comity National during the long hard days
of the Grerman Occupation. It was with these
men among all the Belgians that Hoover was

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HERBERT HOOVER

to have most to do in connection with his work
as initiator and director of the Commission for
Relief in Belgimn.

But we are now, in the story of Herbert
Hoover, only in the year 1900, and the Bel-
gian Relief did not begin mitil 1914. And
Hoover was still to have many experiences as
engineer and man of affairs, before he was to
meet his Belgian acquaintances again under
the dramatic conditions produced by the World
War.

He had now his opportunity really to do
something in China in line with his own ideas
of doing things in connection with mines, and
not with those of Chinese mining tradition. As
consulting engineer, and later general manager
of the "Chinese Engineering and Mining Com^
pany" he attacked the job of making Chang's
great Tongshan coal properties a going con-
cern. This job involved building railways,
handling a fleet of ocean-going steamers, de-
veloping large cement works, and superintend-
ing altogether the work of about 20,000 em-
ployees. A special one among the undertak-
ings of the twelve months or more given to this

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IN CHIN^J ::•{>:•: ^i:;<

enterprise was the building of Ching Wang
Tow harbor to give his coal a proper sea out-
let. Altogether it was a "mining" job of all
the variety and hugeness of extent that the
twenty-seven-year-old miner and organizer
found most to his liking. And despite ob-
stacles and complications due both to his Chi-
nese and Caucasian company associates he did
it successfully, enjoyed it inmiensely, and got
from it much education and experience. But
he was ready after about a year of it to turn
his attention to the rest of the world.

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CHAPTER VI

LONDON AND THE BEST OF THE WOBIJ)

In 1902, now twenty-eight years old, Her-
bert Hoover returned to London as a jun-
ior partner in the great English firm with which
he had been earlier associated as its star field
man in West Australia. But, though with
an actual headquarters office in London, he
was mostly anywhere else in the world but
there. He was still the firm's chief engineer
and principal field expert and upon him fell
much of the responsibility of the firm's actual
mining operations in the field as distinguished
from its financial operations in the "city." He
probably spent little more than a tenth of his
time in London, and this was also true in his
later career when he had given up his connec-
tion with the firm and was wholly "on his own'*
as independent consulting engineer and mine-
organizer. And this explains what has often
puzzled many of the people who came to know
him and his household in London. He and

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LONDON AND THE REST OF THE WORLD

it were so little "English." His home in Lon-
don seemed always to be a bit of transplanted
America, and, in particular, a bit of trans-
planted California. As a matter of fact, in
all his years of London connections there was
hardly one that did not see him and his family
in America including an inevitable stay in
California. He maintained offices in New
[Fork and San Francisco and had no slightest
temptation, much less desire, ever to become
an expatriate.

But this is getting ahead of the story. There
is one outstanding happening in his London
experience that insistently demands telling.
It is the happening that meant for him the
greatest setback in his otherwise almost mo-
notonously successful career. And yet, al-
though this happening meant temporary finan-
cial ruin for him, it was, in its way, only an-
other success, a success of revealing signifi-
cance to those who would like to know the real
man that Herbert Hoover is.

After one of his returns to London, and in
the absence of the head of the firm in China, he
discovered a defalcation of staggering pro-

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HERBERT HOOVER

portions. A man connected with the firm had
lost in speculation over a million dollars ob-
tained from friends and clients of the firm,
by the issuance and sale of false stock. Tech-
nically the operations of the defaulter were
of such a character that the firm could not be
held legally liable. But the junior partner
swept the technicalities aside with a single
gesture. He announced that they would make
good all of the obligations incurred by the
defaulter. This meant the immediate loss of .
his own personal fortune, and it meant a seri-
ous diflference of opinion with the absent head
of the firm, whose frantic cables came, how-
ever, too late to overrule the decision of the
junior partner.

There ensued a long bitter struggle, most
of it falling on the junior partner with the
Quaker conscience, to make good the losses
without actually putting the firm out of busi-
ness. For going on with the business was es-
sential to the making good. It was a gruelling
four years' struggle, but with success at the end
of it. And then the American engineer, now
grown forever out of youth to the man who had

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experienced the down as well as the up in life,
gave up his connection with the firm and
launched on that career of independent and
self -responsible activity which has been his
ever since. This was in 1908, Hoover was
now thirty-four years old and probably the
leading consulting mining engineer in the
world.

His work soon took him back to Australia,
the land of his first notable success, but this
time into South Australia instead of West
AustraUa. Here he took personal charge of
a large constructive undertaking in connec-
tion with the rehabilitation of the famous
Broken Hill Mines. These mines were in the
inhospitable wastes of the Great Stony Desert,
four or five hundred miles north of Adelaide,
the port city. The living and working condi-
tions in the desert were a little worse than aw-
ful, but by his technical and organizing abil-
ity he brought to life the two or three aban-
doned mines which constituted the Broken
Hills properties, and, adding to them some
adjoining lower grade mines, converted the
whole group from a state of great but un-

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realized possibiKties into one of highly profit-
able actualities. An important factor in this
achievement was his origination and success-
ful development of a process for extracting the
zinc from ores that had already been treated
for the other metals and then cast aside as
worthless residues. There were fourteen mil-
lion tons of these residues on the Broken Hills
dimaps and from them he derived large returns
for the company that he had organized to
purchase the property.

He also introduced new metallurgical pro-
cesses for the profitable handling of the low-
grade sulphide ores that constituted most of
the mineral body of the mines. Indeed, this
work in South AustraUa did much to help
prove to him what has long been one of his
cardinal behef s, namely, that the safe backbone
of mining lies in the handling of large bodies of
low-grade ores. When such great ore-bodies
are given the benefit of proper metallurgical
processes and large organizing and intelligent
building up of exterior plants, mining leaves
the realms of speculation and becomes a cer-
tain and stable business operation.

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All this successful work in South Australia
occupied hut seven months. Back in London
again he gathered ahout him a remarkable
staff of skilled young mining engineers^
mostly Americans. There were thirty-five or
forty of them, indeed, not on salary or fixed
appointment, but men eager to attach them-
selves to him for the sake of working with
him or for him in connection with the
ever-increasing number of his large enter-
prises in the way of reorganization and
rehabilitation of mines scattered all over
the world. He became the managing di^
rector or chief consulting engineer of a score
of mining companies, and the simple associa-
tion of his name with a mining enterprise gave
investors and other engineers a perfect con-
fidence in its success and its honest handling.

Two of his largest undertakings were in
Russia, one at Kyshtim, in the Urals, the other
at Irtish on the Siberian plains near Man-
churia. The Kyshtim property was a great
but nm-down historic establishment, on an es-
tate of an area almost equal to that of all Bel-
giiun. One hundred and seventy thousand

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people lived on the estate, all dependent on the
mining establishment for their support. The
ores were of iron and copper, but the mines
were so far from anywhere that not only did
these ores have to be smelted at the mine
mouths, but factories had to be erected to
manufacture the metal into products capable
of compact transportation. When Hoover
took ovfer the bankrupt properties he found
himself not only with mining and manufactur-
ing problems to solve, but with what was prac-
tically a relief problem to face. For the imder-
paid workmen and their imfortunate families
were in a state of great misery. He suc-
ceeded not only in modernizing and rehabili-
tating the material part of the great establish-
ment, but at the same time in rescuing and re-
vivifying a suflfering laboring population of
helpless Russians.

The Irtish properties were near the Man-
churian border, a thousand miles up the Irtish
River from Omsk, a mere remote bleak spot
on the wild, bare Siberian steppes. But at this
spot lay extensive deposits of zinc, iron, lead,
copper and coal, all together. He had first of

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all to build 850 miles of railroad to make the
spot at aU accessible. And the actual '*min-
ing" operations included everything from dig-
ging out and smelting the ores to manufactur-
ing all sorts of things from metal door-knobs
to steel rails and even steamboats to ply on the
Irtish River. He put a large sum of English,
Canadian and American money — including
much of his own — into the work of building up
a great establishment which was just on a pay-
ing basis when the war broke out. It is all now
in the hands of the Bolsheviki, with a mos
dubious outlook for the recovery of any of th|
money put into it.

Other large operations under his direction
were in Colorado, Mexico, Korea, the Malay
Straits Settlement, South Africa, and India
(Burma) . The Burma imdertaking has been,
in its outcome at least, and, indeed, in many
other respects, Hoover's greatest victory in
mining engineering and organization. It is
today the greatest silver-lead mine in the
world, although it started from as near to noth-
ing as a mine could be and yet be called a
mine. It took him and his associates five years

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to transform some deserted works in the heart
of a jungle into the foremost producer of its
kind in all the world. This mine is far away
in the north of Burma, almost on the Chinese
border. They had first to build eighty miles
of railroad through the jimgle and over two
ranges of moimtains, a sufficient feat of en-
gineering in itself, and then to create and or-
ganize at the end of this line everything per-
taining to a great mining plant. Thirty thou-
sand men were employed in establishing the
mine.

Altogether Hoover and his associates had in
their employment, in the various mining imder-
takings imder way in 1914, about 175,000 men,
and the annual mineral output of the mines
being handled by them was worth as much as
the total annual output of all the mines in
California. And practically all of these suc-
cessful mines had been made out of imsuccess-
ful ones. For Hoover really developed a new
profession in connection with mining; a pro-
fession of making good mines out of bad ones,
of making bankrupt mining concerns solvent,
not by manipulation on the stock exchange but

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by work in the earth, in the mills, in the mine
offices. He works with materials, not pieces of
paper. It takes him from three to five years
to bring a dead mine to life; the mine must
have mineral in it, to be sure, to start with, but
he does all the rest. That little matter of hav-
ing mineral in it is the whole thing, you may
think. But if you do, you must think again.
The history of mining is more a history of how
mines with mineral in them have not succeeded
in becoming mines where the mineral could be
profitably got out of them, than of how such
mines have succeeded. A successful mine is
infinitely more than a hole in the ground with
mineral at its bottom. It is railroads and
steamers, mills, housing for men, men them-
selves, organization, system, skill, brains, all-
around human capacity. Herbert Hoover is
a great miner, because he is — I say it bluntly
and not from any blind hero-worship — ^a great
man.

If he is, he can do more than mine greatly;
he can do other things greatly. Well, he can,
and he has done them. We come to that part
of his story now, the part that begins when

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the World War began, when the world saw
with amazement that grew into ever greater
amazement an imknown miner, that is, un-
known except to other miners, calmly do
things that only great men can do. But we
who know now the story of the boy and the
man of the years before the war are not so
much amazed. We know that he is the kind
of man, who had had the kind of experience,
the kind of world education, who with oppor-
tunity can do things the world calls great and
be the great man. But just for a few min-
utes before we begin with August, 1914, the
time when Herbert Hoover began a new chap-
ter in his work because the world had begun
a new epoch in its history, let us have a glimpse
of this man outside of his mines and his of-
fices. Let us see him in his home, with his
family, with his books if he has any, and with
his friends of whom he has many.

His two children, Herbert and Allan, were
bom in 1908 and 1907 respectively. Living
first in apartments, the Hoovers felt that they
and the boys and the dog Rags needed more
room, or perhaps, better, diflferent kind of

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room, room for an energetic family of Ameri-
cans to grow up in Western American fashion,
as far as this could be compassed in London. »
And so they found, farther west, in a; sHort
street just oflF Kensington High Street land
close to Kensington Gardens, a roomy old
house with a garden with real trees in it and
some grass and flower-beds. It had been built
long before by somebody who liked room, and
then rebuilt, or at least made over and added
to, by Montin Conway, the Alpinist and au-
thor. For generations it had been called "The
Red House," a name that became in the suc-
ceeding years more and more widely known
to Americans living in, coming to, or passing
through London, for it became a well-known
house of American foregathering.

I knew it first in 1912 when I was doing some
work in the British Museimi Library. The
bedroom to which my wife and I were shown
•was inhabited already by a happy and very
vocal family of little Javanese seed birds and
green parrakeets, a part of the boys' menag-
erie which had to find refuge from the other
animals already housed in their adjoining

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rooms. Out in the garden there weife pigeons
fluttering in and out of a cote, and hens sol-
emnly inspecting the newly-seeded flower-beds,
A big silver Persian cat, and a smaller yellow
Siamese one regularly attended breakfasts, and
Rags irregularly attended everything. The
cats were Mr. Hoover's favorites. He liked to
have one on his lap as he talked.

There were bookshelves in all of the rooms,
and I noted that the owner, however many the
guests had been, or long the evening, never
went up to bed without a book in his
hand. I came later to know how fixed this
night-reading habit had become, for in the
Belgian relief years when we had frequently
to cross the perilous North Sea together on
our way from Thames-mouth to Holland or
back in one of the little Dutch boats which used
to run across twice a week imtil most of the
boats had been blown up by floating mines.
Hoover used always to fix an electric pocket
lamp or a stub of a candle to the edge of
his bunk and read for a while after turn-
ing in. He has had little time for read-
ing in daytime, but yet he has read enorm-

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ously. It is this night-reading that explains it.
The shelves in "The Red House" contained
many hooks ahout geology and mining and
metallurgy. But they contained many others
as weU. Especially were they burdened with
books on economics and political science. And
they bore lighter loads of stories. Sherlock
Holmes was there in eootenso. The books on
civics and economics and theories of finance
were well thumbed and some of them margined
with roughly penciled notes. I should say
they had been studied. A frequent evening
visitor, who came by preference when there
had been no guests at dinner, was a well-
known brilliant student of finance and eco-
nomics, formerly editor of the best-known
English financial weekly and now editor
of a very liberal, not to say radical,
weekly of his own. He and Hoover held
long disquisition together, each having clear-
cut ideas of his own and glad to try them out
on the keen intelligence of the other. As a
mere biologist, whose little knowledge was
more of the domestic economy of the four and
six-footed inhabitants of earth than of the so-

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cial science and politics of the bipedal lords of
creation, my role was chiefly that of fascinated
listener.

Although he likes books and even likes writ-
ing, Hoover makes no claims to authorship
himself. Nevertheless he has foimd time to
put something of his knowledge, based on first-
hand experience of the f imdamentals and de-
tails of mining geology, and mining methods
and organization, into a book which, imder the
title of Principles of Mimng, has been a well-
known text for students of mining engineer-
ing since its appearance in 1909. The book is
a condensation of a coiu*se of lectures given by
the author partly in Stanford and partly in
Columbia University. Although it contains an
imusual amoimt of origin^il matter and old
knowledge originally treated for the kind of
book it professes to be, namely a compact man-
ual of approved mining practice, the author's
preface is a model of modest appraisement of
his work. One of its paragraphs simply de-
mands quotation:

"The bulk of the material presented [in this
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book] is the common heritage of the pro-
fession, and if any may think there is insuf-
ficient reference to previous writers, let him
endeavor to find to whom the origin of our
methods should be credited. The science
has grown by small contributions of experi-
ence since, or before, those unnamed Egyp-
tian engineers, whose works prove their
knowledge of many fundamentals of mine
engineering six thousand eight himdred years
ago. If I have contributed one sentence
to the accumulated knowledge of a thousand
generations of engineers or have thrown one
new ray of light on the work, I shall have done
my share,"

In the latter chapters of the book Hoover,
having devoted the earlier chapters to technical
methods, treats of the administrative and finan-
cial phases of mining. The last chapter is de
voted to the "character, training, and obliga-
tions of the mining engineering profession" in \
which he sets up a standard of professional |

ethics for the engineer of the very highest de-
gree and reveals clearly his own genuinely phil-
anthropic attitude toward his fellow men. In
the discussion of mining administration there

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is a concise but illuminating treatment of the
subject of labor imions. After discussing con-
tract work and bonus systems he says:

"There is another phase of the labor question
which must be considered, and that is the gen-
eral relations of employer and employed. As
corporations have grown, so likewise have the
labor unions. In general, they are normal and
proper antidotes for imlimited capitalistic or-
ganization.

"Labor imions usually pass through two
phases. First, the inertia of the imorganized
labor is too often stirred only by demagogic
means. After organization through these and
other agencies, the lack of balance in the leaders
often makes for injustice in demands, and for
violence to obtain them and disregard of agree-
ments entered upon. As time goes on, men be-
come educated in regard to the rights of their
employers and to the reflection of these rights
in ultimate benefit to labor itself. Then the
men, as well as the intelligent employer, en-
deavor to safeguard both interests. When this
stage arrives, violence disappears in favor of
negotiation on economic principles, and the
unions achieve their greatest real gains. Given
a union with leaders who can control the mem-
bers, and who are disposed to approach diflfer-

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ences in a business spirit, there are few sounder
positions for the employer, for agreements
honorably carried out dismiss the constant
harassments of possible strikes. Such unions
exist in dozens of trades in this country, tind
they are entitled to greater recognition. The
time when the employer could ride roughshod
over his labor is disappearing with the doctrine
of laissez faire on which it was f oimded. The
sooner the fact is recognized, the better for the
employei:. The sooner some miners' unions
develop from the first into the second stage, the
more speedily will their organizations secure
general respect and influence.

"The crying need of labor unions, and of
some employers as well, is education on a fun-
damental of economics too long disregarded
by all classes and especially by the academic
economist. When the latter abandon the
theory that wages are the result of supply and
demand, and recognize that in these days of in-
ternational flow of labor, commodities and capi-
tal, the real controlling factor in wages is ef-
ficiency, then such an educational campaign
may become possible. Then will the employer
and employee find a common ground on which
each can benefit. There lives no engineer who
has not seen insensate dispute as to wages
where the real difficulty was inefficiency. No

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administrator begrudges a division with his
men of the increased profit arising from in-
creased efficiency. But every administrator
begrudges the wage level demanded by labor
imions whose policy is decreased efficiency in
the false belief that they are providing for
more labor."

Three years before publishing the Principles
of Mining Hoover had collaborated with a
a group of authors in the production of a book
called Economics of Mining. And three years
later, that is in 1912, he privately published, in
sumptuous form, with scrupulously exact re-
production of all of its many ciu*ious old wood-
cuts, an English translation of Agricola's "De
Re Metallica," the first great treatise on min-
ing and metallurgy, originally published in
Latin in 1556, only one himdred years after
Gutenberg had printed his first book. "De Re
Metallica" was the standard manual of mining
and metallurgy for 180 years. Georgius Ag-
ricola, the author, was really one Georg Bauer,
a German of Saxony, who, following the cus-
tom of his time used for pen-name the literal
Latin equivalents of the words of his German
name*

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This translation, with its copious added
notes of editorial commentary, was the joint
work of Hoover and his wife — ^it was Mrs.
Hoover, indeed, who began it — and occu-
pied most of their spare time, especially their
evenings — ^and sometimes nights! — and Sim-
days, through nearly five years. They had
been for some time collecting and delving in
old books on China and the Far East and an-
cient treatises on early mining and metallurgi-
cal processes, and had accumulated an unusual
collection of such books, ransacking the old
bookshops of the world in their quest. In
1902, Mrs. Hoover while looking up some
geology in the British Museum Library,
stumbled again on Agricola, which she had for-
gotten since the days she was in Dr. Branner's
laboratory. By invoking the services of one
of their friends among the old book dealers
the Hoovers soon owned a copy. Caught
especially by the many curious and only half
imderstandable pictures in it they began to
translate bits from it here and there, espe-
cially the explanations of the pictures, and
in a little while they were lost. Nothing would

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satisfy them short of making a complete trans-
lation. It became an obsession; it was at first
their recreation; then because it went very
slowly it seemed likely to become their Kf e avo-
cation. •

They fomid an early German translation,
which, however, helped them little. The trans-
lator had apparently known little of mining
and not too much of Latin. They went to
Saxony, to the home of Agricola, hoping to
get clues to the difficult things in the book by
seeing the region and mines which had been
under his eyes while writing it, and finding tra-
ditions of the mining methods of his time. But
it was as if a sponge had been passed over Ag-
ricola and his days. Fire had swept over the
towns he had known and all the ancient records
were gone. The towns, rebuilt, and the mines
of which he had written were there, but of him
and of the ancient methods he wrote about
there was hardly record or even tradition.
They went to Freiberg, where has long existed
the greatest German school of mines, the great-
est mining school in the world, indeed, until
the American schools were developed — ^prob-

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ably the Grermans would not admit even this
qualification — and there they found no more to
help them than in Agricola's own towns. In
fact, the Freiberg professors seemed rather irri-
tated by the advent of these searchers for an-
cient mining history, for, as the savants ex-
plained, the Freiberg methods and machines
were all the most modern in the world; there
were "no left-overs, no worn-out rubbish of
those inefficient ages'* around Germany's great
school of mines.

So the Hoovers were little rewarded by their
pilgrimage to Germany for help in their at-
tempt to resuscitate the Saxon Agricola. But
they kept on mining in the big tome &nd finally,
in the fifth year of their devoted spare-time
labors they had before them a completed trans-
lation.

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CHAPTER VII

THE wae: the man and his fibst sebyice

Feom the first day of the World War Her-
bert Hoover has been a world figure. But
much of what he has done and how he has done
it is still only hazily known, for all the general
public familiarity with his name as head of the
Belgian relief work, American food adminis-
trator, and, finally, director-general of the
American and Allied relief work in Europe
after the armistice. The public knows of him
as the initiator and head of great Organizations
with heart in them, which were successfully
managed on soimd business principles. But
it does not yet know the special character of
Hoover's own personal participation in them,
his original and resourceful contributions to
their success, and the formidable obstacles
which he had constantly to overcome in making
this success possible. There was little that

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THE WAR: THE MAN

**just happened" which contributed to this suc-
cess; that which did just happen usually hap-
pened wrong. Things came oflF because ideals
were realized by practical method, decision,
and driving power. I should like to be able to
give the people of America a revealing
glimpse, by outline and incident, of all this.
And I should like, too, to be able to make clear
the pure Americanism of this man; to disclose
the basis of belief in the soimdness of the
American heart and the practical possiibilities
of American democracy on which Hoover
banked in determining his methods and daring
his decisions. This belief was the easier to hold
inasmuch as he has himself the soimdness of
character, the fundamental conviction of de-
mocracy, and the true philanthropy that he
attributes to the average American. He is his
own American model.

To call Herbert Hoover "English" as a
cheap form of derogation, is to reveal a sur-
prising paucity of invention in criticism. It
is also unfair to about as American an Ameri-
can as can be found. The translation of Agri-
cola, an account of which closed our last chap-

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ter, stretched over the long time that it did, not
alone because Mr. and Mrs. Hoover could
give only their spare hours to it, but also be-
cause they could turn to it only while they
were in London where the needed reference
books were available. And their presence in
London was so discontinuous iJiat their trans-
lating work was much more marked by inter-
ruption than continuity. The constant returns
to America where there were the New York
and San Francisco oflSces to be looked after
personally, and the many trips to the mining
properties scattered over the world, limited
Hoover's London days to a comparatively
small number in each year. A London office
was, to be sure, necessary between 1902 and
1914 because of the advantage to a world miner
of being close to affairs in the world's center
of mining interests. And it was also neces-
sary during Belgian relief days because of its
unequaled accessibility, by persons or cable,
from all the vital points in the complex inter-
national structure of the relief organization.
But in all this period of London connection,
except in the Belgian relief period. Hoover

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was a familiar figure in mining circles in both
New York and San Francisco, and although
rarely able to cast his vote in America he main-
tained a lively interest in American major gov-
ernmental affairs.

Hoover kept up, too, an active interest in
the development of his alma mater, Stanford
University, and especially in its geology and
mining engineering department. In 1908 he
was asked to join its faculty, and delivered a
course of lectiu*es on the principles of mining,
which attracted such favorable comment that
he repeated it shortly after in condensed form
in Columbia University. On the basis of his
experience as a imiversity student of mining,
and as a successful mine expert and operator,
and as an employer of many other university
graduates from universities and technical
schools Hoover has formed definite conclu-
sions as to what the distinctive character of
professional university training for prospective
mining engineers should be. It differs from a
widely held view.

He believes that the collegiate training
should be less practical than fimdamentaL

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The attempts, more common a decade ago than
now perhaps, to convert schools of mining and
departments of mining geology into shops and
artificial mines, do not meet with favor in his
eyes. Vocational, or professional, training in
universities should leave most of the actual
practice to be gained in actual experience and
work after graduation. If the student is well-
groimded in the fimdameiital science of min-
ing and metallurgy, in geology and chemistry
and physics and mechanics, he can quickly pick
up the routine methods of practice. And he
can do more. He can understand their raison
d'Stre, and he can modify and adapt them to
the varying conditions imder which they must
be applied. He can, in addition, if he has any
originality of mind at all, devise new methods,
discover new facts of mining geology — ^the in-
terior of the earth is by no means a read book
as yet — and add not only his normal quota of
additional wealth to the world, as a routine
worker, but an increment of as yet imrealized
possibilities, as an original investigator. In
Hoover's own choice of assistants he has
selected among men fresh from the imiversi-

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ties or technical schools those who have had
thoroughly scientific, as contrasted with much
technical, or so-called practical, training.

His interest in universities and university
administration and methods has always been
intense. It has been reciprocated, if his honor-
ary degrees from a dozen American colleges
and universities can be assumed to be evidence
of this. In 1912 he was made a trustee of Stan-
ford and from the beginning of this trusteeship
imtil now he has taken an active part in the uni-
versity management, giving it the full benefit
of his constructive service. His most recent ac-
tivity in this connection has concerned itself
with the needed increase and standardization
of faculty salaries so that for each grade of
faculty position there is assuted at least a liv-
ing minimum of salary. ,He was the originat-
ing figure and principal donor of the Stanford
Union, a general club-house for students and
faculty, which adds materially to the comfort
of home-wandering alvmmi and to the demo-
cratic life of the University. In all the great
University plant there was no place for a com-
mon social meeting-groimd for faculty, alumni,

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and undergraduates. The Union provided it.
If Stanford did much for Hoover in the days
when he was one of its students, he has loyally
repaid his obligation.

But all of these accounts of Hoover's vari-
ous activities still leave unanswered many ques-
tions concerning the more intimate personal
characteristics of the man to whom the World
War came in August, 1914, with its special call
for service. He was then just forty years old,
known to mining engineers everywhere and
to the alumni and faculty and friends of Stan-
ford University and to a limited group of busi-
ness acquaintances and personal friends, but
with a name then unknown to the world at
large. Today no name is more widely known.
Today millions of Europeans call him blessed;
millions of Americans call him great. My
own belief is that he and his work did more to
save Europe from complete anarchy after the
war than any other influence exerted on its
people from the outside, and that without it
there was no other sufiicient influence either
outside or inside which would have prevented
this anardiy.

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Hoover's kinds of work are many, but his
recreations are few. His chief form of exer-
cise — if it is exercise — ^is motoring. He does
not play outdoor games; no golf, tennis, but
little walking. He has no system of kicking
his legs about in bed or going through calis-
thenics on rising. And yet he keeps in very
good physical condition, at least he keeps in
sufficiently good condition to do several men's
days' work every day. He has a theory about
this which he practices, and which he occasion-
ally explains briefly to those who remonstrate
with him about his neglect of exercise. "You
have to take exercise," he says, "because you
overeat. I do not overeat, and therefore I
do not need exercise." It sounds very simple
and conclusive; and it seems to work — ^in his
case.

He likes social life, but not society life. He
enjoys company but he wants it to mean some-
thing. He has little small talk but plenty of
significant talk. He saves time by cutting out
frills, both business and social. His directness
of mental approach to any subject is expressed
in his whole manner: his immediate attack in

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conversation on the essence of the matter, his
few words, his quick decisions. He can make
these decisions quickly because he has clear
policies to guide him. I recall being asked by
him to come to breakfast one morning at Stan-
ford after he had been elected trustee, to talk
over the matter of faculty standards. His
first question to the two or three of us who
were there was: What is the figure below
which a professor of a given grade (assistant,
associate, or full professor) cannot maintain
himself here on a basis which will not lower his
efficiency in his work or his dignity in the com-
munity? We finally agreed on certain figures.
"Well," said Hoover, "that must be the mini-
mum salary of the grade."

He knows what he wants to do, and goes
straight forward tdward doing it; but if diffi-
culty too great intervenes — ^it really has to be
very great — ^he withdraws for a fresh start and
tries another path. I always think of him as
outside of a circle in the center of which is his
goal. He strikes the circle at one spot; if he
can get through, well and good. If not he
draws away, moves a little aroimd the circum-

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ference and strikes again. This resourceful-
ness and fertility of method are conspicuous
characteristics of him. To that degree he is
"diplomatic." But if there is only one way he
fights to the extreme along that way. And
those of us who have lived through the diffi-
cult, the almost impossible, days of Belgian re-
lief, food administration, and general Euro-
pean af ter-the-war relief, with him, have come
to an almost superstitious belief in his capacity
to do anything possible to human power.

He has a great gift of lucid exposition. His
successful argument with Lloyd Greorge, who
began a conference with him on the Belgian
relief work strongly opposed to it on groimds
of its alleged military disadvantages to the Al-
lies, and closed it by the abrupt statement:
"I am convinced; you have my permission,*'
is a conspicuous example, among many, of his
way of winning adherence to his plans, on a
basis of good groimds and lucid and eflfective
presentation of them. He has no voice for
speaking to great audiences, no flowers of rhet-
oric or familiar platitudes for professional ora-
tory, but there is no more effective living

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speaker to small groups or conferences around
the council table. He is clear and convincing
in speech because he is clear and precise in
thinking. He is fertile in plan and construc-
tive in method because he has creative imagina*
tion.

The first of his war calls to service came just
as he was preparing to return to America from
London where he had brought his family from
California to spend the school vacation of 1914.
Their return passage was engaged for the mid-
dle of August. But the war came on, and with
it his first relief undertaking. It was only the
trivial matter — ^trivial in comparison with his
later undertakings — of helping seventy thou-
sand American travelers, stranded at the out-
break of the war, to get home. These people,
rich and poor alike, found themselves penniless
and helpless because of the sudden moratoriimti.
Letters of credit, travelers' checks, drafts, all
were mere printed paper. They needed real
money, hotel rooms, steamer passages, and ad-
vice. And there was nobody in London, not
even the bienevolent and most willing but in this
respect powerless American ambassador who

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could help them. At least there seemed none
until Hoover transferred the "relief* whidi
had automatically congested about his private
offices in the "city*' during the first two days to
larger headquarters in the Hotel Savoy. He
gathered together all his available money and
that of American friends and opened a unique
bank which had no depositors and took in no
mcmey, but continuously gave it out against
personal checks signed by unknown but Ameri-
can-looking people on unknown banks in Walla
Walla and Fresno and Grand Rapids and
Dubuque and Emporia and New Bedford.
And he found rooms in hotels and passage on
steamers, first-class, second-class or steerage,
as happened to be possible. Now on all these
checks and promises to pay, just $250 failed
to be realized by the man who took a risk on
American honesty to the extent of several hun-
dred thousand dollars.

Some of the incidents of this "relief" were
pathetic, and some were comic. One day the
banker and his staff, which was composed of
his wife and their friends, were startled
by the apparition in the front office of a

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group of !Ainerican plains Indians, Black-
feet and Sioux, all in the most Fenimore Coop-
erish of full Indian dress, feathers and skins,
war-paint and tomahawks. They had been
part of a Wild West show and menagerie
caught by the war's outbreak in Austria, and
had, after incredible experiences, made their
way out, dropping animals and baggage as
they progressed, until they had with them only
what they had on, which in order to save the
most valuable part of their portable furniture,
was their most elaborate costumes. They had
got to London, but to do it they had used up the
last penny and the last thing they could sell or
pawn except their clothes, which they had to
wear to cover their red skins. Hoover's Ameri-
can bank saw these original Americans oflF, with
joyful whoopings of gratitude, for Wyoming.
But the work was not limited to lending the
barely necessary fimds to those who wished
to borrow. He raised a charitable fund among
these same friends for caring for the really
destitute ones imtil other relief could come.
This came in the shape of the American Gov-
ernment's "ship of gold," the battle-ship Tetir

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nessee, sent over to the rescue. Hoover was
then asked by Ambassador Page and the
Army officers in charge of the London con-
signment of this gold to persuade his volim-
teer committee to continue their labors during
its distribution. With this money available
all who were able to produce proof of Ameri-
can citizendiip could be given whatever was
necessary to enable them to reach their own
country.

And then came the next insistent call for
help. And in listening to it, and, with swift
decision, undertaking to respond to it, Herbert
Hoover laimched himself, without in any de-
gree realizing it, on a career of public service
and corresponding abnegation of private busi-
ness and self-interest, that was to last all
through the war and through the armistice
period, and is today still going on. In all this
period of war and after-wax service he has
received no salary from government or relief
organizations but, on the contrary, has given
up a large income as expert mining engineer
and director of mining companies. In addi-
tion, he has paid out a large sum for personal

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CHAPTER VIII

THE BELIEF OF BELGIUM', OBGANIZATION AND
DIPLOMATIC DIFFICULTIES

Despite the general popular knowledge that
there was a relief of Belgium and that Hoover
was its organizer and directing head, there still
seems to be, if I may judge by the questions
often asked me, no very wide knowledge of
just why there had to be such relief of Belgium
and how Herbert Hoover came to undertake
it. A fairly full answer to these queries makes
a proper introduction to any accoimt, however
brief, of his participation in this extraordinary
part of the history of the war.

The World War began> as we all most viv-
idly remember, with the successful, although
briefly but most importantly delayed invasion
of Belgium. And this invasion resulted in
producing very promptly not only a situation
appalling in its immediate realization, but one

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of even more terrifying possibilities for the near
future. For through the haze of the smoke-
clouds from burning towns and above the rat-
tle of the machine guns in Dinant and Louvain
could be seen the hovering specter of starva-
tion and heard the wailing of hungry children.
And how the specter was to be made to pass
and the children to hush their cries was soon
the problem of all problems for Belgium.

Within ten weeks after the first shots of the
War all of Belgiimi except that dreary little
stretch of sand and swamp in the northwestern
comer of it that for over four years was all of
the Kingdom of Belgium xmder the rule of
King Albert, was not only in the hands of a
brutal enemy but was enclosed and shut away
from the rest of the world by a rigid ring of
steel. Not only did the Germans maintain a
ring of bayonets and electrified wire fence —
this latter along the Belgian-Dutch frontier —
aroimd it, but the Allies, recognizing that for
all practical purposes. Occupied Belgium
was now German territory, had to include it in
their blockade of the German coast. Thus no
persons or supplies could pass in or out of Bel-

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gium except under extraordinary circum.
stances, such as a special permission from both
Grcrmany and Allies or a daring and almost im-
possible blockade-running.

Now Belgiimi is not, as America is, self-
sustaining as to food. If an enemy could com-
pletely blockade us, we could go on living in-
definitely on the food we produce. But Bel-
gium could not; nor could England or France
or Italy. Belgiimi is not primarily an agricul-
tural coimtry, despite the fact that what agri-
culture it does have is the most intensive and
highly developed in Eiu'ope. It is an indus-
trial country, the most highly industrialized in
Eiu'ope, with only one sixth of its people sup-
porting themselves by agriculture. It depends
upon constant importations for fifty per cent
of its general food needs and seventy-five per
cent of its needed food-grains.

The ring of steel about Belgium, then, if not
promptly broken, plainly meant starvation.
The imprisoned Belgians saw, with the pass-
ing days, their Uttle piles of stored food sup-
plies get lower. They had immediately begun
rationing themselves. The Government and

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cities had taken possession of such small food
stocks as had not been seized by the Grermans
for their armies, and were treating them as a
conmion supply for all the people. They dis-
tributed this food as well as they could during
a reign of terror with all railways and motors
controlled by their conquerors. They lived in
those first weeks on little food but much hope.
For were not their powerful protectors, the
French and English, very quickly going to
drive the invaders back and out of their coun-
try? But it soon became apparent that it was
the Allied armies that were being driven not
only out of Belgium but farther and farther
back into France. So the Allies could do noth-
ing, and the Germans would do nothing to help
them. Indeed, everything the Grermans did
was to make matters worse. There was only
one hope; they must have food from outside
sources, and to do this they must have recourse
to some powerful neutral help.

Belgium, and particularly Brussels, has al-
ways had its American colony. And it was to
these Americans that Belgium turned for help.
Many members of the colony left as soon after

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HERBERT HOOVER

the war began as they could, but some, headed
by Mmister Brand Whitlock, remained.
When the Belgian court left Brussels for Ant-
werp, and later for Le Havre, part of the dip-
lomatic corps followed it, but a smaller part
stayed in Brussels to occupy for the rest of the
war a most pecuUar position. Mr. Whitlock
elected to stay. It was a fortunate election
for the Belgians. Also it meant many things,
most of them interesting, for the sympathetic
Minister.

When the American expatriates in Belgium
who wished to leave after the war began, ap-
phed to Minister Whitlock for help to become
repatriates, he called to his assistance certain
American engineers and business men then
Resident in Brussels, notably Messrs. Daniel
Heineman, Millard Shaler, and William
Hulse. He also had the very effective help of
his First Secretary of Legation, Mr. Hugh
Gibson, now our Minister to Poland. These
men were able to arrange the financial difficul-
ties of the fleeing Americans despite closed
banks, disappearing currency, and general
financial paralysis. When this was finished

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THE RELIEF OF BELGIUM

they readily turned to the work of helping the
Belgians, the more readily because they were
the right sort of Americans.

Their first effort, in cooperation with the
burgomaster of Brussels and a group of Brus-
sels business men, was the formation of a Cen-
tral Committee of Assistance and Provision-
ing, imder the patronage of the Ministers of
the United States and Spain (Mr. Whitlock
and the Marques de Villalobar). This com-
mittee was first active in the internal measures
for reUef already referred to, but soon finding
that the shipping about over the land of the
rapidly disappearing food stocks of the coun-
try and the special assistance of the destitute
and out-of-work — ^the destruction of factories
and the cessation of the incoming of raw ma-
terials had already thrown tens of thousands of
men out of employment — ^must be replaced by
a more radical reUef, this committee resolved
to approach the Grermans for permission to at-
tempt to bring in food supphes from outside
the country.

Burgomaster Max had already written on
September 7 to Major Grcneral Luettwitz, the

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HERBERT HOOVER

German Military Governor of Brussels, ask-
ing for permission to import foodstuffs through
the Holland-Belgium border, and the city au-
thorities of Charleroi had also begun negotia-
tion with the German authorities in their
province (Hainaut) to the same end, but little
attention had been paid to these requests.
Therefore the Americans of the committee de-
cided, as neutrals, to take up personally with
the German military authorities the matter of
arranging imports.

A general permission for the importation of
foodstuffs into Belgimn by way of the Dutch
frontier was finally obtained from the German
authorities in Belgium, together with their
guarantee that all such imported food would
be entirely free from requisition by the Ger-
man army. Also, a special permission was ac-
corded to Mr. Shaler to go to Holland, and, if
necessary, to England to try to arrange for
obtaining and transporting to Belgimn certain
kinds and quantities of foodstuffs. But no
money could be sent out of Belgium to pay for
them, except a first small amount which Mr.
Shaler was allowed to take with him.

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In Holland, Mr. Shaler found the Dutch
government quite willing to allow foodstuffs
to pass through Holland for Belgium, but it
asked him to try to arrange to find the sup-
plies in England. Holland already saw that
she would need to hold all of her food supplies
for her own people. So Shaler went on to Eng*
land. Here he tried to interest influential
Americans in Belgium's great need, and,
through Edgar Rickard, an American engin-
eer, he was introduced to Herbert Hoover.

This brings us to Hoover's connection with
the relief of Belgium. But there was necessary
certain official governmental interest on the
part of America and the Allies before anybody
could really do much of anything. Hoover
therefore introduced Shaler to Dr. Page, the
American Ambassador, a man of heart, de-
cision, and prompt action. This was on Oc-
tober 7. A few days before, on September 29,
to be exact, Shaler together with Hugh Gib-
son, the Secretary of the American Legation
in Brussels who had followed Shaler to Lon-
don, had seen Count Lailaing, the Belgian min-
ister to England, and explained to him the

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HERBERT HOOVER

situation inside of Belgium. They also handed
him a memorandum pointing out that there
was needed a permit from the British Grovem-
ment allowing the immediate exportation of
about 2,500 tons of wheat, rice, b'eans, and
peas to Belgium. Mr. Shaler had brought with
him from Brussels money provided by the Bel-
gian Comiti Central sufficient to purchase
about half this amount of foodstuffs.

The Belgian Minister transmitted the re-
quest for a permit to the British Grovemment
on October 1. On October 6 he received a
reply which he, in timi, transmitted to the
American Ambassador in London, Mr. Page.
This reply from the British GrOvemment gave
permission to export foodstuffs from England
through Holland into Belgiimi, under the
German guarantees that had previously been
obtained by Mr. Heineman's committee, on
the condition that the American Ambassador
in London, or Americans representing him,
would ship the foodstuffs from England, con-
signed to the American Minister in Brussels;
that each sack of grain should be plainly
marked accordingly, and that the foodstuffs

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should be distributed under American control
solely to the Belgian civil population.

On October 7, the day that Hoover had
taken Shaler to the American Embassy and
they had talked matters over with Mr. Page,
the Ambassador cabled to Washington outlin-
ing the British Government's authorization and
suggesting that, if the American Government
was in accord with the whole matter as far
as it had gone, it should secure the approval
of the German Government. After a lapse of
four or five days. Ambassador Page received
a reply from Washington in which it was stated
that the American Government had taken the
matter up with Berlin on October 8.

After an exchange of telegrams between
Brussels, London, Washington, and Berlin,
Ambassador Page was informed on October
18 by Ambassador Gerard, then American
Ambassador in Berlin, that the German Gov-
ernment agreed to the arrangement, and the
following day confirmation of this was received
from Washington.

Sometime during the course of these nego-
tiations Ambassador Page and the Belgian au-

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HERBERT HOOVER

thorities formally asked Hoover to take on the
task of organizing the relief work, if the diplo-
matic arrangements came to a satisfactory con-
clusion. His sympathetic and successful work
in looking after the stranded Americans, all
done xmder the appreciative eyes of the Ameri-
can Ambassador, had recommended him as the
logical head of the new and larger humanitar-
ian effort. Hoover had agreed, and his first
formal step, taken on October 10, in organizing
the work, was to enlist the existing American
Relief Committee, whose work was then prac-
call^y over, in the new xmdertaking. He
amalgamated its principal membership with
the Americans in Brussels, and on Octobelr
13, issued in the name of this committee an
appeal to the American people to consolidate
all Belgian relief funds and place them in the
hands of the committee for disposal. At the
same time Minister Whitlock cabled an appeal
to President Wilson to call on America for aid
in the relief of Belgimn.

Between October 10 and 16 it was de-
termined by Ambassador Page and Mr.
Hoover that it was desirable to set up a wholly

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new neutral organization. Hoover enlisted the
support of Messrs. John B. White, Millard
Hunsiker, Edgar Rickard, J. F. Lucey, and
Clarence Graff, all American engineers and
business men then in London, and these men,
together with Messrs. Shaler and Hugh Gib-
son, thereupon organized, and on October 22
formally launched, "The American Commis-
sion for Relief in Belgimn," with Hoover as
its active head, with the title of chairmaA
Ambassador Page and Ministers Van Dyke
and Whitlock, in The Hague and Brussels, re-
spectively, were the organization's honorary
chairmen. A few days afterward, at the sug-
gestion of Minister Whitlock, Sefior Don
Merry del Val, the Spanish Ambassador in
London, and Marques de Villalobar, the Span-
ish Minister in Brussels, both of whom had
been consulted in the arrangements in Bel-
gium and London, were added to the list of
honorary chairmen. And, a little later, there
were added the names of Mr. Gerard, the
American Ambassador at Berlin, Mr. Sharp,
oiu* Ambassador at Paris, and Jongkeer de
Weede, the Dutch Minister to the Belgian

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Grovemment at Le Havre where it had taken
refuge. At the same time the name of the
Commission was modified by dropping from it
the word "American'' in deference to the of-
ficial connection of the Spanish diplomats with
it. The new organization thus became styled
"The Commission for Relief in Belgium,"
which remained its official title through its ex-
istence. This name was promptly reduced, in
practical use by its members, with characteristic
American brevity, to "C. R. B.," which, pro-
nounced "tsay-er-bay," was also soon the one
most widely used in Belgium and Occupied
France by Belgian, French, and Grcrmans
alike.

I have given this account of the organization
and status of the Commission in so much detail
because it reveals its imposing official appear-
ance which was of inestimable value to it in car-
rjring on its nmning diplomatic difficulties all
through the war. The official patronage of the
three neutral governments, American, Span-
ish and Dutch, gave us great strength in fac-
ing the repeated assaults on our existence and
the constant interference with oiur work by

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Grerman officials and officers. I have earlier
used the phrase "satisfactory conclusion of dip-
lomatic arrangements." There never was, in
the whole history of the Commission, any sat-
isfactory conclusion of such arrangements;
there were sufficiently satisfactory conditions
to enable the work to go on effectively but there
was always serious diplomatic difficulty. Min-
isters Whitlock and Villalobar, our "protecting
Ministers" in Brussels, had to bear much of
the brunt of the difficulties, but the Commission
itself grew to have almost the diplomatic stand-
ing of an independent nation, its chairman and
the successive resident directors in Brussels act-
ing constantly as unofficial but accepted inter-
mediaries between the Allies and the Grermans.
The "C. R. B." was organized. It had its
imposing list of diplomatic personages. It
had a chairman and secretary and treasurer and
all the rest. But to feed the clamoring Bel-
gians it had to have food. To have food it had
to have money, much money, and with this
money food in large quantity had to be ob-
tained in a world already being ransacked by
the purchasing agents of France and England

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seeking the stocks that these countries knew
would soon be necessary to meet the growing
demands of their armies and civilians drawn
from production into the great game of de-
struction. Once obtained, the food had to be
transported overseas and through the mine-
strewn Channel to Rotterdam, the nearest open
port of Belgium, and thence by canals and
railways into the starving country and its use
there absolutely restricted to the civil popula-
tion. Finally, the feeding of Belgium had to
begin immediately and arrangements had to be
made to keep it up indefinitely. The war was
not to be a short one; that was already plain.
It was up to Hoover to get busy, very busy.

The first officials of the C. R. B. and all
the men who came into it later, agree on one
thing. We relied confidently on our chairman
to organize, to drive, to make the impossible
things possible. We did our best to carry out
what it was our task to do. If we had ideas
and suggestions they were welcomed by him.
If good they were adopted. But principally
we worked as we were told for a man who
worked harder than any of us, imd who

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planned most of the work for himself and all
of us.

He had the vision. He saw from the first
that the relief of Belgiimi would he a large
joh; it proved to he a gigantic one. He saw
that all America would have to he behind us;
indeed that the whole humanitarian world
would have to hack us up, not merely in funds
but in moral support. For the miUtary logic
of the situation was only half with us; it was
half against us. The British Admiralty, trying
to blockade (lermany completely, saw in the
feeding of ten million Belgians and French in
Grerman-occupied territory a relief to the occu-
piers who would, by the accepted rules of the
game, have to feed these people from their own
food supplies. The fact that the Grcrmans de-
clared from the first that they never would do
this and in every test proved that they would
not, was hard to drive home to the Admiralty
and to many amateur English strategists safely
far from the sufferings of the hungering Bel-
gians.

On the other hand other influential govern-
mental officials, notably the Prime Minister

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HERBERT HOOVER

and the heads of the Foreign OflSce, saw in
the Allied help for these people the only-
means to prevent them from saving their
lives in the one other way possible to them,
that is, by working for the Grermans.
Fathers of families, however patriotic, cannot
see their wives and children starve to death
when rescue is possible. And the Germans of-
fered this rescue to them all the time. Never a
day in all the four years when Grcrman placards
offering food and money for their work did not
stare in the faces the five hundred thousand
idle skilled Belgian workmen and the other
hundreds of thousands of unskilled ones shut
up in the country.

Germany, also, had two opinions about Bel-
gian relief. There were zu Reventlow and his
great party of jingoes who cried from begin-
ning to end: Kick out these American spies;
make an end of this soft-heartedness. Here
we have ten million Allied hostages in our
hands. Let us say to England and France and
the refugee Belgian cabinet at Le Havre : Your
people may eat what they now have ; it will last
them a month or two; then they shall not have

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a mouthful from Germany or anywhere else
unless you give up the blockade and open the
ports of Belgimn and Germany alike to in-
coming foods.

On the other side were von Bissing and his
German governing staff in Belgium, together
with most of the men of the military General
Staff at Great Headquarters. Von Bissing
tried, in his heavy, stupid way, to placate the
Belgians; that was part of his policy. So he
would offer thenj food — ^always for work — ^with
one hand, while he gave them a slap with the
other. He wanted Belgium to be tranquil.
He did not want to have openly to machine-
gun starving mobs in the cities, however many
unfortunates he allowed to be quietly carried
out to the Tir National at gray dawn to stand
for one terrible moment before the ruthless
firing squad. And the hard-headed men of the
Grcneral Staff knew that starving people do not
lie down quietly and die. All the northern lines
of commimication between the west front and
Germany ran through the countries of these
ten million imprisoned French and Belgians.
Even without arms they could make much

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trouble for the guards of bridges and railways
in their dying struggles. At least it would re-
quire many soldiers to kill them fast enough to
prevent it. And the soldiers, all of them, were
needed in the trenches. In addition the (rer-
man General Staff earnestly desired and hoped
up to the very last that America would keep
out of the war. And these extraordinary
Americans in Belgium seemed to have all of
America behind them; that is what the great
relief propaganda and the imposing list of
diplomatic personages on the C. R. B. list were
partly for. Hoover had realized from the be-
ginning what this would mean. "No," said the
higher Grcrman officials, "it will not do to inter-
fere too much with these quixotic Americans."
But the Germans, most of them at least,
never really understood us. One day as
Hoover was finishing a conversation with the
head of the German Pass-Zentral in Brussels,
trying to arrange for a less vexing and delay-
ing method of granting passes for the move-
ments of our men, the German oflScer said:
"Well, now tell me, Herr Hoover, as man to
man, what do you get out of all this? You

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are not doing all this for nothing, surely.'*
And a little later, at a dinner at the Great
Headquarters to which I had been invited by
one of the chief oflBcers of the General Staff, he
said to me, as we took our seats: "Well, how's
business?'' I could only tell him that it was
going as well as any business could that made
no profits for anybody in it.

It was impressive to see Hoover in the crises.
We expected a major crisis once a month and
a minor one every week. We were rarely dis-
appointed in our expectations. I may describe,
for illustration, such a major crisis, a very
major one, which came in August, 1916. The
Commission had been making a hard fight all
srmmier for two imperatively needed conces-
sions from the Germans. We wanted the Gen-
eral Staff to turn over to us for the civil popu-
lation a larger proportion of the 1916 native
crop of Occupied France than we had had
from the 1915 crop. And we wanted some spe-
cial food for the 600,000 French children in ad-
dition to the regular program imported from
overseas. We sorely needed fresh meat, but-
ter, milk and eggs for them and we had discov-

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HERBERT HOOVER

ered that Holland would sell us certain quanti-
ties of these foods. But we had to have the
special permission of both the Allies and Ger-
many to bring them in.

Hoover, working in London, obtained the
Allied consent. But the Germans were hold-
ing back. I was pressing the General Staff at
Great Headquarters at Charleville and von
Bissing's government at Brussels. Their rea-
sons for holding back finally appeared. Ger-
many looked on Holland as a storehouse of
food which might some time, in some way, de-
spite Allied pressure on the Dutch Govern-
ment, become available to Germany. Al-
though the French children were suffering ter-
ribly, and ceasing all growth and development
for lack of the tissue-building foods, the Ger-
mans preferred not to let us help them with the
Dutch food but to cling to their long chance
of sometime getting it for themselves.

Hoover came over to Brussels and, together,
we started for Berlin. We discovered von
Bissing's chief poUtical adviser. Baron von
der Lancken and his principal assistant. Dr.
Rieth, on the same train. These were the two

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men who, after the armistice, proposed to
Hoover by wire through our Rotterdam oflSce,
to arrange with him for getting food into Ger-
many and received by prompt return wire
through the same intermediary: "Mr. Hoover's
personal compliments and request to go to hell.
If Mr. Hoover has to deal with Germany for
the Allies it will at least not be with such a
precious pair of scoundrels."

When these gentlemen, who had helped
greatly in making oiu^ work and life in Bel*
gium very difficult, saw us, they were somewhat
confused but finally told us they were called
to Berlin for a great conference on the relief
>irork. When we reached Berlin we found three
important oflBcers from Great Headquarters in
the Hotel Adlon. Two of them we knew well;
they had always been fairly friendly to us. The
third was General von Sauberzweig, military
governor of Brussels at the time of Miss Cav-
ell's execution, and the man of final responsibil-
ity for her death. As a result of the excitement
in Berlin because of the world-wide indignation
over the Cavell affair he had been removed
from Brussels hy promotion to the Quarter-

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HERBERT HOOVER

master Generalship at Great Headquarters I
The Berlin conference of important repre-
sentatives of all the government departments
and the General Staff had been called as a re-
sult of the influence of zu Reventlow and the
jingoes who wished to break down the Belgian
relief. We were not invited ; we just happened
to be there. We could not attend the confer-
ence, but we could work on the outside. We
went to Ambassador Gerard for advice. The
Allies were pressing the Commission to get the
concessions on the 1916 native crop. Oiu^ ef-
fort to get the food for the children was en-
tirely our own affair. Mr. Gerard advised
Hoover to rely entirely on the Commission's
reputation for humanity and neutrality; to
keep the position of the Allies wholly out of the
discussion. But this was indeed only the con-
firmation by a wise diplomat of the idea of the
situation that Hoover already had.

Most of the conference members were
against the relief. At the end of the first ses-
sion Lancken and one of the Headquarters
oflScers told us that things were almost certainly
going wrong. They advised Hoover to give

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up. What he did was to work harder. He
forced the officials of the Foreign Office and
Interior to hear him. He pictiu-ed the horrible
consequences to the entire^ population of Bel-
gium and Occupied France of breaking off the
relief, and painted vividly what the effect would
be on the neutral world, America, Spain, and
Holland in very sight and sound of the catas-
trophe. He pleaded and reasoned — and won!
It was harder than his earlier struggle with
Lloyd-George, already entirely well inclined
by feelings of humanity, but in each case he
had saved the relief. Not only did the confer-
ence not destroy the work, but by continued
pressiu-e later at Brussels and Great Head-
quarters we obtained the agreements for an in-
crease of the civilian allotment out of the 1916
French crop and for the importation of some
of the Dutch food for the 600,000 suffering
children. Tt was a characteristic Hooverian
achievement in the face of imminent disaster.

Hoover and the C. R. B. were in Belgium
and France for but one purpose, to feed the
people, to save a whole nation from starvation.
To them the political aspects of the work were

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HERBERT HOOVER

wholly incidental, but they could not be over-
looked. So with the Germans disagreeing
among themselves, it was the impossibility
of France's letting the two and a half
million people of her own shut up in the occu-
pied territory starve under any circumstances
possible to prevent, and the humanitarian feel-
ing of Great Britain and America, which
Hoover, by vivid propaganda, never allowed
to cool, and the strength of which he never let
the diplomats and army and navy officials lose
sight of, that turned the scale and enabled the
Commission for Relief in Belgium to continue
its work despite all assault and interference.
Over and over again it looked like the end, and
none of us, even the sanguine Chief, was sure
that the next day would not be the last. But
the last day did not come until the last day of
need had passed, and never from beginning to
end did a single commune of all the five thou-
sand of Occupied Belgimn and France fail of
its daily bread. It was poor bread sometimes,
even for war bread, and there were many to-
morrows that promised to be breadless, but no
one of those tomorrows ever came.

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CHAPTER IX

THE BELIEF OF BELGIUM; SCOPE AND METHODS

I HAVE dropped the thread of my tale. Our
narrative of the organization of the Commis-
sion for Relief in Belgimn had brought us only
to the time when the Commission was actually
ready to work, and we have leaped to the very
end of those bitter hard four years. We must
make a fresh start.

First, then, as to money. And to understand
about the money it is necessary to understand
the two-phased character of the relief of Bel-
gium. There was the phase of ravitazllement,
the constant provisioning of the whole land;
and the phase of secours, the special care of the
destitute and the ill and the children.

The ring of steel did not immediately make
beggars of all the Belgians enclosed within it.
Many of them still had money. But, as I have
already said, the Germans would not allow any

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HERBERT HOOVER

of this money to go out. It could buy only
what was in Belgium. And as Belgium could
produce only about half the food it needed to
keep its people alive, and only one fourth of
the particular kind of foodstuffs that were
necessary for bread, and as it was arranged,
by control of the mills and bakeries, that these
bread-grains should be evenly distributed
among all the people, it meant that even though
banker this or baron that might have money to
buy much more, he could really buy, with all
his money, only one fourth as much bread as
he needed. There had to be, in other words, a
constant bringing in of enough wheat and flour
to supply three foiu-ths of the bread-needs of
the whole country, and another large fraction
of the necessary fats and milk and rice and
beans and other staples. This was the raxn^
taillement.

But even with the food thus brought in there
were many persons, and as the days and months
and years passed they increased to very many,
who had no money to buy this food. They
were the destitute, the f amiUes of the hundreds
of thousands of men thrown out of work by the

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destruction of the factories and the cessation
of all manufacturing and commerce. And
there were the Grovernment employees, the art-
ists, the lace-making women and girls, and a
whole series of special kinds of wage-earners,
with all wages suddenly stopped. To all these
the food had to be given without pay. This
was the secoun.

To obtain the food from America and Ar-
gentina and India and wherever else it could
be found a constant supply of money in huge
amounts was necessary. Hoover realized from
the beginning that no income from charity
alone could provide it. His first great problem
was to assiu*e the Commission of means for the
general ravitaillement. He solved the problem
but it took time. In the meanwhile the pres-
sure for immediate relief was strong. He be-
gan to buy on the credit of a philanthropic or-
ganization which had so far no other assets than
the private means of its chairman and his
friends.

The money, as finally arranged for, came
from government subventions about equally
divided between England and France, in the

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HERBERT HOOVER

form of loans to the Belgian Government, put
into the hands of the Commission. Later when
the United States came into the war, this coun-
try made all the advances. Altogether nearly
a billion dollars were spent by the C. R. B. for
supplies and their transportation, at an over-
head expense of a little more than one half of
one per cent. This low overhead is a record in the
annals of large philanthropic undertaking, and
is a measure of the voluntary service of the or-
ganization and of its able management.

For the secours, fifty million dollars worth of
gifts in money, food and clothing were ck)1-
lected by the Commission from the charitable
people of America and Great Britain. The
Belgians themselves inside the country, the
provinces, cities, and well-to-do individuals,
added, under the stimulus of the tragic situa^-
tion and under the direction of the great Bel-
gian National Committee, hundreds of millions
of frans to the secours funds. Also the Com-
mission and the Belgian National Committee
arranged that a small profit should be charged
on all the food sold to the Belgians who could
pay for it, and this profit, which ran into nodl-

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lions of dollars, was turned into the funds for
benevolence. All this created an enormous
sum for the secours, which was the real "relief,"
as benevolence. And this enormous simi
was needed, for by the end of the war nearly
one-half of all the imprisoned population of
over seven million Belgians and two and a half
million French were receiving their daily bread
wholly or partly on charity. Actually one half
of the inhabitants of the great city of Antwerp
were at one time in the daily soup and bread
lines.

Of the money and goods for benevolence
that came from outside sources more than one
third came from England and the British Do-
minions — ^New Zealand gave more money per
capita for Belgian relief than any other coun-
try — ^while the rest came chiefly from the
United States, a small fraction coming from
other countries. The relief collections in Great
Britain were made by a single great benevolent
organization called the "National Committee
for Relief in Belgium." This Committee,
under the chau*manship of the Lord Mayor
of London and the active management of Sir

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HERBERT HOOVER

William Goode as secretary and Sir Arthur
Shirley Benn as treasurer, conducted an im-
pressive continuous campaign of propaganda
and solicitation of funds with the result of ob-
taining about $16,000,000 with which to pur-
chase food and clothing for the Belgian desti-
tute.

But in the United States the C. R. B. itself
directly managed the campaign for charity,
using its New York oflSce as organizing and
receiving headquarters. Part of the work was
carried by definitely organized state commit-
tees in thirty-seven states and by scattered
local committees in almost every county and
large city in the country. Ohio, for example,
had some form of local organization in eighty
out of the eighty-eight counties in the state, and
California had ninety local county and city
committees all reporting to the central com*
mittee.

The American campaign was different from
the English one in that instead of asking for
money alone, the call was made, at first, chiefly
for outright gifts of food, the Commission of-
fering to serve, in connection with this benevo-

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lence, as a great collecting, transporting and
distributing agency. This resulted in the ac-
cumulation of large quantities of foodstuffs of
a wide variety of kinds, much of it in the nat-
ure of delicacies and luxuries and most of it
put up in small packages. Tens of thousands
of these packages were sent over to Belgium,
but the cry came back from the Commission's
workers there that food in this shape was very
difficult to handle in any systematic way. It
was quickly evident that what was really needed
was large consignments in bulk of a few kinds
of staple and concentrated foods, which could
be shipped in large lots to the various principal
distribution centers in Belgiima and thence
shipped in smaller lots to the secondary or
local centers, and there handed put on a
definite ration plan.

A number of states very early concentrated
their efforts on the loading and sending of
"state food ships." California sent the Cam-
ino in December, 1914, and in the same month
Kansas sent the Hannah loaded with flour
contributed by the millers of the state. In
January and March, 1915, two Massachusetts

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HERBERT HOOVER

relief ships, the HarpcHyce (sunk by tor-
pedo or mine on a later relief voyage) and
Lynorta, sailed. Oregon and California to-
gether sent the Crardey in January, 1915,
loaded with food and clothing, and several
other similar state ships were sent at later
dates. A gift from the Rockefeller Foundation
of a million dollars was used to load wholly or
in part five relief ships, and the "Millers* Bel-
gian Relief" movement organized and carried
through by the editor of the Northwestern Mil-
lers, Mr. W. C. Edgar, resulted in the contri-
bution of a full cargo of flour, valued at over
$450,000, which left Philadelphia for Rotter-
dam in February, 1915, in the steamer South
Point. The cargo was accompanied by the
organizer of the charity, who was able to see
personally the working of the methods of the
C. R. B. inside of Belgium and the actual dis-
tribution of his own relief cargo. His Good
Samaritan ship was sunk by a German sub-
marine on her return trip, but fortunately the
philanthropist was not on her. He returned
by a passenger liner, and was able to tell the
people of America what was needed in Bel-

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(THE RELIEF OF BELGIUM

gium, and what America was doing and could
f iu1;her do to help meet the need.

Later, when it became necessary to obtain
food from other primary markets in addition
to those of America, appeal was specifically
made for gifts of money in place of goods. In
response to this call various large gifts from
wealthy individual donors were made, among
them one of $210,000, another of $200,000,
and several of $100,000 each, and vari-
ous large donations came from the efforts of
special organizations, notably the Daughters
of the American Revolution, the New York
Chamber of Commerce, the Cardinal Gibbons*
Fund from the Catholic children of America,
the Dollar Christmas Fund organized by Mr.
Henry Clews, the "Belgian Kiddies, Ltd.,"
fund, organized by Hoover's brother mining
engineers of the country, and, largest of all,
the Literary Digest fund of more than half a
million dollars collected by the efforts of Mr.
R. J. Cuddihy, editor of the Digest, in sums
ranging from a few pennies to thousands of
dollars from children and their parents all over
the land.

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HERBERT HOOVER

By far the greater part of the money that
came to the Commission through state com-
mittees or through special organizations, or di-
rectly from individuals to the New York oflSce,
was made up from small sums representing
millions of individual givers. And it was a
beautiful and an important thing that it was
so. The giving not only helped to save Bel-
gium from starvation of the body, but it helped
to save America from starvation of the soul.
The incidents, pathetic, inspiring, noble, con-
nected with the giving, gave us tears and smiles
and heart thrills and thanksgiving for the reve-
lation of the hirnian love of humanity in those
neutral days of a distressing pessimism.

But finding the money and food and cloth-
ing was but the first great problem for the
resourceful C. R. B. chairman to solve. Next
came the serious problem of transportation,
both overseas and internal. Ships were in
pressing demand; they constantly grew fewer
in number because of the submarine sinkings,
and yejb the Commission had constant need of
more and more. Some way Hoover and his
associates of the New York and London offices

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THE RELIEF OF BELGIUM

got what it was necessary to have, but it was
only by a continuous and wearing struggle.
Altogether the C. R. B. delivered seven hun-
dred and forty full ship cargoes and fifteen
hundred part cargoes of relief food and cloth-
ing into its landing port, Rotterdam. The
seventy ships under constant charter as a regu-
lar C. R. B. fleet crossed the seas under guar-
antees from both the Allies and Grcrmany of
non-molestation by sea raiders or submarines.
A few accidents happened, but not more than
twenty cargoes were totally or partly lost at
sea. Most of the losses came from mines, but
a few came from torpedoes fired by German
submarines which either did not or would not
see the C. R. B. markings on the ships. The
signals were plain — conspicuous fifty-foot
pennants flying from the mast-heads, great
cloth banners stretching along the hull on either
side, a large house flag, wide deck cloths, and
two huge red-and-white-striped signal balls
eight feet in diameter at the top of the masts.
All these flags and cloths were white, carrying
the Commission's name or initials (C. R. B.)
in great red letters. Despite all these, a few

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too eager or too brutal submarine commanders
let fly their torpedoes at these ships of mercy.
Hoover's most serious time in connection
with the overseas transportation, and the most
critical period as regards supplies in the whole
course of the relief was just after the putting
into effect by the Germans, in February, 1917,
of the unrestricted submarining of all boats
found in the so-called prohibited ocean zones.
These zones covered all of the waters aroimd
the United Kingdom, including all of the
English Channel and North Sea. This cut us
off entirely from any access to Rotterdam from
the West or North. But it also cut Holland
off. And between our pressure and that of
Holland the German authorities finally ar-
ranged for a narrow free, or "safe,'' north-
about route extending from the Dutch coast
north to near the Norwegian coast, thence
northwest to the Faroe Islands, and thence
west to the Atlantic beyond the barred zone.
At one point this "safe" zone was only twenty
miles wide between the Grcrman and English
mine-fields in the North Sea and any ship get-
ting a few rods across the line either east or

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west was in great 'danger from mines and was
exposed to being torpedoed without warning.
Imagine the state of mind of a skipper who had
not seen the sim for three or four days in a
North Sea fog, trying to make out his position
accm*ately enough by dead reckoning to keep
his boat in that "safe" channel.

But even this generous concession to the
Commission and Holland was not arranged
until March 15, and in the six weeks interven-
ing between February 1 and this time we did
not land a single cargo in Rotterdam. Bel-
gium suflFered in body and was nearly crazed
in mind as we and the Belgian relief heads
scraped the very floors of oiu* warehouses for
the last grains of wheat.

Another almost equally serious interruption
in the food deliveries had occurred in the pre-
ceding simcmier (July, 1916), when, without
a whisper of warning. Governor General von
Bissing's government suddenly tied up our
whole canal-boat fleet by an order permitting
no Belgian-owned canal boat — although char-
tered by us-^to pass out from Belgiima into
Holland without depositing the full value of

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HERBERT HOOVER

the boat in money before crossing the frontier.
The Governor Greneral had reason to fear, he
said, that some of the boats that went out would
not come back, and he was going to lose no
Belgian property subject to German seizure
without full compensation. As the boats were
worth, roughly, about $5,000 each, and we were
using about 500 boats it would have tied up two
and a half million dollars of our money to meet
this demand, and tied it up in German hands!
We simply could not do it. So we began ne-
gotiations.

Oh, the innumerable beginnings of nego-
tiations, and oh, the interminable enduring of
negotiations, the struggling against form and
"system," against obstinate and cruel delay —
for delay in food matters in Belgimn was al-
ways cruel — and sometimes against sheer bru-
tality! How often did we long to say: Here,
take these ten million people and feed them or
starve them as you will! We quit. We can't
go on fighting your floating mines and too
eager submarines, yoiu* brutal soldiers and
more brutal bureaucrats. Live up to your
agreements to help us, or at least do not ob-

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struct us; or, if you won't, then formally and
ofScially and publicly before the world kick us
out as your arch- jingo, Reventlow, demands.

But we could not say it; we could not risk it;
it was too certain to be starving rather
than feeding. So we did not say it, but went on
with the negotiations. In this particular case
of the canal boats we finally compromised by
putting up the value of five boats. If one did
not come back the Grcrmans were to take out
its value and we were to replace the money so
as to keep the pot full. Of course all the boats
did come back, and now the Belgians and not
the Germans have them.

Thus, guarded by guarantees and recogni-
tion marks, there came regularly, and mostly
safely, iu^ross wide oceans and through the dan-
gerous mine-strewn Channel or around the
Faroe Islands, the rice from Rangoon, com
from Argentina, beans from Manchuria, and
wheat and meat and fats from America at the
rate of a himdred thousand tons a month
through all the fifty months of the relief. At
Rotterdam these precious cargoes were swiftly
transhipped into sealed canal boats — -a fleet of

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HERBERT HOOVER

500 of them with 85 tugs for towing was in
service — ^and hurried on through the canals of
Holland and across the guarded border, and
then on to the great central depots in Belgium,
and from there again by smaller canal boats
and railway cars and horse-drawn carts under
all the diflSculties of carrying things anywhere
in a land where anything and everything avail-
able for transport was subject to requisition
at any time by an all-controlling military or-
ganization, to the local warehouses and soup-
kitchens of every one of the 5,000 Belgian and
French communes in the occupied territory.
And always and ever through all the months
and despite all difficulties on water or land the
food had to come in time. This was the trans-
portation undertaking of Hoover's C. R. B.
Finally when the food was brought to the
end of its journeying it had to be protected
from hungry Germans and divided fairly
among hungry Belgians, Always the world
asked: But don't the Germans get the food?
and it still asks: Yes, didn't they? Our truth-
ful answer then and now is: No. And you
need not take our answer alone. Ask the Brit-

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ish and French foreign offices. They knew al-
most as much as we did of what was going on
inside of the steel ring around Belgiimi and
occupied France. Their intelligence services
were wonderful. Remember the guarantees of
the German government to us and our pro-
tecting ministers and ambassadors, the diplo-
matic representatives of neutral America and
Spain and Holland. The orders of von Bissing
and the Grcneral StaflF were explicit. Official
German placards forbidding seizure or inter-
ference by Grcrman soldiers or officials were on
all the canal boats and railway cars and horse
carts and on all the warehouses used by the
Commission.

Of course there were always minor infrac-
tions but there were no great ones. The Ger-
mans after the early days of wholesale seizure
during the invasion and first few months after
it, got but a trifling amount of food out of
Belgium and almost none of it came from the
imported supplies. Every Belgian was a de-
tective for us in this ceaseless watch for Ger-
man infractions and we had our own vigilant
service of "Inspection and Control" by keen-

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HERBERT HOOVER

eyed young Americans moving ceaselessly all
over the coimtry and ever checking up con-
sumption and stocks against records of impor-
tation.

And this brings us to the American organi-
zation inside of Belgiimi. The New York and
London and Rotterdam C. R. B. offices had
their hard-working American staffs and all
important duties but it was those of us inside
the ring that really saw Belgian relief in its
pathetic and inspiring details. We were the
ones who saw Belgian suffering and bravery,
and who were privileged to work side by side
with the great native relief organization with
its complex of communal and regional and
provincial committees, and at its head, the great
Comite National, most ably directed by Emile
Francqui, whom Hoover had known in China.
Thirty-five thousand organized Belgians gave
their volunteer service to their countrymen
from beginning to end of the long occupation.
And many thousands more were similarly en-
gaged in unofiicial capacity. We saw the
splendid work of the women of Belgium in
their great national organizations, the ''Little

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THE RELIEF OF BELGIUM

Bees/' the "Drop of Milk," the "Discreet As-
sistance/' and all the rest. My wife, who was
inside with us, has tried to tell the story of the
women of Belgium in another book, but as shfe
rightly says: "The story of Belgiimi will never
be told. That is the word that passes oftenest
between us. No one will ever by word of
mouth or in writing give it to others in its en-
tirety, or even tell what he himself has seen and
felt."

But the Americans inside know it. Its de-
tails will be their ineflFaceable memories. It is
a misfortune that so few Americans could
share this experience. For we were never more
than thirty-five or forty at a time; the Ger-
mans tried to limit us to twenty-five. We were
always, in their eyes, potential spies. But we
did no spying. We were too busy doing what
Herbert Hoover had us there to do. Also we
had promised not to spy. But it was a hard
struggle to maintain the correctly neutral be-
havior which we were imder obligation to do.
And when the end of this strain came, which
was when America entered the War, and the
inside Americans had to go out, they all, al-

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HERBERT HOOVER

most to a man, rushed to the trenches to make
their protest, with gun in hand, against Grer-
man Kultur as it had been exemplified under
their eyes in Belgium.

Altogether about two hundred Americans
represented the C. R. B. at various times in-
side of Belgium. They were mostly young uni-
versity men, representing forty different
American colleges and universities in their al-
legiance. A group of twenty Rhodes Scholars
whom Hoover hurriedly recruited from Ox-
ford at the beginning of the work was the pio-
neer lot. All of these two hundred were se-
lected for intelligence, honor, discretion, and
idealism. They had to be able, or quickly
learn, to speak French. They had to be adapt-
able and capable of carrying delicate and large
responsibility. They were a wonderful lot and
they helped prove the fact that either the
'American kind of university education, or the
American inheritance of mental and moral
qualities, or the two combined, can justly be
a source of American self-congratulation.

They were patient and long-suffering under
difficulties and provocation. Ted Curtis, whose

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THE RELIEF OF BELGIUM

grandfather was George William, did, on the
occasion of his seventeenth unnecessary arrest
by G^erman guards, express his opinion of his
last captor in what he thought was such pure
Americanese as to be safely beyond Grerman
understanding. But when his captor dryly re-
sponded in an equally pure argot: "Thanks,
old man, the same to youse," he resolved to take
all the rest in silence. And it was only after
the third stripping to the skin in a cold sentry
post that Robert W., a college instructor, made
a mild request to the C. R. B. director in Brus-
sels to ask von Bissing's staff to have their
rough-handed sleuths conduct their examina-
tions in a warmer room.

The relation of the few Americans in Bel-
gium to the many Belgian relief workers was
that of advisors, inspectors and final authori-
ties as to the control and distribution of the
food. The Americans were all too few to hand
the food out personally to the hosts in the soup
Unes, at the communal kitchens, and in the long
queues with rations cards before the doors of
the bakeries and the communal warehouses.
They could not personally manage the chil-

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dren's canteens, the discreet assistance to the
"'ashamed poor," who could not bring them-
selves to line up for the daily soup and bread,
nor the cheap restaurants where meals were
served at prices all the way from a fourth to
three fourths of their cost. The Belgians did
all this, but the Americans were a seeing, help-
ing, advising, and when necessary, finally con-
trolling part of it all.

The mills and bakeries were all under the
iclose control of the Commission and the Bel-
gian National Committee. The sealed canal
boats were opened only under the eyes of the
Americans. The records of every distributing
station were constantly checked by the Ameri-
cans. They sat at all the meetings of National
and Provincial and Regional committees.
They raced about the country in all weathers
and over all kinds of roads in th^ir much-
worn open motor-cars, specially authorized and
constantly watched and frequently examined
by the Germans, each car carrying the little
triangular white and red-lettered C. R. B. flag,
that flapped encouragement as it passed^ to
all the hat-dofSng Belgians.

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I am constantly asked: What were Hoov-
er's personal duties and work in the relief days?
It is a question one cannot answer in two words.
His was all the responsibility, his the major
planning, the resoiu^ceful devising of ways out
of difficulty, the generalship. But the details
were his also. He kept not only in closest touch
with every least as well as greatest phase of
the work, but took a personal active part in
seeing everything through. Constant confer-
ences with the Allied foreign offices and treas-
uries, and personal inspection of the young men
sent over from America as helpers ; swift move-
ments between England and France and
Belgiiun and Germany and America,
and trips in the little motor laimch about
the harbor at Rotterdam examining the
warehouses and food ships and floating ele-
vators and canal boats; these were some of
his contrasting activities through day fol-
lowing day in all the months and years of the
relief.

Hoover had to make his headquarters in
London at the Commission's central office.
Here he could keep constantly in touch by

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HERBERT HOOVER

cable and post with the oflSces in New York,
Rotterdam, and Brussels. The Brussels office
was allowed to send and receive Grerman-cen-
sored mail three times a week by way of Hol-
land, and we could do a limited amount of
censored telegraphing to Rotterdam over the
Grcrman and Dutch wires and thence to Lon-
don by English-censored cable. But Hoover
came regularly every few weeks to Brussels,
taking his chances with mines and careless sub-
marines. These were no slight chances. A
Dutch line was allowed by England and Grcr-
many to run a boat, presumably immolested,
two or three times a week between Flushing
and Thamesmouth. These jumpy little boats,
which carried passengers only — ^the hold was
filled with closed empty barrels lashed together
to act as a float when trouble came — ^were the
only means of bringing our young American
relief workers to Belgium and of Hoover's fre-
quent crossings. After seven of the ten boats
belonging to the line had been lost or seriously
damaged by mines the thrifty Dutch company
suspended operation. We had then to cross
secretly by English dispatch boats, protected

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THE RELIEF OF BELGIUM

by destroyers and specially hunted by Grennan
submarines.

On the occasion of one of Hoover's crossings
two German destroyers lying outside of Flush-
ing harbor ordered the little Dutch boat to
accompany them to Zeebrugge for examina-
tion. This happened occasionally and was al-
ways exciting for the passengers^ especially for
the diplomatic couriers, who promptly dropped
overboard their letter pouches, specially sup-
plied with lead weights and holes to let in the
water and thus insure prompt sinking. As the
boat and convoying destroyers drew near to
Zeebrugge, shells or bombs began to drop on
the water around them. Hoover thought at
first they were coming from English destroyers
aiming at the Germans. But he could see no
English boats. Suddenly an explosion came
from the water's surface near the boat and the
man standing next to him fell with his face
smashed by a bomb fragment. Hoover seized
him and dragged him around the deck-house to
the other side of the boat. Another bomb burst
on that side. He then heard the whir of an
airplane and looking up saw several English

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HERBERT HOOVER

bombing planes. Their intention was excel-
lent, but their aim imcertain. The anti-air-
craft guns of the Grerman destroyers soon drove
them away, and the convoy came into Zee-
brugge harbor where the Dutch boat and pas-
sengers were inspected with German thorough-
ness. On Hoover's identity being revealed by
his papers, he was treated with proper coiu*-
tesy and after several of the passengers had
been taken off the boat it was allowed to go on
its way to Tilbury.

Hoover enjoyed an extraordinary position in
relation to the passport and border regulations
of all the countries in and out of which he had
to pass in his movements connected with the
relief. He was given a freedom in this respect
enjoyed by no other man. He moved almost
without hindrance and undetained by formali-
ties freely in and out of England, France, Hol-
land, occupied Belgiimi and France, and Grcr-
many itself, with person and traveling bags
unexamined. It was a concrete expression of
confidence in his integrity and perfect correct-
ness of behavior, that can only be fully tmder-
stood by those who had to make any movements

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at all across frontiers in the tense days of the
war.

Grovemor (Jeneral von Bissing once said to
me in Brussels, apropos of certain charges that
had been brought to him by his intellig^ice
staflF of a questionable behavior on the part of
one of our men in Belgium — charges easily
proved to be imfounded: "I have entire confi-
dence in Mr. Hoover despite my full knowl-
edge of his intimate acquaintance and associa-
tion with the British and French Government
offidals and my conviction that his heart is with
our enemies," As a matter of fact Hoover al-
ways went to an unnecessary extreme in the
way of ridding himself of every scrap of writ-,
ing each time he approached the Holland-Bel-
gium frontier. He preached absolute honesty^
and gave a continuous personal example of
that honesty to all the C. R. B. men inside the
steel ring.

Each time he came to Brussels all of us came
in from the provinces and occupied France and
gathered about him while he told us the news of
the outside world, and how things were going
in the New York and London offices. And

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then he would talk to us as a brother in the fra-
ternity and exhort us to forget oiu* difficulties
and oiu* irritaticms and play the game well and
honestly for the sake of humanity and the honor
of America. After the group talks he would
listen to the personal troubles, and advise and
help each man in his turn. People sometimes
ask me why Hoover has such a strong personal
hold on all his helpers. The men of the C.
R. B. know why.

The Belgian relief and the American food
administration and the later and still continu-
ing American relief of Eastern Eiu-ope have
been called, somethnes, in an apparently criti-
cal attitude, "one man" organizations. If by
that is meant that there was one man in each
of them who was looked up to with limitless
admiration, relied on with absolute confidence,
and served with entire devotion by all the other
men in them, the attribution is correct. No
man in any of these organizations — ^and
Hoover gathered about him the best he could
get — ^but recognized him as the natural leader.
He was the "one man," not by virtue of any
official or artificial rank but by sheer personal

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THE RELIEF OF BELGIUM

superiority in both constructive administrative
capacity and effective practical action.

Whenever Hoover came, he tried to keep his
presence unknown except to us and Minister
Whitlock and the heads of the Belgian organi-
zation and the German Government with
whom he had to deal. He would not go, if he
could help it, to the soup lines and children's
canteens. Like many another man of great
strength, he is a man of great sensitiveness.
He cannot see suffering without suffering him-
self. And he dislikes thanks. The Belgians
were often puzzled, sometimes hiui;, by his
avoidance of their heart-felt expression of
gratitude. Mr. Whitlock was always there and
had to be always accessible. So they could
thank him and thank America through him.
But they rarely had opportimity to thank
Hoover.

I remember, though, how their ingenuity
baffled him once. He had slipped in quietly,
as usual, at dusk one evening by oiu* coiu-ier
automobile from the Dutch border. But some-
one passed the word around that night. And
all the next day, and for the remaining few

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HERBERT HOOVER

days of his stay there went on a silent greeting
and thanking of the Commission's chief by
thousands and thousands of visiting cards and
messages that drifted like snowflakes through
the door of the Director's house; engraved
cards with warm words of thanks from the no-
bility and wealthy of Brussels; plainer, printed
ones from the middle class folk, and bits of
writing paper with pen or pencil-scrawled
sentences on them of gratitude and blessing
from the "little people." My wife would heap
the day's bringing on a table before him each
evening and he would finger them over curi-
ously — ^and try to smile.

When the Armistice had come the Belgian
Government tried to thank him. He would ac-
cept no decorations. But once again Belgian
ingenuity conquered. One day just after the
cessation of the fighting he was visiting the
King and Queen at La Panne in their simple
cottage in that little bit of Belgium that the
Grcrmans never reached. After luncheon the
members of the Cabinet appeared; they had
come by motors from Le Havre. And before
them all the Ejng created a new order, without

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THE RELIEF OF BELGIUM

ribbon or button or medal, and made Hoover
its only member. He was simply but solemnly
ordained ''Citizen of the Belgian Nation, and
Friend of the Belgian People."

I have spoken only of Belgium. But of the
ten million in the occupied regions for whom
Hoover waged his fight against starvation,
two and a half million were in occupied
France. Over in that territory things were
harder both for natives and Americans than
in Belgiimi. Under the rigorous control of a
brutal and suspicious operating army both
French and Americans worked under the most
difficult conditions that could be imposed and
yet allow the relief to go on at all.

The French population, too, was an espe-
cially helpless one, for all the men of military
age and qualifications had gone out as the Ger-
mans came in. They had time and opportunity
to do this ; the Belgians had not. Each Ameri-
can was imder the special care — and eyes— of a
Grerman escort officer. He could only move
with him at his side, could only talk to the
French committees with his gray-imiformed
companion in hearing. He had his meals at

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HERBERT HOOVER

the same table, slept in his quarters. The chief
representative of the Commission in occupied
France had to live at the Great Grerman Head-
quarters at Charleville on the Meuse. I spent
an extraordinary four months there. It is all
a dream now but it was, at the time, a reality
which no imagination could equal. The Kaiser
on his frequent visits, the gray-headed chiefs
of the terrible great Grerman military machine,
the schneidige younger officers, were all so con-
fident and insolent and so regardless, in those
early days of success, of however much of the
world might be against them. One night my
officer said at dinner: "Portugal came in today.
Will it be the United States tomorrow? Well,
come on; it's all the same to us." When the
United States did come in we Americans were
no longer at Headquarters, so what my officer
said then I do not know. But I am siu*e that it
was not all the same to him.

And so the untellable relief of Belgium and
Northeast France went on with its myriad
of heart-breaks and heart-thrills following
quickly on each other's heels, its highly elabo-
rated system of organization, its successful ma-

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THE RELIEF OF BELGIUM

chinery of control and distribution, and all, all
centering and depending primarily on one
man's vision and heart and genius. He had
faithful helpers, capable coadjutors. One can-
not make comparisons among them, but one of
these lieutenants was so long in the work, so
effective, so devoted, so regardless of personal
sacrifice of means and career and health, that
we can mention his name without hesitation as
the one to whom, next to the Chief, the men of
the C. R. B. and the people of Belgium and
France turned, and never in vain, for the in-
spiration that never let hope die. This is Wil-
liam Babcock Poland, like his chief an engineer
of world-wide experience, who served first as
assistant director in Belgium, then as director
there, and, finally, after Hoover came to
America to be its food administrator, director,
Snth headquarters in London, for all the work
in Europe.

In April, 1917, America entered the war,
and Minister Whitlock came out of Belgiiun
with his shepherded flock of American consuls
and relief workers, although a small group of
C. R. B. men, with the director, Prentis Gray,

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HERBERT HOOVER

renuuned inside for several weeks longer. In
the same montii Herbert Hoover heard his
next call to war service. For almost immedi-
ately after om* entrance into the war President
Wilson asked him to come to Washington to
consult about the food situation. This consul-
tation was the beginning of American food ad-
ministration. It did not aid Belgian relief for
Hoover, for the work had still to go on and
did go on through all the rest of the war and
even for several months of the Armistice
period, with the C. R. B. and its Chief still in
charge, although Dutch and Spanish neutrals
replaced the Americans inside tiie occupied
territory. But the new call was to place a new
duty and responsibility on Hoover's broad
shoulders. Responding to it, he arrived in
New York on the morning of May 8, 1917, and
reached Washington the evening of the same
day. On the following day he talked witii the
President and began planning for the adminis-
tration of American food.

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CHAPTER X

AMEBICAN FOOD ADMINISTRATION: PRINCIPLES,
CONSERVATION^ CONTROL OF EXPORTS

Put yourself in Hoover's place when the
President called him back from the Belgian
relief work to be the Food Administrator of
the United States. Here were a hundred mil-
lion people imaccustomed to government in-
terference with their personal affairs, above all
of their affairs of stomach and pocketbook,
their affairs of personal habit and private busi-
ness. What would you think of your chance
to last long as a new kind of government of-
ficial, set up in defiance of all American prece-
dent and tradition of personal liberty, to say
how much and what kinds of food the people
were to eat and how the business affairs of all
millers and bakers, all commission men and
wholesale grocers and all food manufacturers
were to be run?

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The stomach and private business of Ameri-
cans are the seats of unusually many and deli-
cate nerve-endings. To hit the American
household in the stomach and the American
business man in the pocketbook is to invite a
prompt, violent and painful reaction. Yet this
is what President Wilson asked Hoover to do
and to face.

Hoover realized the full possibilities of the
situation. He had seen the rapid succession of
the food dictators in each of the European
coimtries; their average duration of life — ^as
food dictators — ^was a little less than six
months. "I don't want to be food dictator for
the American people," he said, plaintively, a
few days after the President had announced
what he wanted him to do. "The man who ac-
cepts such a job will lie on the barbed wire of
the first line of intrenchments."

But besides trying to put yourself in Hoov-
er's place, try also to put yourself again in
your own place in those great days of Ameri-
ca's first entry into the war, and you will get
another, and a less terrifying, view of the
situation. Remember your feelings of those

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AMERICAN FOOD ADMINISTRATION

days as a per-fervid patriotic American, not
only ready but eager to play your part in your
country's cause. Some of you could carry
arms; some could lend sons to the khaki ranks
and daughters to the Red Cross uniform.
Some could go to Washington for a dollar a
year. Yet many could, for one suflGicient rea-
son or another, do none of these things. But
all could help dig trenches at home right
through the kitchen and dining-room. You
could help save food if food was to help win
the war. You could help remodel temporarily
the whole food business and food use of the
country to the great advantage of America
and the Allies in their struggle for victory.

Well, Hoover put himself both in your place
and in his own place. And he thought that
the food of America could be administered —
not dictated — successfully, if we would try to
do it in a way consonant with the genius of
'American people. Hoover had had in his Bel-
gian relief work an experience with the heart
of America. He knew he could rely on it. He
also believed he could rely on the brain of
America.

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So he put the matter of food control fairly
and squarely up to the people. He asked them
to make the fimdamental decisions. He
showed them the need and the way to meet it,
and asked them to follow him. He depended
on the reasoned mass consent and action of
the nation, the truly democratic decision of the
coimtry on a question put openly and clearly
before it. It could choose to do or not do. The
deciding was really with it. If it saw as he did
it would act with him.

He was to be no food dictator, as the Ger-
man food-minister was, nor even a food con-
troller as the English food-minister was of-
ficially named. He was to be a food adminis-
trator for the people, in response to its needs
and desire for making wise food management
help in winning the war. So while the food
controllers of the European coimtries relied
chiefly on government regulation to effect the
necessary food conservation and control, the
American food administrator trusted chiefly to
direct appeal to the people and their voluntary
response.

And the response came. Even where
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govenimental regulation seemed necessary,
as it did especially in relation to trade
and manufacturing practices, he attempted
to have it accepted by volimtary agree-
ment of the groups most immediately con-
cerned before annoimcing or enforcing it. To
do this he held conference after conference
in Washington with groups of from a score
to several himdreds of men representing per-
sonally, and in addition sometimes by appoint-
ment from organized food-trade or food-pro-
ducing groups, the point of view of those most
aflPected by the proposed regulation. He ex-
plained to these men the needs of the nation,
and their special opportunities and duties to
serve these needs. He put their self-interest
and the interests of their coimtry side by side
in front of them. He showed them that the
decision of the war did not rest alone with the
men in the trenches : that there were service and
sacrifice to render at home in shops and stores
and counting rooms as well as on the fighting
lines. He debated methods and probable re-
sults with them. He laid all his cards on the
table and, almost always, he won. He won

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HERBERT HOOVER

their confidence in his fairness, their admira-
tion for his knowledge and resourcef ukiess and
their respect for his devotion to the national
cause.

But he knew always that he was playing
with djrnamite. He could not see or talk to
everybody at once, and the news that ran
swiftly over the country about what the Food
Administration was doing or going to do was
not always the truth, but it always got listened
to. And the first reaction to it was likely to
be one of indignant opposition. This was i^ll
expressed by the cartoon of black MatHda in
the kitchen: "Mistah Hoover goin' to show me
how to cook cawn pone? Well, I reckin noL"
So with the business man. But the second re-
action, the one that came after listening to
Hoover and thinking about the matter over-
night, was diflPerent.

I remember a group of large buyers and
sellers of grain, men who dealt on the grain
exchanges of the Middle West, who came to
Washington, not at his request but on their
own determination to have it out with this man
who was threatening to interfere seriously with

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AMERICAN FOOD ADMINISTRATION

their afifairs; indeed, who threatened to put
many of them out of business for the period of
the war. They came with big sticks. They
met in the morning for conference with the ob-
ject of their wrath. Then they went off and
met in the afternoon together. They came the
next morning tol another conference. And
they met again alone to pass some resolutions.
The resolutions commended the Food Admin-
istrator for the regulations he was about to put
into force, and recommended that they be made
more drastic than he had originally suggested!
But among the himdred million people of
the United States there were some who did not
justify Hoover's belief in American patriot-
ism and American heart. Just as there were
some among the seven million Belgians who
tried to cheat their benefactors and their coun-
trymen by forging extra ration cards. So when
a measure to regulate some great food trade or
industry, as the wholesale grocery business or
milling, was agreed to and honestly lived up
to by eighty-five or ninety per cent of the men
concerned, and for these could have been left
on a wholly volimtary basis, there were a few

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HERBERT HOOVER

for whom the regulations had to be legally
formulated and energetically enforced. They
were the ones who made the reluctant gifts to
the American Red Cross, which was the Food
Administrator's favorite form of penalization,
when he did not have to go to the extreme of
putting persistent profiteers out of business.

The Food Control Law, passed by Congress
in August, 1917, under which the Food Ad-
ministrator, acting for the President, derived
his authority, was a perfectly real law, but it
left great gaps in the control. For example,
it exempted from its license regulations, which
were the chief means of direct legal control, all
food producers (farmers, stock-growers, et al.)
and all retailers doing a. business of less than
$100,000 a year. It did not give any authority
for a direct fixing of maximum prices. It car-
ried comparatively few penalty provisions.
But it did provide authority for three primary
agencies of control: First, the licensing of all
food manufacturers, jobbers, and wholesalers,
and of retailers doing business of more than
$100,000 annually, with the prescription of
regulations which the licensees should observe;

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second, the purchase and sale of foodstuflfs by
the Grovemment; and, third, the legal enter-
ing into agreements with food producers,
manufacturers or distributors, which if made
only between the members of these groups
themselves would have been violations of the
anti-trust laws. All of these powers con-
tributed their share to the success of what was
one of the most important features of the food
control and one to which Hoover devoted most
determined and continuous effort, namely, the
radical cutting out, or at least, down, of specu-
lative and middleman profits. But with ihe
limited authority of the Food Administrator it
was only through the volimtary cooperation of
the people and food trades that these three
kinds of powers were made really effective.

The most conspicuous features of the volun-
tary cooperation which Hoover was able to ob-
tain from the people and the food-trades by
his conferences, his organization of the states,
and his great popular propaganda, were those
connected with what was called "food conser-
vation," by which was meant a general econ-
omy in food use, an elimination of waste, and

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an actual temporary modification of national
food habits by an increased use of fish and
vegetable proteins and fats and lessened use
of meat and animal fats, a considerable substi-
tution of com and other grains for wheat, and
the general use of a wheat flour containing in
it much more of the total substance of the
wheat grain than is contained in the usual "pat-
ent" flour.

It was with the great campaign for food con-
servation, too, that the Food Administration
really started its work, beginning it as volun-
tary and imof&cial war service. For although
consideration of the Food Control Act began
before the House Committee on Agricultiwe
about April 21, it was not until August 10 that
the bill became a law. On the same day, the
President issued an Executive Order establish-
ing a United States Food Administration and
appointing Herbert Hoover to be United
States Food Administrator. Hoover accepted
the appointment with the proviso that he should
receive no salary and that he should be allowed
to build up a staflF on the same volunteer basis.

But long before this, indeed immediately
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after the May consultation with Hoover for
which he had been asked to come from Europe
to Washington, President Wilson had an-
nounced a tentative program of stimulation of
food production and conservation of food sup-
ply. The need was urgent, and the coimtry
could not wait for Congressional action. There
was really a war on and there was an impera-
tive need of fighting, and fighting immediately
and hard in all the various and imusual ways
in which modern war is fought. One of these
ways which the President recognized and which
Hoover, by virtue of his illuminating experi-
ence in Europe, knew as no other American
did, was the food way. The President wanted
something started. So again, just as at
the beginning of the Belgian relief work
in October, 1914, Hoover foimd himself
in the position of being asked to begin
work without the necessary support behind
him; in the Belgian case he lacked money, in
the present case he lacked authority. But in
both cases action was needed at once and in
both cases Hoover got action. He is a devotee
of action.

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Thus, before there was an official food ad-
ministration there was an unofficial beginning
of what became the food administration's most
characteristic and most widely known imder-
taking, its campaign for food conservation. It
was the most characteristic, for it depended for
success entirely on popular consent and pa-
triotic response. It was the most widely
known, for it touched every home and house-
wife, every man and child at the daily sitting
down at table. In planning and beginning it
Hoover had the special assistance of his old-
time college chum and lifelong friend. Presi-
dent Ray Lyman Wilbur, of Stanford Univer-
sity, who brought to this particular undertak-
ing* a far-reaching* vision, a convinced belief in
democratic possibilities, and a constructive
mind of unusual order.

It is well not to forget that the first appeal
for food-saving was made primarily to the
women of the land. Apd theirs was the first
great response. From the very first days, in
May, of general discussion in the press of the
certain need of food-saving in America if the
Allies were to be provided with sufficient sup-

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plies to maintain their armies and civilian popu-
lations in the health, strength, and confidence
necessary to the fullest development of their
war strength, the voluntary oflFers of assistance
from women and women's organizations, and
inquiries about how best to give it, had been
pouring into Hoover's temporary offices in
Washington. And through all of the Food
Administration work the women of America
played a conspicuous part, both as heads of
divisions in the Washington and State offices
and as uncounted official and unofficial helpers
in county and town organizations and in the
households of the coimtry.

The picturesque details of the great cam-
paign for food conservation and its results on
the intimate habits of the people are too fresh
in the memories of us all to need repeating
here. A whole-hearted cooperation by the press
of the coimtry; an avalanche of public appeal
and advice by placards, posters, motion pic-
tures, and speakers; an active support by
chiu-ches, fraternal organizations, colleges and
schools; the remodeling of the service of hotels,
restaurants and dining-cars ; and a pledging of

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twelve out of the twenty million households
of the country to follow the requests and sug-
gestions of the Food Administration, result-
ing in wheatless and meatless meals, limited
sugar and hutter, the "clean plate," and strict
attention to reducing all household waste of
food — all these are the well-rememhered hap-
penings of yesterday. The results gave ihe
answer. Yes, to Hoover's oft-repeated ques-
tions to the nation: Can we not do as a democ-
racy what Germany is doing as an autocracy?
Can we not do it better?

These results are impossible to measure by
mere statistics. Figures cannot express the
satisfied consciences, the education in wise and
economical food use, and the feeling of a daily
participation by all of the people in per-
sonally helping to win the war, which was a
psychological contribution of great impor-
tance to the Government's eflforts to put the
whole strength of the nation into the struggle.
Nor can the results to the Allies be measured
in figures. But their significance can be sug-
gested by the contents of a cablegram which
Lord Rhondda, the English Food Controller,

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sent to Hoover in January, 1918. This cable,
in part, was as follows:

"Unless you are able to send the Allies at
least 75,000,000 bushels of wheat over and
above what you have exported up to January
&st, and in addition to the total exportable
surplus from Canada, J cannot take the respon-
sibility of assuring our people that there will
be food enough to win the war. Imperative
necessity compels me to cable you in this blunt
way. No one knows better than I that the
American people, regardless of national and
individual sacrifice, have so far refused nothing
that is needed for the war, but it now lies with
America to decide whether or not the Allies in
Europe shall have enough bread to hold out
until the United States is able to throw its force
into the field. ..."

I remember very well the thrill and the shock
that ran through the Food Administration
staflF when that cable came. It seemed as if no
more could be done than was already being
done. The breathless question was: Could
Hoover do the impossible? I suppose his
question to himself was: Could the American

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people do it? He did not hesitate either in his
belief or his action. His prompt reply was:

**We will export every grain that the Ameri-
can people save from their normal consmnp-
tion. We believe our people will not fail to
meet the emergency."

He then appealed to the people to intensify
their conservation of wheat. The President
issued a special proclamation to the same end.
The wheat was saved and sent — and the threat-
ened breakdown of the Allied war eflFort was
averted.

Hoover felt justified in July, 1918, in
making an attempt to indicate the results of
food conservation during the preceding twelve
months by analyzing the statistics of food ex-
ports he had been able to make to the Allies.
It was, of course, primarily for the sake of pro-
viding this indispensable food support to the
Allies that food conservation was so earnestly
pushed. The control of these exports and
the elimination of speculative profits and the
stabilization of prices in connection with home
purchases were the special f eatiu'es in the gear

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eral program of food administration that were
pushed primarily for the sake of om* own peo-
ple.

In a formal report by letter to the President
on July 18, 1918, Hoover showed that the ex-
ports of meats, fats and dairy products in the
past twelve months had been about twice as
much as thetaverage for the years just preced-
ing the war, and fifty per cent more than in the
year July, 1916 — ^June, 1917. Of cereals and
cereal products our shipments to the Allies
were a third more than in the year July, 1916 —
June, 191T.

"It is interesting to note," writes the Food
Administrator, "that since the urgent request
of the Allied food controllers early in the year
for a fiu1;her shipment of 75,000,000 bushels
from our 1917 wheat than originally planned,
we shall have shipped to Europe, or have en
route, nearly 85,000,000 bushels. At the time
of this request our surplus was more than ex-
hausted. The accomplishment of our people
in this matter stands out even more clearly if
we bear in mind that we had available in the
fiscal year 1916-17 from net carry-over and
as surplus over our normal consimiption about

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200,000,000 bushels of wheat which we were
able to export that year without trenching on
our home loaf. This last year, however, owing
to the large failure of the 1917 wheat crop, we
had available from net carry-over and produc-
tion and imports only just about our normal
consumption. Therefore our wheat shipments
to allied destinations represent approximately
savings from our own wheat bread.

"These figures, however, do not fully convey
the volume of the eflPort and sacrifice made dur-
ing the past year by the whole American peo-
ple. Despite the magnificent eflFort of om*
agricultural population in planting a much in-
creased acreage in 1917, not only was there a
very large failure in wheat but also, the com
failed to mature properly and our com is our
dominant crop. We calculate that the total
nutritional production of the country for the
fiscal year just closed was between seven per
cent and nine per cent. below the average of
the three previous years, our nutritional sur-
plus for export in those years being about the
same amount as the shrinkage last year.
Therefore the consumption and waste of food
have been greatly reduced in every direction
during the war.

"I am sure that all the millions of our peo-
ple, agricultural as well as urban, who have

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contributed to these results should feel a very
definite satisfaction that in a year of universal
food shortages in the northern hemisphere all
of those people joined together against Ger-
many have come through into sight of the com-
ing harvest not only with health and strength
fully maintained, but with only temporary
periods of hardship. The European allies have
been compelled to sacrifice more than om* own
people but we have not failed to load every
steamer since the delays of the storm months
last winter. Our contributions to this end could
not have been accomplished without eflFort and
sacrifice, and it is a matter for further satis-
faction that it has been accomplished voluntar-
ily and individually. It is difiicult to distin-
guish between various sections of our people —
the homes, public-eating places, food trades,
urban or agricultural populations — in assess-
ing credit for these results; but no one will
deny the dominant part played by the Ameri-
can women."

The conservation part of the Food Adminis-
tration's work was picturesque, conspicuous
and important. But it was, of course, only
one among the many of the Administration's
activities. On the day of his appointment

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Hoover outlined his conception of the func-
tions and aims of the Food Administration, as
follows:

"The hopes of the Food Administration me
three-fold. First, to so guide the trade in the
fundamental food commodities as to eliminate
vicious speculation, extortion and wasteful
practices and to stabilize prices in the essential
staples. Second, to guard om* exports so that
against the world's shortage, we retain suf-
ficient supplies for our own people and to co-
operate with the Allies to prevent inflation in
prices. And, third, that we stimulate in every
manner within oiu* power the saving of our
food in order that we may increase exports to
om* Allies to a point which will enable
them to properly provision their armies
and to feed their peoples during the coming
winter.

"The Food Administration is called into be-
ing to stabilize and not to distiu*b conditions
and to defend honest enterprise against illegiti-
mate competition. It has been devised to cor-
rect the abnormalities and abuses that have
crept into trade by reason of the world dis-

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turbance and to restore business as far as may
be to a reasonable basis.

"The business men of this coimtry, I am con-
vinced, as a result of hundreds of conferences
with representatives of the great forces of food
supply, realize their own patriotic obligation
and the solemnity of the situation, and will
fairly and generously cooperate in meeting the
national emergency. I do not believe that dras-
tic force need be applied to maintain economic
distribution and sane use of supplies by the
great majority of American people, and I have
learned a deep and abiding faith in the intelli-
gence of the average American business man
whose aid we anticipate and depend on to rem-
edy the evils developed by the war which he
admits and deplores as deeply as ourselves.
But if there be those who expect to exploit this
hom* of sacrifice, if there are men or organiza^
tions scheming to increase the trials of this
country, we shall not hesitate to apply to the
full the drastic, coercive powers that Congress
has conferred upon us in this instrument.**

From the beginning of the war the food
necessities of the Allies and European neutrals

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HERBERT HOOVER

had led them to make the most violent exer-
tions to meet their needs, and these exertions
were intensified as the war went on. Food was
war material. It existed in America and was
imperatively demanded in Europe. By any
means possible, without regard to price or dan-
gerous drainage away from us Europe meant
to have it. Hoover early saw the danger to
America in this. Things had to be balanced.
We were ready to exert every eflFort to supply
the Allies every pound of food we could afford
to let go out of the country, but there was a
limit, a danger-line. Hoover could not trust
to appeal to the European countries to regard
this danger; they were in a state of panic. It
required recourse to legal regulation. There
was necessary an effective control of exports.
Without such control the tremendous pressure
of demand from the European countries, with
the sky-rocketing of prices incident to it would
have broken down the whole fabric of Hoov-
er's measures for guarding the food needs of
oiu^ own people and of stabilizing prices and
preventing an actual food panic and conse-
quent industrial break-down in oiu*. country at

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a moment when we were calling on our indus-
tries and our people as a whole for their great-
est efforts.

The Food Law alone was not sufficient to
give Hoover the strength he needed for this
control. But casting about for assistance he
formed a close working alliance between the
Food Administration and the War Trade and
Shipping Boards to effect the needed regula-
tion. The combination had the power to es-
tablish an absolutely effective control of ex-
ports and imports. Not a pound of food could
be sent out of the country without the consent
of the Food Administration.

Growing out of this export control and
really including it, was the wider function of
the centralization and coordination of pur-
chases not only for the Allies and Neutrals but
in connection with the buying agencies of our
Army, Navy, Red Cross, and other large phil-
anthropic organizations. Under the pressure
of the need for food control, the foreign gov-
ernments had taken over almost completely,
early in the war, the purchases of outside food-
stuffs for their peoples, and the Allies had so

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HERBERT HOOVER

closely associated themselves in this undertak-
ing that they had it in their power, if they cared
to use it, to dominate prices to the American
farmer. Hoover very early saw the advisa-
bility of an American centralization of the pur-
chases for foreign export as an offset to this
danger. He further recognized in such a co-
ordinating centralization the possibilities of
much good in the stimulation of production
and stabilization of home prices. A Division
of Coordination of Purchase was therefore for-
mally set up about November 1, 1917, under
the efficient direction of F. S. Snyder.

In a memorandum dated November 19, the
Food Administrator stated that he considered
it vital to the general welfare that all large pm*-
chases of certain commodities should be made
by plans of allocation among food suppliers at
fair and just prices, "the efforts of the Federal
Trade Commission to be directed to see that
tosts are not inflated." The memorandvmi fur-
ther stated that all allotment plans between
Allied countries and the food industries should
be entered into with the Allied Provisions Ex-
port Conmiission through the Division of Co-

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AMERICAN FOOD ADMINISTRATION

ordination of Purchase; and that all estimated
and specific requirements of food products of
all characters for the Allied countries should be
furnished the Division of Coordination of Pur-
chase by the Allied Provisions Export Com-
mission and that such requirements shall bear
the approval of the Allied Provisions Export
Commission. Also, that on the question of is-
suing licenses for the exporting of the pur-
chases, the approval to export will be arranged
by the Food Administration's Division of Co-
ordination of Purchase, and the War Trade
Board; and the final action taken on each re-
quirement shall have the approval of the head
of the Division of Coordination of Purchase.

The general plan outlined in this memoran-
dum was the one followed^ The Allied Pro-
visions Export Commission acted as the buying
agency for the Allies and informed the Division
of Coordination of Purchase of the Food Ad-
ministration of the requirements of the Allies;
the Food Purchase Board acted as the recom-
mending buying agency for the Army and
Navy and gave the Food Administration the
necessary information as to the requirements

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HERBERT HOOVER

of these agencies. Grains and grain products
were not included in this scheme of buying for
the Allies, as this buying was done through the
Food Administration Grain Corporation.,

The Allied purchasing was therefore com-
pletely controlled. The license to export was
not issued by the War Trade Board until the
application for the same had been approved
by the Food Administration, and tills approval
would not be given if the rules of its Division
of Coordmation of Purchase had not been
foUowed.J It should be noted that the Food
Administration did not actually complete the
transaction of purchase and sale for any of
the commodities. Its function was completed
when buyer and seller had been brought to-
gether and the terms of sale agreed upon and
approved by it. The total volume of purchases
of all supplies made imder the coordination of
the various agencies set up by the Food Ad-
ministration aggregated over seven and a
quarter billion dollars during the course of its
existence.

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CHAPTER XI

AMEBICAX FOOD ADMINISTBATION ; GENERAL

BEGULATION, CONTROL OF WHEAT AND PORK;

ORGANIZATION IN THE STATES

In attacking the problem of food control by
enforced regulation Hoover frankly repeat-
edly described his position as that of one who
was choosing the lesser of two evils; the other
and greater one was that of having no regu-
lation at all. Political economists and others
called his attention constantly to the fact that
the old reliable law of supply and demand
would take care of his troubles if he would but
let it. If, because of the great demand, high
food prices prevailed, their prevalence would
automatically solve the problem of food short-
age. They would stimulate production and
curtail consumption; our people would buy less
and there would be more of a surplus to send
to the Allies.

Hoover's answer was that unrestricted sky-
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HERBERT HOOVER

rocketing of prices would certainly curtail
consumption, but it would be the consumption
by the poor, the hosts of wage-earners and the
small-salaried. It would not cut down con-
simiption by the rich, and it would promptly
lead to sharp class feeling, widespread popular
dissatisfaction and resentment, even revolt.
War time was no time to force any such situa-
tion as this.

The remedy offered by supply and demand
was one which would only bring on another and
worse illness. But Hoover realized and de-
clared over and over again that even a neces-
sary interference with the law of supply and
demand was at best an evil. But it was less of
an evil, imder the circiraistances, than not to in-
terfere with it to some degree. These were not
normal but abnormal times, and regulation by
supply and demand is primarily a process for
normal times. And it is a process that requires
time to do its remedial work, and there was no
time.

But Hoover did not and does not believe in
price-fixing or immediate government control
of commerce where they can be avoided. In

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his statement before the Senate Committee on
Agriculture in June, 1917, he said:

"The food administrations of Em-ope and
the powers that they possess are of the nature
of dictatorship, but happily ours is not their
plight. . . . The tendency there has been for
the government to take over the functions of
tfie middleman, first with one commodity and
then with another, imtil in the extreme case
of Germany practically all food commodities
are taken directly by the government from the
producers and allotted by an iron-clad system
of ticket distribution to the consmner. The
whole of the great distributing agencies, and
the financial system which revolved around
them, have been suspended for the war or de-
stroyed for good. That is the system which
is dictatorship, and which, so far as I can see,
this country need never approach.

"In distinction from this, oiu* conception of
the problem in the United States is that we
should assemble the voluntary eflFort of the peo-
ple, of the men who represent the great trades;
that we should, in effect, undertake with their
cooperation the regulation of the distributing
machinery of the country in such a manner that
we may restore its function as nearly as may

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be to a pre-war basis, and thus eliminate, so far
as may be, the evils and failures which have
sprung up. And, at the same time, we pro-
pose to mobilize the spirit of self-denial and
self-sacrifice in this country in order that we
may reduce our national waste and our national
expenditure/*

The primary basis of the commodity control,
that is the control of the manufacture, whole-
sale selling, storage, and distribution of food-
stuffs lay in the Ucensing provisions of the
Food Control law. Any handler of foods, not
an immediate producer or a retailer whose
gross sales did not exceed $100,000 a year,
could be forced to carry on his business under
license, and authority was provided to issue
regulations prescribing just, reasonable, non-
discriminatory and fair storage charges, com-
missions, profits, and practices. This license
control was the Food Administration's princi-
pal means of enforcing provisions against all
wasteful, imjust, and imreasonable charges
and procedures.

But it was far from easy to determine all at
once either what trades and commodities should

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be taken under control or what kind and de-
gree of control should be exercised. As Hoover
said to the Senate Committee on Agricultiu-e,
using a metaphor springing from his engineer-
ing experience:

"It is impossible, in constructing routes and
bridges through the forest of speculation and
difficulty to describe in advance the route and
detail of these roads and bridges which we must
push forward from day to day into the un-
known."

And, referring again to the same matter in
an address before the United States Chamber
of Commerce in September, 1917, he said:

**We shall find as we go on with the war
and its increasing economic disruption, that
first one commodity then another will need to
be taken under control. We shall, however,
profit by experience if we lay down no hard
and fast rules, but if we deal with each situa-
tion on its merits. So long as demand and sup-
ply have free play in a commodity we had best
leave it alone. Our attention to the break in
normal economic control in other commodities

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HERBERT HOOVER

must be designed to repair the break, not to
set up new economic systems or theories."

Hoover believed in making haste slowly.
But he had to move. The crisis of the situation
was upon us, the dike was already leaking and
measures were demanded which would stop the
leak before it became a flood. In the exigency
there was no time for the Food Administrator
to devise and carefully test plans suggested by
'even the most favored theories of economists, if
these plans oflFered remedies which would only
be available in an indeterminate future. The
scope of the war had disorganized the life and
practices of the whole world, had overthrown
all precedents, shattered all fimdamental re-
lations. And on nothing was its disturbing
influence upon the normal more potent than in
relation to food supply.

The means of control by license regulations
adopted by the Food Administration were
many and various. From the beginning the
stocks of manufacturers and dealers were lim-
ited, so that a continuous and even distribution
might prevent shortage and high prices; con-

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tracts for future delivery were limited again
to secure an equal distribution and lessen the
possibility of speculative profits from the rising
market. Wasteful and expensive practices
were forbidden. All these means were cap-
able of rather definite application. But a
greater difiiculty came in the equally important
and necessary work of limiting profits and se-
curing a more direct distribution from manu-
facturer and large food handler to consimier.

The many regulations and the varying ac-
tivities necessary to achieve these needs were
mostly looked after by a Division of Distribu-
tion and certain allied divisions, devoting their
attention to special groups of commodities.
The principal division was under the immedi-
ate direction of Theodore Whifanarsh, one of
the most vigorous and able of Hoover's vol-
imteer helpers. Under Hoover's direction
Whitmarsh and his associates at the head of
the special commodity divisions worked out the
manifold details of a regulatory system which
was gradually extended to a most varied as-
sortment of foodstuffs, trades and manufac-
tures.

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At the end of 1918 over 250,000 food-hand-
ling corporations, firms, and individuals were
under Food Administration licenses. Meat,
fish, poultry, eggs, butter, milk, potatoes,
fresh and dried vegetables, and fruits, canned
goods, the coarse grains and rice, vegetable
oils, coffee, and such various commodities ac-
cessory to food-handling, as ice, ammonia (for
ice-making), arsenic (for insecticides), jute
bags, sisal, etc., were under direct control to
greater or less extent, except when in the
hands of the actual producers and the ultimate
retailers. And by the indirect means of a wide
publicity of "fair prices," and by an influence
exerted through the wholesalers, even the re-
tailers were brought into some degree of agree-
ment or control in connection with the Food
Administration effort to eliminate imf air deal-
ing and food profiteering.

But more important than the control of any
one of these many foods, or perhaps than of
all of them together, and more discussed both
in Food Administration days and since, was
the control of wheat, and, as a part of it, of
flour and bread. Some of the methods and

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results of food conservation as especially ap-
plied to wheat have already been referred to,
but here we are especially concerned with the
methods of governmental control as applied to
this grain.

Hoover had learned in Belgiimi, and by his
observation of the situation in England and
[Europe, that the poetic expression that bread
is the staff of life becomes endowed with an
intense practical significance to the food con-
trollers and the peoples in bread-eating coun-
tries suffering from food-shortage. The loud-
est call of hungry people, their primary anxi-
ety and the first care of the food-controlling
authorities all converge on wheat. The dietetic
regime for a semi-starving people is strong or
weak, appeasing or dangerous, in proportion
\;o the bread it contains. If the bread ration is
normal or sufficient much repression can be
used in the case of other foods. With bread
there is life. The call of the Allies on America
was for wheat above all else. More than one
half of the normal dietary of France is com-
posed of wheat bread. England normally uses
less bread and more meat, but in the war time

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she found she could lessen meat supply more
safely than bread supply. It was for the pos*
sible lack of 75,000,000 bushels of wheat that
Lord Rhondda saw the defeat of the Allies
staring him in the face.

The government control of the American
wheat as contrasted with its voluntary conser-
vation, took many forms, touching it as grain,
as flour, and as bread, as object of special
stimulation for production, as prior conunodity
for transportation, and as export product. But
curiously, that feature of its control for which
the Food Administration has been most sub-
ject to ill-considered criticism is one for which
the Food Administration has the least respon-
sibility; this is the government-established
•*fair price" to the grower.

The Food Control Law as passed by Con-
gress in August, 1917, contained a provision,
guaranteeing a price of two dollars a bushel
for the 1918 wheat crop. It was put in to
stimulate production to insure the needed sup-
ply for the war period. And it was intended
to benefit the farmer. On the basis of this the
Government would presumably be able, by

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proper regulation of the food handlers and
commercial practices intermediate between the
producer and consumer, both to assure the
farmers of a good price and the consiraier of
not being driven to panic and revolt by an im-
possible cost of his daily bread. That such a
regulation was absolutely and immediately
necessary was obvious from the fact that at the
very time the Food Administration was being
organized unofficially along the lines of con-
servation propaganda in May, 1917, wheat was
selling in Chicago at $8.25 a bushel and the
consumer was paying for his bread on that
basis, although the official estimate of the De-
partment of Agricultiu^e of the average price
actually received by the farmer for his crop
was but $1.44 a bushel

Congress had provided a government guar-
antee only for the 1918 crop. At the time of
the organization of the Food Administration
the 1917 crop was on the point of coming to
market. It seemed highly desirable for the
sake of the farmers to insure their receipt of a
fair price for this crop, also. Therefore the
President appointed a committee composed of

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representatives of leading farmers' and con-
sumers' organizations together with a nmnber
of agricultural experts from the agricultural
colleges of the country imder the chairmanship
of President H. H. Garfield of Williams Col-
lege, later U. S. Fuel Administrator, to fix
on a "fair price" for the 1917 crop. The Food
Administrator, as publicly announced by
President Wilson at the time, took "no part
in the deliberations of the conunittee" hor "in
any way intimated an opinion regarding that
price.

The Committee in view of the fact that the
price for 1918 wheat was already guaranteed
at $2.00 — ^it was later increased by the Presi-
dent to $2.26 — and that any smaller price
would imdoubtedly lead to a considerable hold-
ing over of 1917 wheat for sale at the 1918
price and that a higher price would have been
dangerously imfair to the consiraiers, espe-
cially the great body of working men, recom-
mended a "fair price" of $2.20 a bushel
for 1917 wheat. It was a price a little
higher than that guaranteed by Eng-
land to its farmers, about the same as that

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adopted by Germany, and a little less than
that guaranteed by France, so desperate that
she was ready to pay anything for production,
and was already forestalling the complaint of
consumers by subsidizing the bread. The Presi-
dent adopted the price as recommended to him
by the Committee, but there was no Congres-
sional guarantee to back it up. So, with the
fair price thus determined by an independent
commission, the Food Administrator pro-
ceeded with plans for holding the price of wheat
at this level and reflecting it to the farmer.
The principal steps taken to effect this were:

First, the creation of a government corpora-
tion (the U. S. Grain Corporation) which,
acting under the provision of the Food Control
Law authorizing the government to buy and
sell foodstuffs, could deal in wheat and exert
its influence in the maintenance of the fair price
by acting as a dominant commercial agency for
the buying, selling, and distribution of wheat.

Second, the licensing of all store handlers
and millers of wheat and controlling them both
through voluntary agreements and license
regulations.

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Third, the prohibition of trading in futures.

As an illustration of the results quickly ob-
tained by these measures we may note that
while the fanner was getting in the year just
before the war about 27 per cent of the cost of
each loaf of bread for the wheat in it, to which
the miller added about 6% per cent and the
middlemen«and bakers the remaining 66l^ per
cent, and in 1915, after the war began, the re-
spective proportions were 80 per cent, 11 pw
cent, and 59 per cent, in 1918, after the Food
Administrator's control was in force, the far-
mer got 40 per cent, the miller 8 per cent, and
the others 57 per cent. Or, as another illustra-
tion, while in 1917, when there was no food
control the diflFerence between the price of the
farmers' wheat and the flour made from it wa$
$11.00 per barrel this margin during Food
Administration days was about $8.50.

An enimieration of the many and ingepious
measures adopted by Hoover and Julius
Barnes, the self-sacrificing and highly efficient
head of the Grain Corporation, to acquit them-
selves and the Government with fairness to all
interests of the tremendous responsibility and

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undertaking thus imposed on them would
carry us beyond the limits of our space. These
controllers of the American wheat had in their
hands the fate of nations. The Allies had to
be supplied; and the American farmers had
to be stimulated to top eflFort; and the Ameri-
fcan consumers, which means the whole people,
had to be kept uninjured in working efficiency
and imdismayed by possibility of food panic
which would result from prohibitive prices, or
actual shortage. If the war was to be won
there simply had to be wheat enough for all,
America and Allies alike, and it had to be
available both as regards distribution and
price.

The results of the American wheat control
can be summed up in one word: success. The
unwearying labors and imdiminished devotion
necessary to achieve this success in face of great
difficulties and much criticism cannot be so
readily summed up. But without them the
history of the war would have been a different
history. We should never forget this. In the
records of the methods and results of the con-
trol lies the matter, all ready for the competent

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pen, for an epic of the wheat, the fit thu*d part
of the trilogy that Frank Norris began with
"The Octopus" and "The Pit" and had, at the
call of death, to leave unwritten.

Another phase of Hoover's food regulatory
activity, concerning which there was, and still
continues to be, much discussion, is that of his
attempt to insure a stimulated production of
hogs by a stabilized price which should well
reward the grower and yet not lead to such an
exorbitant cost to the consiraier as would have
been a dangerous hardship to our own people
and an unfair hold-up of our associates in the
war. Next to wheat, pork products were the
American food supplies most necessary to the
Allies.

Hogs are a com product. The cost of pro-
duction of hogs depends rather more upon the
price of corn than upon any other factor. In-
vestigation showed that owing to the violent
fluctuations in demand for com and hogs dur-
ing the war, there had been five periods between
the beginning of the war and September, 1917,
in which it had been more profitable to sell com
than to feed it to swine at the price of hogs then

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prevailing, while there were only three periods
when the reverse was true. In the preceding
eight years there had been only two periods in
which the direct sale of corn was more profit-
able than feeding it to swine.

The results of these periods of unprofit ble
feeding was to retard hog production, as the
grower was discouraged from breeding during
those periods. Hoover therefore decided that
the maintenance of a proper relation between
the price of com and the price of hogs was the
bei^t method of assuring an increased produc-
tion of pork. Furthermore, the violent fluctua-
tions in the price of hogs tended to lift the price
of the pork products to the consiraier unduly,
for at every new rise the stocks already in the
warehouses over the whole country were
marked up and the spread between the con-
sumer and the producer thereby increased. A
stabilization of the price of hogs was therefore
as necessary for the protectioiji of the con-
siraier for the sake of a reduction of this spread
as it was in the case of other foodstuflFs.

In order that the swine growers should have
an opportunity to participate in the determina-

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idon of what method would be most fair and
effective in establishing this stabilization and
stimulating production, a committee of leading
producers was asked to investigate the whole
matter. This committee made a report late
in October, 1917, which, after setting out the
situation in detail and calling attention to the
imperative need of a stimulation of produc-
tion, declared that although hog production for
the ten years ending 1916 had been maintained
on a ratio of 11.66 bushels of com to 100
pounds of hog, there had been but little profit
to the grower on this basis and that it would
be desirable for the sake of stimulation to pay
at least the equivalent of 13.83 bushels of
com per himdred pounds of average hog and,
if possible, as much as 14.33 pounds. On this
latter ratio the committee believed that produc-
tion could be increased fifteen per cent above
the normal. The Committee added an expres-
sion of its belief that "the best emergency
method of immediately stabilizing the market
and preventing the premature marketing of
light imfinished pigs and breeding stock would
be to establish a minimum emergency prjce for

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good to select hogs of sixteen dollars a hundred
pounds on the Chicago market."

As the Food Administrator had no power
to fix prices by law, nor to guarantee a price
for the producer backed by money in the U. S.
Treasury as in the case of the wheat guarantee,
the only means available to him to assure a
stable minimum price for hogs was to come to
an agreement with the principal buyers both
of hogs and the prepared pork products that
they would pay a price which would make this*
minimimi possible. .This was accomplished by
Hoover, with the approval of the President,
in the following way: The Allies agreed with
the United States that their purchases of food
supplies would be made through the Food Ad-
ministration (as already explained earlier in
this book) . They then agreed with the Food
Administrator that their orders for pork and
pork products might be placed with the pack-
ers at prices which would eniible the packers to
buy the hogs offered them at not less than the
minimum price agreed to between the Food
Administrator and the producers. The orders
for our Army and Navy, and for other large

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buyers, such as the Belgian Relief and Red
Cross, were also placed through the Food Ad-
ministration upon the same price basis. The
packers then agreed with the Food Adminis-
tration that if these orders were placed with
them at the stated prices they would pay to
the producer the minimtmi price announced by
the Food Administration. The combined or-
ders of these principal buyers called for from
thirty to forty per cent of the pork and pork
products produced in the United States, and
the price paid by them would obviously deter-
mine the price for the whole amount.

With this power, derived solely by agree-
ment, and not, as many of the producers seemed
to understand, or rather, misunderstand, by
governmental authority exercised, as in the case
of wheat, to establish a government-backed
guarantee, the Food Administrator announced
on November 8, 1917, that:

"The prices (of hogs) so far as we can effect
them will not go below a minimtmi of about
$15.50 per hundredweight for the average of
the packers' droves on the Chicago market un-
til further notice. . . . We have had and shall

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have the advice of a board composed of prac-
tical hog-growers and experts. That board
advises us that the best yardstick to measure
the cost of production of hogs is the cost of
com. The board further advises that the ratio
of com price to hog price on the average over
a series of years has been about twelve to one
(or a little less). In the past when the ratio
has gone lower than twelve to one, the stock of
hogs in the country has decreased. When it
was higher than twelve the hogs have increased.
The board has given its judgment that to bring
the stock of hogs back to normal under the
present conditions the ratio should be about
thirteen. Therefore, as to the hogs farrowed
next spring, we will try to stabilize the price
so that the farmer can count on getting for
each one himdred pounds of hog ready for mar-
ket, thirteen times the average cost per bushel
of the com fed to the hogs. . . . But let there
be no misunderstanding of this statement. It
is not a guarantee backed by money. It is
not a promise by the packers. It is a state-
ment of the intention and policy of the Food
Administration which means to do justice to
the farmer."

The effect of Hoover's action to accomplish
the imperatively needed stimulated production

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HERBERT HOOVER

of hogs began to appear by the next July and
from that time on was very marked^ the pro-
duction reaching an increase over normal of
thirty per cent. The price assured to the farm-
ers by the Food Administration was main-
tained uniformly from November, 1917, to
August, 1918. In October, however, a critical
situation arose because, by reason of the grow-
ing peace talk, a sharp decline in the price of
com occurred and this decline spread fear
among the growers that a similar reduction
would take place in the price of hogs because
of the fixed thirteen to one com and hog ratio.
A rapid marketing of hogs ensued which broke
the price.

With the Armistice there was an immediate
change of attitude on the part of the Allies
who had been trying to build up reserves of
pork products to use in times of possible in-
creased diflSculty of transportation. They
now moved promptly toward a reduction of
purchases. This made serious difficulties in
maintaining the price to the producers during
the months of December, January, and Febru-
ary. But Hoover's original assurance to the

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growers covered these months. It required
most vigorous pressure on his part to compel
the Allies to livfe up to their purchasing agree-
ments. But he was finally successful in dis-
posing of the material oflFered by the growers
and thus was able to keep faith with them.

Some criticism of the Food Administration
because of this maintenance of prices was
voiced by consumers. But two important
things must be remembered in this connection.
In the first place the stabilized price was estab-
lished primarily for the sake of stimulating an
imperatively needed increased production. In
the second place the assurance of the Food Ad-
ministration given to the growers in Novem-
ber, 1917, that it would do what it could to
maintain llie price for hogs farrowed in the
spring of 1918 covered sales extending to the
spring of 1919. No one knew that an armistice
would come in November, 1918. The only
safe plan was to try to insure a food supply
for a reasonably long time in advance. To
have broken the agreement with the producers
when the armistice came would have caused
many of them great, even ruinous losses. Be-

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sides it would have been a plain breach of
faith. Hoover would not do it.

In March, 1919, the War Trade Board was
no longer willing to continue its export re-
strictions. It was only by virtue of these that
the Food Administration had any control of
the situation. They were canceled and from
that time on the market was uncontrolled.
But by then, the major hog run was disposed
of, and the Food Administration had acquitted
itself of its obligation to the producers.

This is a long and dry story of pigs and com
and diflSculty. But I think it well to tell it,
even though it may be dull, because it seems to
be so little known. Hoover's situation vis i vis
pigs and producers and packers in those
strenuous days of threatened collapse of an all-
important food supply seems to be too little
understood. And this little understanding has
resulted in too much unfair criticism. Now
let us tiun to another story with more humans
than hogs in it.

Hoover had said, in May, 1917, within
a few days after the President had told
him that he wanted him to administer the food

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of America, as a war measure: "I conceive that
the essence of all special war administration
falls into two phases: first, centralized and
single responsibility; second, delegation of this
responsibility to decentralized administration.''

Then let us recall how soon after that we
were all assimiing some share in this "decen-
tralized administration." If we had not all
become Federal Food Administrators of states^
or county, or city, or rural sub-food adminis-
trators, or even members of food conservation
conmiittees or members of honor ration leagues^
we were all at least, household food adminis-
trators. We were all administering, in a new
light and with a new aim, the food we bought
or cooked or ate. Hoover, the centralized and
responsible head, had decentralized food ad-
ministration right down to each one of us.

This decentralization began with an organi-
zation of all the states. The general responsi-
bility for this work was vested in a particular
division of the Food Administration, directed
by John W. Hallowell, a young engineer and
business man who revealed a conspicuous ca-
pacity in this important position. As early as

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June, inquiry was made of Governors of the
states and of other puhlic officials and promi-
nent men concerning desirable men who would
be willing to volunteer their services in direct-
ing the work of the Food Administration
within their state, as their part in the war work
of the nation. Early in July as many as had
been,so far selected came to Washington for a
first conference with Hoover, at which plans
were made for proceeding with the work within
the states immediately upon the passage of the
Food Control Act, By August 10 when the
Food Administration was formally established^
Federal Food Administrators were already se-
lected for about half the states. The rest were
soon chosen. Frequent meetings were held in
Washington.

At each successive conference with Hoover
of these state administrators, who were able
meU) experienced in business administration or
public service, their enthusiasm, their confi-
dence in his leadership, their response to his na-
tional ideals, their personal devotion to him,
grew. Hoover's relation to them recalled to me,
:with leapings of the heart, those earlier days in

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Brussels when the eager young men of the C
R. B. used to come rushing in from the prov-
inces to group themselves aroimd him and de-
rive fresh inspiration and determination from
their contact with him to see the job through
and to see it through cleanly and fearlessly.

These Federal Food Administrators listened
to Hoover in Washington as we listened to him
in Belgium. He stirred their hearts and satis-
fied their minds. And they went back to their
difficult tasks, with fresh conviction and re-
newed strength. And their tasks were truly
difficult, their voluntarily assumed share of the
decentralized administration was a serious one.
But they, too, decentralized parts of the admin-
istration; they set up the district and couinty
and city administrations. And they and their
many helpers were the ones who carried food
administration into every market and grocery
store and bakery and home. The whole coun-
try, all the people, became a part of the United
States Food Administration.

And that was what Hoover wanted and in-
tended. For he knew that only the people, all
of them working voluntarily together, could

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really administer the food of America, as it had
to be administered in the great war emergency
that had come to the comitry.

On the day after the armistice Hoover ad-
dressed the Federal Food Administrators,
gathered in Washington, for the last time. In
this address be outlined his attitude toward the
future work of the Food Administration and,
even more importantly, toward governmental
food control as a policy, in the following words :

"Our work tmder the Food Control Act has
revolved largely around the ciui;ailment of
speculation and profiteering. This act will
expire at the signing of the peace with Ger-
many, and as it represents a type of legislation
only justified under war conditions, I do not
expect to see its renewal. It has proved of
vital importance tmder the economic currents
and psychology of war. I do not consider it
as of such usefulness in the economic currents
and psychology of peace. Furthermore, it is
my belief that the tendency of all such legisla-
tion, except in war, is to an over-degree to strike
at the roots of individual initiative. We have
secured its execution during the war as to the
willing cooperation of ninety-five per cent of

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the trades of the country, but under peace con-
ditions it would degenerate into an harassing
blue law.

"The law has well justified itself under war
conditions. The investigations of our economic
division clearly demonstrate that during the
first year of the Food Administration farm
prices steadily increased by fifteen per cent to
twenty per cent on various computations, while
wholesale prices decreased from three per cent
to ten per cent, according to the basis of calcu-
lation. Thus middlemen's cost and profits
were greatly reduced. This was due to the
large suppression of profiteering and specula-
tion and to the more orderly trade practices in-
troduced under the law.

"It is my desire that we should all recognize
that we have passed a great milestone in the
signing of the armistice ; that we must get upon
the path of peace; that therefore we should be-
gin at once to relax the regulation and control
measures of the Food Administration at every
point where they do not open a possibility of
profiteering and speculation. This we cannot
and will not permit so far as our abilities ex-
tend imtil the last day that we have authority
under the law. When we entered upon this
work eighteen months ago our trades were ram-
pant with speculation and profiteering. This

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grew mainly from the utterly insensate raids
of Europe on our commodities. I look now
for a turn of American food trades towards
conservative and safe business because in this
period that confronts us, with the decreased
buying power of our own people, of uncer-
tainty as to the progress of the world's politics,
with the Government in control of exports and
imports, he would be a f oolisli man indeed who
today started a speculation in food. This is
a complete reversal of the commercial atmo-
sphere that existed when war began eighteen
months ago, and therefore the major necessity
for law in repression of speculative activities
is, to my mind, rapidly passing. It is our duty,
however, to exert ourselves in every direction
so to handle our food during reconstruction as
to protect our producers and our constmiers
and to assure our trade from chaos and panic.'*

On the same day that this address was made
Hoover began the canceling of the Food Ad-
ministration regulations, and this cancellation
continued rapidly through November and De-
cember. It had to be done with care to prevent
dangerous disorganization, and some continued
control was necessary during the winter and
spring in order to carry out the agreements of

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price stabilization entered into between the
Food Administration and the producers and
handlers of certain commodities, as hogs,
sugar, rice, and cotton seed and its products.
The wheat price guarantee and control espe-
cially provided for by Congress and later Presi-
dential proclamation remained vested in the
United States Grain Corporation, It will ex-
pire (Ml June 80, 1920.

But Hoover could not remain in America
to see this demobilization of the Food Admin-
istration through personally. Only ten days
after the armistice he left for Europe, at the
request of the President, to direct the partici-
pation of the United States in the imperatively
. needed relief of the war-ravaged countries of
Eastern Europe. Edgar Rickard, who had
been Hoover's chief personal assistant through
all of the Food Administration work, was ap-
pointed by the President as Acting Food Ad-
ministrator in Hoover's absence.

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CHAPTER Xn

AMERICAN BELIEF ADMINISTRATION

' With the coming of the armistice victori-
ous America and the Allies found themselves
face to face with a terrible situation in Eastern
Europe, The liberated peoples of the Baltic
states, Poland, Czecho-Slovakia, Jugo-Slavia,
and the Near East, were in a dreadful state of
starvation and economic wreckage. A great,
responsibility and pressing duty devolved on
America, Great Britain, France, and Italy to
act promptly for the relief of these peoples who
had become temporarily, by the hazards of war,
their wards, ' But the Allies themselves were in

no enviable position to relieve others. Their

•J

own troubles were many. ^ It was on America
that the major part of this relief work would
fall.

No man knew tifiis situation, as far as it could
be known before the veil of blockade and mili-

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tary control was lifted from it, better than
Hoover. And no man realized more clearly
than he the direful consequences that it threat-
. ened not only to the peoples of the suffering
countries themselves but to the peace and sta-
bility of the world, to restore which every effort
had now to be exerted. Hoover was not only '
the man logically indicated to the President of
the United States to undertake this saving re-
lief on the part of America, but he was the man
whom all of Europe recognized as the source
of hope in this critical moment.^ He came to
the gigantic endeavor as the man of the hour. ^
' Hoover naturally made Paris his headquar-
ters, for the Peace Conference was sitting here,
and here also were the representatives of the
Allies with whom he was to associate himself
in the combined effort to save the peoples of
Eastern Europe from starvation and help them
make a beginning of self-government and eco-
nomic rehabilitation. ^

His first steps were directed toward: First,
securing coordination with the Allied Govern-
ments by setting up a council of the associated
governments; second, finding the necessary

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financial support from the United States for
making the American contribution to this re-
lief; third, setting up a special organization for
the administration of the American food and
fimds; and, fourth, in-ging the provision of
fuilds and shipping by the Allied Grovem-
m^nts.

The special American OTganization for as-
sisting in this general European relief was
quickly organized under the name of the
American Relief Administration, of whidi
Hoover was formally named by the President
Director-General, and Congress on the recom-
mendation of the President appropriated, on
February 24, 1919, $100,000,000 as a working
fund for the new organization. In addition to
this the United States Treasury was already
making monthly loans of several million dol-
lars each to Roumania, Serbia, and Czecho-
slovakia. But while waiting for the Congres-
sional appropriation the work had to be got
going, and for this the President contributed
$5,000,000 from his special funds available for
extraordinary expenses.

Before actual relief work could be intelli-
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gently begun, however, it was necessary to find
out by personal inspection just what the actual
food situation in each of the Eastern European
countries was, and for that purpose investigat-
ing missions were sent out in December, 1918,
and January, 1919, to all of the suffering coun-
tries.

Hoover had quickly gathered about liim, as
nucleus of a staff, a number of men already
experienced in relief work and food matters
who had worked with him in the Belgian relief
and the American Food Administration.
Others were rapidly added, both civilians of
business or technical experience and army of-
ficers, detached at his request, especially from
the Quartermaster and Service of Supplies
corps. From these men he was able to select
small groups eager to begin with him the actual
work. His own impatience and readiness to
make a real start was like that of a race-horse
at the starting gate or a runner with his toes on
the line awaiting the pistol shot.

The atmosphere of Paris was an irritating
one. The men in control were always saying
"waif There were a thou'sand considerations

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of old-time diplomacy, of present and future
political and commercial considerations in their
minds. They were conferring with eadh other
and referring back to their governments for
instructions and then conferring again. Com-
mon sense and necessity were bemg restrained
by political sensitiveness and inertia. In
Hoover's mind one thing was perfectly clear.
Time was of the essence of his contract. £ very
day of delay meant more difficulty. The East-
em countries, struggling to find themselves in
the chaos of disorganization, waiting for an of-
ficial determination of their new borders, were
already becoming entangled in frontier brawls
and quarreling over the control of local sources
of food and fuel. Their people were suffering
terribly and were clamoring for help. Hoover
was there to help ; he wanted to begin helping.
So he began.

Hoover had already taken the position that
the day of hate was passed. With the end of
mutual slaughter and destruction came imme-
diately the time for help. It was like that piti-
ful period after the battle when the bloody field
is taken over by the stretcher-bearers, the Red

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Cross nurses, and the tireless surgeons. So
Hoover had abeady clearly in mind that the
hand of charity was going to be extended to
the suflFerers in Hungary and Austria and
Germany as well as to the people who were
suffering because of the ravages of the armies
of these nations. Dr. Alonzo Taylor and I,
whom he had sent early in December to Switz-
erland to get into close touch with the situation
in Eastern and Central Europe, listened, for
him, in Berne to the pitiful pleas of the repre-
sentatives of starving Vienna. By January
Hoover*s missions were installed and at work
in Trieste, Belgrade, Vienna, Prague, Buda-
pest, and Warsaw. In February Dr. Tay-
lor and I were reporting the Grerman situation
from Berlin.

The attitude of the people in these coimtries
was one of pathetic dependence on American
aid and confidence that it would be forthcom-
ing. The name of Hoover was already known
all over Europe because of his Belgian work,
and the swiftly-spread news that he was in
charge of the new relief work acted like magic
in restoring hope to these despairing millions.

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When the first food mission to Poland, mak-
ing its way in the first week of January, 1919,
with difficulty and discomfort because of the
demoralized transportation conditions, had
reached that part of its journey north of
Vienna towards Cracow which brought it into
Czecho-Slovakia, our train halted at a station
gaily decorated with flags and bimting among
which the American colors were conspicuous.
A band was playing vigorously something that
sounded like the Star-Spangled Banner, and
a group of top-hatted and frock-coated gentle-
men were the front figures in a great crowd
that covered the station platform. I was some-
what dismayed by these evident preparations
for a reception, for we were not coming to try
to help Czecho-Slovakia, but Poland, between
which two countries sharp feeling was already
developing in connection with the dispute over
the Tesch^i coal fields. I told my interpreter,
therefore, to hiury off the train and explain the
situation.

He returned with one of the gentlemen of
high hat and long coat who said, in broken
French: "Well, anyway, you are the food mis-

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sion, aren't you?" I replied, "Yes, but we are
going to Warsaw; we are only passing through
your country; we can't do anything for you."

"But," he persisted, "you are the Americans,
aren't you?"

"Yes, we are the Americans."

**Well, then, it's all right" And he waved
an encouraging hand to the band, which re-
sponded with increased endeavor, while the
crowd cheered and waved the home-made
American flags. And we were received and
addressed, and given curious things to drink
and a little food — ^we gave them in return some
Red Cross prisoner packages we carried along
for oiu* own maintenance — and then we were
sent on with more cheers and hearty God-
speeds.

Delay so plainly meant sharper suflFering
and more deaths that even before the necessary
financial and other arrangements were com-
pleted or even well imder way. Hoover had
made arrangements with the Secretary of War
by which vessels carrying 185,000 tons of
American food were diverted from French to
Mediterranean ports, and with the Grain Cor-

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HERBERT HOOVER

poration, under authority of the Treasury, by
which 145,000 tons were started for northern
European ports. Thus by the time arrange-
ments had been made for financing the ship-
ments and for internal transportation and safe
control and fair distribution, the food cargoes
were already arriving at the nearest available
ports. Within a few weeks from the time the
first mission arrived in Warsaw and had re-
ported back to Hoover the terrible situation of
the Polish people, the relief food was flowing
into Poland through Dantzig, the Grcrman port
for the use of which for this purpose a special
article in the terms of the aijnistice had pro-
vided, but which was only most reluctantly and
by dint of strong pressiu-e made available to
us.

Similarly from Trieste the food trains began
moving north while there still remained count-
less details of arrangement to settle. I was in
Vienna when the first train of American relief
food came in from the South. The Italians
were also attempting to send in some supplies,
but so far all the trains which had started north
had been blocked at some border point. The

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American train was in charge of two snappy
doughboys, a corporal and a private. When it
reached the point of blockade the corporal was
told that he could go no farther. He asked
why, but only got for answer a curt statement
that trains were not moving just now. "But
this one is," he replied, and called to his private :
"Let me have my gun." With revolver in hand
he instructed the engineer to pull out. And the
train went on. When I asked him in Vienna if
he had worried any at the border about the cus-
toms and military regulations of the govern-
ments concerned which he was disregarding, he
answered with a cheerful smile: "Not a worry;
Mr. Hoover's representative at Trieste told me
to take the train through and it was up to me to
take her, wasn't it? These wop kings and gen-
erals don't coimt with me. I'm working for
Hoover."

But the whole situation in these southeastern
countries because of their utter disorganization
and their hopeless embroilment in conflict with
each other, was too impossible. Whatever de-
gree of peace the capitals of these countries
recognized as the diplomatic status of the mo-

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HERBERT HOOVER

menty the frontiers had no illusions* There
were trenches out there and machines-guns and
bayonets. Men were shooting at each other
across the lines. Either the trains or cars of
one country would be stopped at the border^
or if they got across they did not get back.
Some coimtries had enough cars and locomo*
tives; some did not. If one country had some
coal to spare but was starving for lack of the
wheat which could be spared by its Aeighbory
which was freezing, there was no way of mak-
ing the needed exchange. The money of each
country became valueless in the others — and of
less and less value in its own land. Everjrthing
was going to pieces, including the relief. It
simply could not go on this way.

Finally, as a result of Hoover's insistence at
Paris on the terrible danger of delay both to
the lives of the people and the budding democ-
racy of Europe, the Supreme Economic Coun-
cil took the drastic measure of temporarily tak-
ing over the control of the whole transportation
system of Southeastern Europe which was put
into Hoover's hands, leaving him to arrimge
by agreement, as best he could, according to

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AMERICAN RELIEF ADMINISTRATION

his own ideas and opportunities, the other mat-
ters of finance, coal, the interchange of native
commodities between adjacent comitries and
the distribution of imported food.

Hoover became, in a word, general economic
and life-saving manager for the Eastern Euro-
pean countries. It is from my personal knowl-
edge of his achievements in this extraordinary
position during the first eight months after the
Armistice that I have declared my belief earl-
ier in this account that it was owing more to
Hoover and his work than to any other single
influence that utter anarchy and chaos and
complete Bolshevik domination in Eastern Eu-
rope (west of Russia) were averted. In other
words,^Hoover not only saved lives, but nations
and civilizations by his superhuman efforts.
The political results of his work were but inci-
dental to his life-saving activities, but from an
historical and international point of view they
were even more important, v

Before, however, referring to them more spe-
cifically, something of the scope and special
character of the general Eiu-opean relief and
wpply work should be briefly explained.

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HERBERT HOOVER

Itogether, twenty countries received sup-
plies of food and clothing under Hoover's con-
trol acting as Director-General of Relief for
the Supreme Economic CounciE^The total
amount of these supplies delivered from De-
cember 1, 1918, to June 1, 1919, was about
three and a quarter million tons, comprising
over six hundred shiploads, of a total approxi-
mate value of eight hundred million dollars.
There were, in addition, on June 1, port stocks
of over 100,000 tons ready for internal deliv-
ery, and other supplies came later.

The twenty countries sharing in the sup-
plies included Belgiima and Northern France
(through the C. R. B.), the Baltic states of
Finland, Esthonia, Latvia, and Lithuania, a
small part of Russia, Poland, Czecho-Slovakia,
Grermany, German Austria, Hungary, Rou-
mania, Bulgaria, Greater Servia, Turkey, Ar-
menia, Italy, and the neutrals, Denmark and
Holland. By the terms of the Congressional
Act appropriating the hundred million dol-
lars for the relief of Eastern Europe, no part
of the money could be used for the relief of
Germany, Austria, Himgary, Bulgaria, or

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Turkey. But Vienna needed help more quickly
and imperatively than any other eastern capi-
tal. Hoover arranged that money should be
advanced by England and France for food
piu-chases in America for Austria and Hun-
gary. This food was put into Hoover's hands,
and to him was left the problem of get-
ting it into the suflFering coimtries. Grcr-
many was supplied under the approval of the
Allies in accordance with the armistice agree-
ment.

The "relief of Eastern and Central Europe
was, of course, not all charity in the usually ac-
cepted meaning of the term. The American
hundred million dollars and the British sixty
million dollars could not buy the needed
eight himdred millions' worth of food and
clothing. In fact, of that American himdred
million all but about fifteen are now again in
the U. S. Treasury in the form of promises
to pay signed by various Eastern European
Governments. About ten millions of it were
given by Hoover outright, in the form of spe-
cial food for child nutrition, to the under-
nourished children from the Baltic to the Black

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HERBERT HOOVER

Sea, By additions made to this charity by the
Eastern European Governments themselves
and by the nationals of these countries resident
in America, and from other sources, two and
a half million weak children are today still
being given (May, 1920) a daily supplemen-
tary meal of special food.
A. Hoover's experience in Belgiimi and North-
em France had taught him how necessary was
the special care of the children. X All the war-
ravaged countries have lost a material part of
their present generation. In some of them the
drainage of human life and strength ap-
proaches that of Germany after the Thirty
Years War and of France after the Napoleonic
wars. If they are not to suflFer a racial deteri-
oration the qoming generation must be nursed
to strength. The children, then, who are the
immediately coming generation and the pro-
ducers of the ones to follow, must be particu-
larly cared for.^ That is what Hoover gave spe-
cial attention to from the beginning of his re-
lief work and it is what he is now still giving
most of his time and energy to. ^

For the general re-provisioning of the peo-
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pies of Eastern and Central Europe all of the
various countries supplied were called on to
pay for the food at cost, plus transportation, to
the extent of their possibilities. Gold, if they
had it — all of Germany's supply was paid for
in gold — ^paper money at current exchange,
government promissory notes, and conmiodi-
ties which could be sold to other countries, made
up the payments. The charity was in making
loans, providing the food, getting ships and
barges and trains and coal for its transporta-
tion, selling it at cost, and giving the service of
several hundred active, intelligent, and sympa-
thetic Americans, mostly young and khaki-
clothed, and a lesser group of Allied officers,
all devoted to getting the food where it
was needed and seeing that it was fairly dis-
tributed.

It is impossible to depict the utter bewilder-
ment and helplessness of the governments of
the liberated nations of Eastern Europe at the
beginning of the armistice period. Nor is it
possible to explain adequately the enormous
difficulties they faced in any attempt at organ-
izing, controlling, and caring for their peoples.

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HERBERT HOOVER

With uncertain boundaries — for the demarca-
tion of these they were waiting on a hardly less
bewildered group of eminent gentlemen in
Paris; with a financial and economic situation
presenting such appalling features of demor-
alization that they could only be realized one
at a time; with their people clamoring for the
inmiediately necessary food, fuel and clothing,
and demanding a swift realization of all the
benefits that their new freedom was to bring
them; and with an ever more menacing whist-
ling wind of terror blowing over them from the
East — ^with all this, how the responsible men
of the governments which rapidly succeeded
each other in these coimtries retained any per-
sistent vestiges of sanity is beyond the compre-
hension of those of us who viewed the scene at
close range.

For a single but sufficient illustration let us
take the situation in the split apart fragments
of the former great Austro-Hungarian Em-
pire, which now constitute all or parts of Grer-
man Austria, Hungary, Czecho-Slovakia,
Jugo-Slavia and Roumania. For all these re-
gions (except Roumania) Vienna had for years

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been the center of political authority and chief
economic control. In Vienna were many of
the land-owners, most of the heads of the great
industries^ and the directors of the transporta-
tion system. It was the financial and market
center, the hub of a vast, intricate, and delicate
orb-web of economic organization. But the
people and the goods of the various separated
regions, except Grerman Austria, the smallest,
weakest, and most afflicted one of them all,
were cut off from it and all were cut off from
each other. The final political boundaries were
not yet fixed, to be siu^e, but actual military
frontiers were already established with all their
limitations on inter-commimication and their
disregard of personal needs. Shut up within
their frontiers these regions found themselves
varyingly with or without money — if they had
any it was of ever-decreasing purchasing power
— ^with or without food, fuel, and raw ma-
terials for industry; and with lesser or larger
niunbers of locomotives and railway cars,
mostly lesser. But of everything the distri-
bution bore no calculated relation to the needs
of the industry and commerce or even to the

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HERBERT HOOVER

actual necessities of the people for the preser-
vation of health and life.

Vienna, itself, ''die lustige schone Stadt
Wien/* was, as it still is today and for long will
be, the saddest great capital in Europe. Re^
duced from its position of being the governing,
spending, and singing and dancing capital of
an empire of fifty-five million people — ^it never
was a producing capital — to be the capital of
a small, helpless nation of scant seven million
people concentrated in a region unable to meet
even their needs of food and coal — ^Vienna rep-
resents the pathetic extreme of the cataclysmic
results of War.

But if the situation was most complex and
hopeless in the south, it was far from simple or
hopeful in the north. Poland, the smaller Bal-
tic states and Finland were all in desperate
plight and their new governments were all
aghast at the magnitude of the problem before
them. To add to the difficulties of general dis-
organization of peoples, lack of the necessities
of life, and helplessness of governments, there
was ever continuing war. Armistice meant
something real on the West and Austro-Ital-

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AMERICAN RELIEF ADMINISTRATIOlf

ian fronts, but it meant little to Eastern £u*
rope. There was a score of very lively little
wars going on at once over there: Poland alone
was fighting with four diflferent adversaries,
one at each comer of her land.

But the climax of the situation was reached
in the realization by all inmiediately concerned
that something saving had to be done at once,
, or the whole thing would become literal an-
archy, with red and howling death rampant
over all. Bolshevik Russia, just over the East-
em borders, was not only a vivid reality to these
countries, but it was constantly threatening to
come across the borders and engulf them.

Its agents were working continuously among
their peoples; there were everywhere the sinis-
ter signs of the possibility of a swift removal of
the frontiers of Bolshevism from their Eastern
to their Western borders. In Paris the emi-
nent statesmen and famous generals of the
Peace Conference and the Supreme Council
sat and debated. They sent out occasional ul-
timata ordering the cessation of fighting, the
retirement from a far advanced frontier, and
what not else. Inter- Allied Economic and

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HERBERT HOOVER

Military Missions came and looked on and con-
ferred and returned. But nobody stopped
fighting, and the conferences settled nothing.
The Allies were not in a position — ^this need be
no secret now — ^to send adequate forces to en-
force their ultimata. An Inter- Allied Mili-
tary Mission of four generals of America^
Great Britain, France and Italy started by
special train from Cracow to Lemberg to con-
vey personally an ultimatimi to the Ruthenians
and Poles ordering them to stop fighting. The
train was shelled by the Ruthenians east of
Przemsyl, and the generals came back. East-
em Europe expected the great powers to do
something about this, but nothing happened^
and the discount on ultimata became still more
marked.

Somebody had to do something that counted.
So Hoover did it. It was not only lives that
had to be saved ; it was nations. It was not only
starvation that had to be fought; it was ap-
proaching anarchy, it was Bolshevism.

As already stated, Hoover's food ships had
left America for Southern and Northern Eu-
ropean ports before Hoover's men had even

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got into the countries to be fed. As a conse-
quence, food deliveries closely followed food
investigations. That counted with the people.
One of Hoover's rules was that food could only
go into regions where it could be safeguarded
and controlled. That counted against Bolshe-
vism. Shrewd Bela Kun was able to play a
winning game in Hungary against the Peace
Conference and Supreme Councils at Paris,
but he was out-played by soft-voiced, square-
jawed Captain "Tommy" Gregory, Hoover's
general director for Southeast Europe, and it
was this same California lawyer in khaki,
turned food man, who, when the communist
Kun had passed and the pendulum had swimg
as dangerously far in the other direction, al-
lowing the audacious Hapsburg, Archduke Jo-
seph, to slip into power, had done most to un-
seat him.

Gregory had been able to commandeer all the
former military wires in the Austro-Hungar-
ian countries for use in the relief work. So he
was able to keep Hoover advised of all the
news, not only promptly, but in good Ameri-
canese. His laconic but fully descriptive mes-

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HERBERT HOOVER

sage to Paris announcing the Archduke's pass-
ing read: "August 24th, Archie went through
the hoop at 8 P. M. today."

Relief in Eastern Europe was spelled by
Hoover with a capital £ and several additional
letters. It really spelled Rehabilitation. It
meant, in addition to sending in food, straight-
ening out transportation, getting coal mines
going, and the starting up of direct exchange
of commodities among the unevenly supplied
countries. There was some smrplus wheat in
the Banat, some surplus coal in Czecho-Slo-
vakia, some extra locomotives in Vienna. So
under the arbitrage of himself and his lieuten-
ants there was set up a wholesale international
bartering, a curious reversion to the primitive
ways of early human society.

This exchange of needed goods by barter
solved in some degree the impossible financial
situation, gave the people an incentive to
work, and helped reduce political inflam-
mation. It was practical statesmanship
meeting things as they were and not as they
might more desirably be, but were not. I say
again, and many men in the governments of

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AMERICAN RELIEF ADMINISTRATION

Eastern Europe, and even in the /eouncils in
Paris^ have said, that Hoover saved Eastern
Europe from anarchy, and held active Bolshe-
vism to its original frontiers. That meant sav-
ing Western Europe, too. *
. Then Hoover came back to America to be
an American private citizen again. That is
what he is today. He is still carrying on two
great charities in Eastern Europe: the daily
feeding of millions of under-nourished children,
and the making possible, through his Ameri-
can Relief Warehouses, for anyone in America
to help any relatives or friends anywhere in
Eastern Europe by direct food gifts. But he
is doing it as private citizen. The story of
Hoover — as far as I can write it today — ^is that
of an American who saw a particular kind of
service he could render his country and Eu-

^The official representative of the Treasury of one of
the Allied powers, who had no reason to be too friendly to
the American director of relief, for Hoover had often to
oppose the policies of this power in the Paris councils, has
recently written of him : "Mr. Hoover was the only man who
emerged from the ordeal of Paris with jn enhanced repu-
tation. This complex personality, with his habitual air of
weary Titan (or, as others might put it, of exhausted prize-
fighter), his eyes steadily fixed on the true and essential
facts of the European situation, imported into the Councils
of Paris, when he took part in them, precisely that atmosphere
of reality, knowledge, magnanimity, and disinterestedness,
which, if they had been found in other quarters also, would
have given us the Good Peace."

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HERBERT HOOVER

rope and humanity in a great crisis. He ren-
dered it, and thus most truly helped make the
world safe for Democracy and human ideals.
It would only be fair to add to his Belgian ci-
tation the larger one of American Citizen of
the World and Friend of All the People. But
he would only be embarrassed if anyone at-
tempted to do it now. We can safely leave the
matter to History. \/

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APPENDICES

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APPENDIX I

STATEMENT QIYEN TO THE PRESS BY U. S, FOOD

ADMINISTRATOR HOOVER ON NOVEMBER 12, 1918

(the day AFTER THE ARMISTICE BEGAN )»

CONCERNING THE RESULTS OF FIFTEEN

MONTHS OF FOOD ADMINISTRATION

With the war effectually over we enter a
new economic era, and its immediate eflfect on
prices is difficult to anticipate. The mainten-
ance of the embargo will prevent depletion of
our stocks by hungry Europe to any point be-
low our necessities, and anyone who contem-
plates speculation in food against the needs of
these people can well be warned of the prompt
action of the government. The prices of some
food commodities may increase, but others will
decrease, because with liberated shipping ac-
cumulated stocks in the Southern hemisphere
and the Far East will be available. The de-
mands upon the United States will change in
character but not in volume.

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HERBERT HOOVER

The course of food prices in tHe United
States during the last fifteen months is of in-
terest. In general, for the first twelve months
of the Food Administration the prices to the
farmer increased, but decreased to the con-
sumer by the elimination of profiteering and
speculation. Due to increases in wages, trans-
portation, etc., the prices have been increasing
during the last f oiu* months.

The currents which affect food prices in the
United States are much less controlled than in
the other countries at war. The powers of the
Food Administration in these matters extend:

First, to the control of profits by manufac-
turers, wholesalers and dealers, and the control
of speculation in foodstuffs. They do not ex-
tend to the control of the great majority of
retailers, to public eating places, or the farmer,
except so far as this can be accomplished on a
voluntary basis.

Second, the controlled buying for the Allied
civil populations and armies, the neutrals and
the American army and navy, dominates the
market in certain commodities at all times, and
in other commodities part of the time. In these
cases it is possible to effect, in cooperation with
producers and manuf actm-ers, a certain amount
of stability in price. I have never favored at-
tempts to fix maximum prices by law; the uni-

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APPENDIX I

versal history of these devices in Europe has
been that they worked against the true interests
of both producer and consumer.

The course of prices during the first year of
the Food Administration, that is, practically
the period ending July 1, 1918, is clearly shown
by the price indexes of the Department of Ag-
riculture and the Department of Labor. Tak-
ing 1918 prices as the basis, the average prices
of farm produce for the three months ending
July 1, 1917, were, according to the Depart-
ment of Agricultm-e's price index, 115 per cent
more than the average of 1918 prices, and ac-
cording to the Department of Labor index, it
was 91 per cent over 1918 prices. The two de-
partments use somewhat diflferent bases of cal-
culation. The average of farmers' prices one
year later — ^that is, the three months ending
July 1, 1918, was, according to the Department
of Agricultiu-e indexes, 127 per cent over the
1918 basis and, according to the Department
of Labor index, was 114 per cent over the 1918
average. Thus farm prices increased 12 per
cent on the Department of Agricultm-e calcu-
lations and 28 per cent upon the Department
of Labor basis.

An examination of wholesale prices, that
is, of prepared foods, shows a diflferent story:

The Department of Agriculture does not
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HERBERT HOOVER

maintain an index of wholesale prices, but the
Department of Labor does, and this index
shows a decrease in wholesale prices from 87
per cent over 1918 basis to 79 per cent over the
1918 basis for the three months ending July 1,
1917, and July 1, 1918, respectively. The
Food Administration price index of wholesale
prices calculated upon still another basis show^
a decrease of from 84 per cent to 80 per cent
between these periods one year apart.

Thus all indexes show an increase in farm-
ers' prices and a decrease in wholesale prices
of food during the year ending July 1, 1918.
In other words, a great reduction took place in
middlemen's charges, amounting to betwe^i 15
per cent and 80 per cent depending upon the
basis of calculation adopted. These decreases
have come out of the elimination of speculation
and profiteering.

The course of retail prices corroborates these
results also. Since October, 1917, the Food
Administration has had the services of 2,500
weekly, voluntary retail price reporters
throughout the United States. These com-
bined reports show that the combined prices
per imit of 24 most important foodstuffs were
$6.62 in October, 1917. The same quantities
and conmiodities could be bought for $6.55 av-
erage for the spring quarter, 1918 — ^that is, a

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APPENDIX I

small drop had taken place. During this same
period of quarters ending July 1, 1917, to July
1, 1918, the prices of clothing rose from 74 per
cent to 186 per cent over 1918, or a rise of
about 62 per cent, according to the Department
of Labor indexes.

Since the spring quarter, ending July 1,
1918, there has been a rise in prices, the De-
partment of Agriculture index for September
showing that farm price averages were 188 per
cent over the 1918 basis, and the Deparfanent
of Labor index showing 186 per cent, or a
rise from the average of the spring quarter this
year of 11 per cent and 22 per cent respectively
to the farmer. The wholesale price index of
the Department of Labor shows a rise from 79
per cent average of the spring quarter, 1918,
to 99 per cent for September, or a rise of 20
per cent. The Food Administration whole-
sale index shows an increase from 80 per cent
to 100 per cent, or 20 per cent for the same
period.

In October, 1918, the Food Administration
retail price reports show that the retail cost of
the same quantity of the 24 principal food-
stuffs was $7.58 against an average of $6.55
for the spring quarter 1918, or a rise of about
18 per cent.

It is obvious enough that prices have risen
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HERBERT HOOVER

during the last three months both to the farmer
and to the wholesaler and retailer. On the
other hand, these rising prices have only kept
pace with the farmers' prices.

Since the first of July this year, many eco-
nomic forces have caused a situation adverse
to the consimier. There has been a steady in-
crease in wages, a steady increase in cost of
the materials which go into food production
and manufacture, and in containers and sup-
plies of all kinds. There has been an increase
of 25 per cent in freight rates. The rents of
the country are increasing and therefore costs
of manuf actiu*ing, distribution and transpor-
tation are steadily increasing and should in-
evitably affect prices. The public should dis-
tinguish between a rise in prices and profiteer-
ing, for with increasing prices to the farmer —
who is himself paying higher wages and cost —
and with higher wages and transport, prices
simply must rise. An example of what this
may come to can be shown in the matter of
flour. The increased cost of transportation
from the wheat-producing regions to New
York City amounts to about forty cents per
barrel. The increased cost of cotton bags dur-
ing the last fourteen months amounts to thirty
cents per barrel of flour. The increase in
wholesalers' costs of drayage, rents, etc.,

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APPENDIX I

amounts to ten cents, or a total of eighty cents
without including the increased costs of the
miller or retailer.

Such changes do not come under the cate-
gory of profiteering. They are the necessary
changes involved by the economic diflferences
in the situation. We cannot "have our cake
and eat it." In other words, we cannot raise
wages, railway rates, expand our credits and
currency, and hope to maintain the same level
of prices of foods. All that the Food Adminis-
tration can do is to see as far as is himfianly
possible that these alterations take place with-
out speculation or profiteering, and that such
readjustments are conducted in an orderly
manner. Even though it were in the power
of the Food Administration to repress prices,
the eflfect of maintaining the same price level
in the face of such increases in costs of manu-
facture, transportation and distribution, would
be ultimately to curtail production itself. We
are in a period of inflation and we cannot avoid
the results.

We have had a large measure of voluntary
cooperation both from producers, manufac-
turers and wholesalers, in suppression of pro-
fiteering and speculation. There are cases that
have required stem measures, and some mil-
lions of dollars have been refunded in one way

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HERBERT HOOVER

or anofher to the public. The number of firms
penalized is proportionately not large to the
total firms engaged.

In the matter of voluntary control of retail-
ers we have had more difiiculty, but in the pub-
lication from week to week in every town in
the country of "fair prices'* based upon whole-
sale costs and type of service, there has been
a considerable check made upon overcharges.
The Food Administration continues through
the armistice until legal peace and there will be
no relaxation of efforts to keep down profiteer-
ing and speculation to the last moment.

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APPENDIX II

ADDBESS OF MR. HOOTER AT HIS INAUGURATION

AS PRESIDENT OF THE AMERICAN INSTITUTE OF

MINING ENGINEERS (nEW YORK dTY,

FEBRUARY 17, 1920)^

I HAVE been greatly honored as your unani-
mous choice for President of this Institute with
which I have been associated during my entire
professional life. It is customary for your new
President, on these occasions, to make some ob-
servation on matters of general interest from
the engineer's standpoint.

The profession of engineering in the United
States comprises not alone scientific advisers
on industry, but is in great majority composed
of men in administrative positions. In such
positions they stand midway between capital
and labor. The character of your training and
experience leads you to exact and quantitative
thought. This basis of training in a great
group of Americans furnished a wonderful re-
cruiting ground for service in these last years

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of tribulation. Many thousands of engineers
were called into the army, the navy, and civilian
service for the Grovemment. Thousands of
high oflSces were discharged by them with credit
to the profession and the nation.

We have in this country probably one hun-
dred thousand professional engineers. The
events of the past few years have greatly
stirred their interest in national problems.
This has taken practical form in the mainten-
ance of joint committees for discussion of these
problems and support to a free advisory bureau
in Washington. The engineers want nothing
for themselves from Congress. They want ef-
ficiency in government, and you contribute to
the maintenance of this bureau out of sheer
idealism. This organization for consideration
of national problems has had many subjects
before it and I propose to touch on some of
them this evening.

Even more than ever before is there neces-
sity for your continued interest in this vast
complex of problems that must be met by our
Government. We are faced with a new orien-
tation of our coimtry to world problems. We
face a Europe still at war; still amid social
revolutions; some of its peoples still slacking
on production; millions starving; and there-
fore the safety of its civilization is still hanging

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by a slender thread. Every wind that blows
carries to our shores an infection of social dis-
eases from this great ferment; every convul-
sion there has an economic reaction upon our
own people. If we needed further proof of
the interdependence of the world, we have it
today in the practical blockade of our export
market. The world is asking us to ratify long
delayed peace in the hope that such confidence
will be restored as will enable her to recon-
struct her economic life. We are today con-
templating maintenance of an enlarged army
and navy in preparedness for further upheav-
als in the world, and failing to provide even
some insurance against war by a league to pro-
mote peace.

Out of the strain of war, weaknesses have
become ever more evident in our administrative
organization, in our legislative machinery. Our
federal government is still overcentralized, for
we have upon the hands of our government
enormous industrial activities which have yet
to be demobilized. We are swamped with debt
and burdened with taxation. Credit is woe-
fully inflated; speculation and waste are ram-
pant. Our own productivity is decreasing.
Our industrial population is crying for rem-
edies for the increasing cost of living and as-
piring to better conditions of life and labor.

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But beyond all this, great hopes and aspirations
are abroad; great moral and social forces have
been stimulated by the war and will not be
quieted by the ratification of peace. These are
but some of the problems with which we must
deal. I have no fear that our people will not
find solutions. But progress is sometimes like
the old-fashioned rail fence — ^some rails are per-
haps misshapen and all look to point the wrong
way; but in the end, the fence progresses.

Your committees, jointly with those of other
engineering societies, have had before them and
expressed their views on many matters con-
cerning the handling of the railways, shipping,
the reorganization of the government engineer-
ing work, the national budget, and other prac-
tical it^ns.

The war nationalization of railways and ship-
ping are ou'* two greatest problems in govern-
mental control awaiting demobilization. There
are many fundamental objections to continua-
tion of these experiments in socialism necessi-
tated by the war. They lie chiefly in their de-
struction of initiative in our people and the
dangers of political domination that can grow
from governmental operation. Beyond this,
the engineers will hold that the successful con-
duct of great industries is to a transcendant de-
gree dependent upon the personal abilities and

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character of their employees and staflF. No
scheme of political appointment has ever yet
been devised that will replace competition in
its selection of ability and character. Both
shipping and railways have today the advan-
tage of many skilled persons sifted out in
the hard school of competition, and even then
the government operation of these enterprises
is not proving satisfactory. Therefore, the ul-
timate ineflSciency that would arise from the
deadening paralysis of bureaucracy has not
yet had full opportunity for development. Al-
ready we can show that no government under
pressure of ever-present political or sectional
interests can properly conduct the risks of ex-
tension and improvement, or can be free from
local pressiu*e to conduct unwarranted services
in industrial enterprise. On the other hand,
our people have long since recognised that. we
cannot turn monopoly over to unrestrained
operation for profit nor that the human rights
of employees can ever be dominated by divi-
dends.

Our business is handicapped on every side
by the failure of our transportation facilities to
grow with the country. It is useless to talk
about increased production to meet an increased
standard of living in an increasing population
without a greatly increased transport equip-

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ment. Moreover, there are very great social
problems underlying our transport system; to-
day their contraction is forcing a congestion of
our population around the great cities with all
that these overswollen settlements import.
Even such great disturbances as the coal strike
have a minor root in our inadequate transpor-
tation facilities and their responsibility for in-
termittent operation of the mines.

We are all hoping that Congress will find a
solution to this problem that will be an ad-
vanced step toward the combined stimulation
of the initiative of the owners, the efficiency of
operation, the enlistment of the good will of
the employees, and the protection of the public.
The problem is easy to state. Its solution is
almost overwhelming in complexity. It must
develop with experience, step by step, toward
a real working partnership of its three ele-
ments.

The return of the railways to the owners
places predominant private operation upon its
final trial. If instant energy, courage and
large vision in the owners should prove lacking
in meeting the immediate situation we shall be
faced with a reaction that will drive the coun-
try to some other form of control. Energetic
enlargement of equipment, better service, co-
operation with employees, and the least possible

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advance in rates, together with freedom from
political interest, will be the scales upon which
the public will weigh these results.

Important phases of our shipping problem
that have come before you should receive wider
discussion by the coimtry. As the result of
war pressure, we shall spend over $2,800,-
000,000 in the completion of a fleet of nineteen
hundred ships of a total of 111,000,000 tons —
nearly one quarter of the world's cargo ship-
ping. We are proud of this great expansion
of our marine, and we wish to retain it under
the American flag. Our shipping problem
has one large point of departure from the rail-
ivay problem, for there is no element of nat-
ural monopoly. Anyone with a water-tight
vehicle can enter upon the seas today, and our
government is now engaged upon the conduct
of a nationalized industry in competition with
oitt own people and all the world besides.
JWhile in the railways government ineflSciency
ieould be passed on to the consumer, on the
seas we will sooner or later find it translated
to the national Treasury.

Until the present time, there has been a
ishortage in the world's shipping, but this is
being rapidly overtaken and we shall soon be
met with fierce competition of private industry.
If the government continues in the shipping

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HERBERT HOOVER

business, we shall be disappointed from tibe
point of view of profits. For we shall be faced
with the ability of private enterprise to make
profits from the margins of higher cost of gov-
ernment operation alone. Aside from those
losses inherent in bureaucracy and political
pressure, there are others special to this case.
The largest successfully managed cargo fleet
in the world comprises about one himdred and
twenty ships and yet we are attempting to
manage nineteen himdred ships at the hands
of a government bureau. In normal times the
question of profit or loss in a ship is measured
by a few himdred tons of coal wasted, by a lit-
tle extravagance in repairs, or by four or five
days on a round trip. Beyond this, private
shipping has a free hand to set up such give-
and-take relationships with merchants all over
the world as will provide sufficient cargo for
all legs of a voyage, and these arrangements of
cooperation cannot be created by government
employees without charge or danger of favorit-
ism. Lest fault be found, our government of-
ficials are unable to enter upon the detailed
higgling in fixing rates required by every cargo
and charter. Therefore they must take refuge
in rigid regulations and in fixed rates. In
result, their competitors underbid by the small-
est margins necessary to get the cargoes. The

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eflFect of our large fleet in the world's markets
is thus to hold up rates, for so long as this great
fleet in one hand holdsi a fixed rate others will
only barely underbid. If we hold up rates an
increasing number of our ships will be idle as
the private fleet grows. On the other hand, if
we reduce rates we shall be underbid until the
government margin of larger operation cost
causes us to lose money.

We shall yet be faced with the question of
demobilizing a considerable part of this fleet
into private hands, or frankly acknowledging
that we operate it for other reasons than inter-
est on our investment. In this whole problem
there are the most difficult considerations re-
quiring the best business thought in the coun-
try. In the first instance, our national prog-
ress requires that we retain a large fieet imder
our fiag to protect our national commercial ex-
pansion overseas. Secondly, we may find it
desirable to hold a considerable government
fleet to build up trade routes in expansion of
our trade, even at some loss in operation.
Thirdly, in order to create this fleet, we have
built up an enormous ship-building industry.
Fifty per cent of the capacity of our ship yards
will more than provide any necessary construc-
tion for American accoimt. Therefore there is
a need of obtaining foreign orders, or the re-

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duction of capacity, or both. I believe, with
most engineers, that, with our skill in repetition
manufacture, we can compete with any ship
builders in the world and maintain our Ameri-
can wage standards; but this repetition manu-
facture implies a constant flow of orders. It
would seem highly desirable, in order to main-
tain tiie most efficient yards until they can es-
tablish themselves firmly in the world's indus-
trial fabric, that the Government should con-
tinue to let some ship construction contracts
to the lowest bidders, these contracts to sup-
plement private building in such a way as to
maintain the continuous operation of the most
economical yards and the steady employment
of our large number of skilled workers en-
gaged therein.

When we consider giving orders for new
ships, we must at the same time consider the
sale of ships, as we cannot go on increasing this
fleet. When we consider sale, we are con-
fronted with the fact that our present ships
were built under expensive conditions of war,
costing from three to four times per ton the
pre-war amount, and that already any mer-
chant, subject to the long time of delivery, can
build a ship for seventy-five per cent of their
cost. It would at least seem good national
policy to sell ships today for the price we can

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contract for delivery a year or two hence, thus
making the government a reservoir for con-
tinuous construction.

We could thus stabilize building industry to
some degree and also bring the American-
owned fleet into better balance, if each time
that the government sold three or four emerg-
ency constructed cargo vessels it gave an order
for one ship of a better and faster type. This
would make reduction in our ship-building
steadier and would give the coimtry the type
of ships we need.

Our j oint engineering committees have exam-
ined with a great deal of care into the organi-
zation of and our expenditure on public works
and technical services. These committees have
consistently and strongly urged the appalling
ineflSciency in the government organization of
these matters. They report to you that the
annual expenditure on such works and services
now amounts to over $250,000,000 per annum,
and that they are carried out today in nine dif-
ferent governmental departments. They re-
port that there is a great waste by lack of na-
tional policy of coordination, in overlapping
with diflferent departments, in competition with
each other in the purchase of supplies and ma-
terials, and in the support of many engineering

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HERBERT HOOVER

They recommend the solution that ahnost
ererj civilized government has long since
adopted, that is, the coordination of these
measures into one department under which all
such imdertakings should be conducted and
controlled. As a measiu*e practical to our gov-
ernment, they have advocated that all such
bureaus should be transferred to the Interior
Department, and all the bureaus not relating
to those matters should be transferred from the
Interior to other departments. The Commit-
tee concludes that no properly organized and
directed saving in public works can be made
until such a re-grouping and consolidation is
carried out, and that all of the cheeseparing
that normally goes on in the honest eflfort of
Congressional committees to control depart-
mental expenditure is but a tithe of that which
could be eflfected if there were some concentra-
tion of administration along the lines long since
demonstrated as necessary to the success of
private business.

Another matter of government organization
to which our engineers have given adhesion is
in the matter of the national budget. To minds
charged with the primary necessity of advance
planning, coordination, provision of synchron-
izing parts in organization, the whole notion of
our hit-or-miss system is repugnant. A bud-

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get system is not the remedy for all administra-
tive ills, but it provides a basis of organization
that at least does not paralyze administrative
efficiency as our system does today. Through
it, the coordination of expenditure in govern-
ment department, the prevention of waste and
overlapping in government bureaus, the ex-
posure of the "pork barrel," and the balancing
of the relative importance of diflferent national
activities in the allocation of our national in-
come can all be greatly promoted. Legislation
would also be expedited. No budget that does
not cover all government expenditure is worth
enactment. Furthermore, without such reor-
ganization as the grouping of construction
departments, the proper formulation of a bud-
get would be hopeless. The budget system iri
some form is so nearly universal in civilized gov-
ernments and in completely conducted business
enterprise, and has been adopted in thirty of
our States, that its absence in our federal gov-
ernment is most extraordinary. It is, how-
ever, but a further testimony that it is always
a far cry of our citizens from the efficiency in
their business to interest in the efficiency of
then- government.

Another great national problem to which
every engineer in the United States is giving
earnest thought, and with which he comes in

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HERBERT HOOVER

daily contact, is that of the relationship of em-
ployer and employee in industry. In this, as
in many other national problems today, we are
faced with a realization that the science of eco-
nomics has altered from a science of wealth to
a science of hmnan relationships to wealth. We
have gone on for many years throwing the
greatest of our ingenuity and ability into the
improvement of processes and tools of produc-
tion. We have imtil recently greatly neglected
the human factor that is so large an element
in our very productivity. The development of
vast repetition in the process of industry has
deadened the sense of craftsmanship, and the
great extension of industry has divorced the
employer and his employee from that contact
that carried responsibility for the human prob-
lem. This neglect of the human factor has ac-
cumulated much of the discontent and imrest
throughout our great industrial population
and has reacted in a decrease of production.
Yet our very standards of living are dependent
on a maximum productivity up to the total ne-
cessities of our population.

Another economic result is, or will be yet, a
repercussion upon the fundamental industry
of the United States, that is, agriculture. For
the farmer will be imable to maintain his pro-
duction in the face of a constant increase in

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the cost of his supplies and lahor through
shrinkage in production in other industries.
The penalty of this disparity of eflFort comes
mainly out of the f armer*s own earnings.

I am daily impressed with the fact that there
is but one way out, and that is again to re-
establish through organized representation that
personal cooperation between employer and
employee in production that was a binding
force when our industries were smaller of imit
and of less specialization. Through this, the
sense of craftsmanship and the interest in pro-
duction can be re-created and the proper estab-
lishment of conditions of labor and its partici-
pation in a more skilled administration can be
worked out. The attitude of refusal to partici-
pate in collective bargaining with representa-
tives of the employees' own choosing is the ne-
gation of this bridge to better relationship.
On the other hand, a complete sense of obli-
gation to bargains entered upon is fundamen-
tal to the process itself. The interests of
employee and employer are not necessarily an-
tagonistic; they have a great common ground
of mutuahty and if we could secure emphasis
upon these common interests we would greatly
mitigate conflict. Our government can stimu-
late these forces, but the new relationship of
employer and employee must be a matter of

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HERBERT HOOVER

deliberate organization within industry itself.
I am convinced that the vast majority of
American labor fimdamentally wishes to co-
operate in production, and that this basis of
goodwill can be organized and the vitality of
production re-created.

Many of the questions of this industrial re-
lationship involve large engineering problems,
as an instance of which I know of no better ex-
ample than the issue you plan for discussion
tomorrow in connection with the soft coal
industry. Broadly, here is an industry fimc-
tioning badly from an engineering and conse-
quently from an economic and human stand-
point. Owing to the intermittency of produc-
tion, seasonal and local, this industry has been
equipped to a peak load of twenty-five or
thirty per cent over the average load. It has
been provided with a twenty-five or thirty per
cent larger labor complement than it would re-
quire if continuous operation could be brought
about. I hope your discussion will throw some
light on the possibilities of remedy. There lies
in this intermittency not only a long train of
human misery through intermittent employ-
ment, but the economic loss to the commimity
of over a himdred thousand workers who could
be applied to other production, and the cost of
coal could be decreased to the consumer. This

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intermittency lies at the root of the last strike
in the attempt of the employees to secure an
equal division among themselves of this partial
employment at a wage that could meet their
view of a living return on full employment.

These are but a few of the problems that con-
front us. But in the formulating of measures
of solution, we need a constant adherence to
national ideal and our own social philosophy.

In the discussion of these ideals and this so-
cial philosophy, we hear much of radicalism and
of reaction. They are, in fact, not an academic
state of mind but realize into real groups and
real forces influencing the solution of economic
problems in this community. In their present-
day practical aspects, they represent, on one
hand, roughly, various degrees of exponents of
socialism, who would directly or indirectly
imdermine the principle of private property
and personal initiative, and, on the other hand,
those exponents who in varying degrees desire
to dominate the Conmiimity for profit and
privilege. They both represent attempts to
introduce or preserve class privilege, either a
moneyed or a bureaucratic aristocracy. We
have, however, in American democracy an ideal
and a social philosophy that sympathizes
neither with radicalism nor reaction as they axe
manifested today*

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HERBERT HOOVER

For generations the American people have
heen steadily developing a social philosophy
as part of their own democracy, and in these
ideals, it diflfers from all other democracies.
This philosophy has stood this period of test in
the fire of common sense; it is, in substance,
that there should be an equality of opportunity,
an equal chance, to every citizen. This view
that every individual should, within his life-
time, not be handicapped in securing that par-
ticular niche in the community to which his
abilities and character entitle him, is itself the
negation of class. Human beings are not equal
in these qualities. But a society that is based
upon a constant flux of individuals in the com-
munity, upon the basis of ability and character,
is a moving virile mass; it is not a stratification
of classes. Its inspiration is individual initia-
tive. Its stimulus is competition. Its safe-
guard is education. Its greatest mentor is free
speech and volimtary organization for public
good. Its expression in legislation is Ifhe com-
mon sense and common will of the majority.
It is the essence of this democracy that progress
of the mass must arise from progress of the in-
dividual. It does not permit the presence in
the community of those who would not give full
meed of their service.

Its conception of the State is one that» rep*-
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resentative of all the citizens, will in the region
of economic activities apply itself mainly to the
stimulation of knowledge, the undertaking only
of works beyond the initiative of the individual
or group, the prevention of economic domina-
tion of the few over the many, and the least en-
trance into commerce that government func-
tions necessitate. .

The method and measures by which we solve
this accumulation of great problems will de-
pend upon which of these three conceptions
will reach the ascendancy amongst our
people.

If we cling to our national ideals it will mean
the final isolation and the political abandon-
ment of the minor groups who hope for domina-
tion of the government, either by "interests" or
by radical social theories through the control
of our political machinery. 1 sometimes feel
that lawful radicalism in politics is less danger-
ous than reaction, for radicalism is blatant and
displays itself in the open. Unlawful radical-
ism can be handled by the police. Reaction too
often fools the people through subtle channels
of obstruction and progressive platitudes. There
is little danger of radicalism's ever controlling a
coimtry with so large a farmer population, ex-
cept in one contingency. That contingency is
from a reflex of continued attempt to control

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HERBERT HOOVER

this country by the "interests" and other fonns
of our domestic reactionaries.

The mighty upheaval following the world
war has created turmoil and confusion in our
own coimtry no less than in all other lands. If
America is to contlribute to the advance of civi-
lization, it must first solve its own problems,
must first secure and maintain its own strength.
The kind of problems that present themselves
are more predominantly economic — ^national as
well as international — than at any period in
our history. They require quantitative and
prospective thinking and a sense of organiza-
tion. This is the sort of problems that your
profession deals with as its daily toil. You
have an obligation to continue the fine service
you have initiated and to give it your united
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[APPENDIX III

ADDBESS OF ME. HOOTER BEFOBE THE BOSTON
CHAMBER OF COMMERCE (MARCH 24, 1920)

As you are aware, a report has recently been
issued by the Industrial Conference, of which X
have been a member together with Governor
McCall and Mr. Hooker of your State. The
conference embraced among its members repre-
sentatives from all shades of life including as
great a trade unionist as Secretary Wilson. I
propose to discuss a part of the problem consid-
ered by that commission. There is no more dif-
ficult or more urgent question confronting us
than constructive solution of the employment
relationship. It is not sufficient to dismiss the
subject with generous and theoretic phrases,
"justice to capital and labor,'" "the golden
rule," "the paramount interest of the people,**
or a score of others, for there underlies this
question the whole problem of the successful
development of our democracy.

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During last year there was a great deal of
industrial unrest throughout the entire world.
This has somewhat moderated during the last
few months, but the underlying causes are only
slumbering. Because the country is not today
involved in any great industrial conflicts, we
should not congratulate ourselves that the
problem of industrial relations has been solved.
Furthermore, the time for proper consideration
of great problems does not lie in the midst of
great public conflict but in sober consideration
during times of tranquillity. There is little to
be gained by discussion of the causes of indus-
trial unrest. Every observer is aware of the
category of disturbing factors and every one
will place a diflFerent emphasis on the diflFerent
factors involved.

There is, however, one outstanding matter
that differentiates our present occasion from
those that have gone before. It cannot be de-
nied that unrest in our industrial community
is characterized more than ever before by the
purposes and desires that go beyond the de-
mand for higher wages and shorter hours. The
aspirations inherent in this form of restless-
ness are to a great extent psychological and in-
tangible. They are not, for this reason, any less
significant. There is perhaps in some local
cases an infection of European patent medi-

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cines, and the desire to use labor for political
purposes. Aside from this, however, they do
reveal a desire on the part of the workers to
exert a larger and more organic influence in
the processes of industrial life. They want bet-
ter assurance that they will receive a just pro-
portion of their share of production. I do not
believe those desires are to be discouraged.
They should be turned into helpful and coop-
erative channels. There is no surer road to
radicalism than repression.

One can only lead up to consideration of
these problems by tracing some features of our
industrial development even though they may
be trite to most of you. One underlying cause
of these discontents is that with the growth of
large plants there has been a loss of personal
contact between employers and employees.
With the high specialization and intense repe-
tition in labor in industrial processes, there has
been a loss of creative interest. It is, however,
the increased production that we have gained
by this enlargement of industry that has en-
abled the standard of living to be steadily ad-
vanced. The old daily personal contact of em-
ployer and employee working together in small
units carried with it a great mutuality of re-
sponsibility. There was a far greater under-
standing of the responsibilities toward em-

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HERBERT HOOVER

ployees and there was a better understanding
by employees of the economic limitations im-
posed upon the employer. Nor can the direct
personal contact in the old manner be restored.

With the growth of capital into larger units,
there was an inequality of the bargaining
power of the individual. Labor has therefore
gradually developed its defense against the
aggregation of capital by coimter-organization.
The organized uses of strike and lockout on
either side and the entrance of their organiza-
tion into the political arena have become the
weapons for enforcement of demands. The
large development of industrial units with pos-
sible cessation of production and service,
through strikes and lockouts, penalizes the pub-
lic The public is not content to see these con-
flicts go on, for they do not alone represent loss
in production, and thus lowering of the stan-
dard of living, but also they may, by suspension
of public service, jeopardize the life of the com-
munity.

But the solution of the industrial problem
is not solely the prevention of conflict and its
losses by finding methods of just determination
of wages and hours. Not only must solution
of those things be f oimd out but, if we are to
secure increased production and increased stan-
dard of living, we must reawaken interest in

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creation, in craftsmanship and contribution of
his intelligence to management. We must sur-
roimd employment with assurance of just di-
vision of production. We must enlist the in-
terest and confidence of the employees in the
business and in business processes.

We have devoted ourselves for many years
to the intense improvement of the machinery
and processes of production. We have ne-
glected the broader human development and
satisfactions of life of the employee that leads
to greater ability, creative interest, and co-
operation in production. It is in stimulation
of these values that we can lift our industry to
its highest state of productivity, that we can
place the human factor upon the plane of per-
fection reached by our mechanical processes.
To do these things requires the cooperation of
labor itself and to obtain cooperation we must
have an intimate organized relationship be-
tween employer and the employee and that
cannot be obtained by benevolence; that can
only be obtained by calling the employee to a
reciprocal service.

Therefore it has been the guiding thought of
the conference that if these objects are to be
obtained a definite and continuous organized
relationship must be created between the em-
ployer and the employee and that by the or-

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HERBERT HOOVER

ganization of this relationship conflict in indus-
try can be greatly mitigated, misunderstanding
can be eliminated, and that spirit of cooperation
can be established that will advance the con-
ditions of labor and secure increased produc-
tivity.

It is idle to argue that there are at times no
conflict of interest between the employee and
the employer. But there are wide areas of ac-
tivity in which their interests should coincide,
and it is the part of statesmanship on both sides
to organize this identity of interest in order to
limit the area of conflict. If we are to go on
with the present disintegrating forces, these
conflicts become year by year more critical to
the existence of the State. If we cannot se-
cure a reduction in their destructive results by
organization of mutual action in industry, then
I fear that public resentment will generate a
steadily larger intervention of the Grovemment
into these questions.

In consideration of a broad, comprehensive,
national policy, the Conference had before it
four possible alternative lines of action. First,
the attempt to hew out a national policy in the
development of the progressive forces at work
for better imderstanding in industry under
such conditions as would maintain self-govern-
ment in industry itself; or, secondly, to adopt

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some of the current plans of industrial courts,
involving summary decision with jail for re-
fusal to accept, such as that initiated in the
State of Kansas; or, thirdly, the nationaliza-
tion at least of the services upon which the very
life of the community depends; fourthly, to do
nothing.

In a survey of the forces making for self-
government in industry, the Conference con-
sidered that definite encouragement must be
given to the principles of collective bargaining,
of conciliation, of arbitration, but that such
forces could not develop in an atmosphere of
legal repression. There is but litijle conflict of
view as to the principle of collective bargaining
and its vital corollary, fidelity to the bargain
made. There has been conflict over the meth-
ods of representation on both sides. The Con-
ference, therefore, has proposed that the
Government should intervene to assist in deter-
mination of the credentials of the representa-
tives of both sides in case of disagreement, and
that such pressure should be brought to bear as
would induce voluntary entry into collective
bargain. Furthermore, it was considered that
the large development of conciliation and arbi-
tration already current in connection with such
bargaining should be encouraged and organ-
ized imder a broad national plan that would

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HERBERT HOOVER

give full liberty of action to all existing ar-
rangements of this character and stimulate
their further development.

The Conference has therefore proposed to set
up a small amoimt of governmental machinery
comprising Chairmen covering various reg-
ions in the United States, with a Central Board
in Washington, as a definite organization for
the promotion of these agencies. It has be-
lieved that this is a step consonant with the nor-
mal development of our institutions and the
progressive forces already in motion, and that
in such steps lie the greatest hope of success.
No one is compelled to submit to the machinery
established but where the employer and em-
ployee refuse to enter into, or fail in, bargain-
ing, then through the use of this machinery the
public stimulates them to come together imder
conditions of just determination of the creden-
tials of their representatives. The plan is,
therefore, a development of the principle of
collective bargaining. It is not f oimded on the
principle of arbitration or compulsion. It is de-
signed to prevent the losses through cessation
of production due to conflict but, beyond this,
to build up such relationship between employer
and employees as will not only mitigate such
disaster but will ultimately extend further into
the development of the great mutual ground

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APPENDIX III

of interest of increased production and under
conditions of satisfaction to both sides. It is
a part of the conception of the Conference that
only in bargaining and mutual agreement can
there be given that free play of economic forces
necessary to adjust the complex conditions
imder which our industries must f imction.

Reduction of conflict in industry is the phase
that not only looms large in the public mind,
but conflict is the public exhibit of the greatest
mark of failure in industrial relations. The im-
minence of conflict is evidence of failure to have
discussion or to arrival at mutual agreement.
Therefore, imder the plan of the Conference
that mutual agreement is the best basis for pre-
vention of conflict, the second step in the Con-
ference proposals is that there should be a pen-
alty for failure to submit to such processes.
That penalty is a public inquiry into the causes
of the dispute and the proper ventilation to
public opinion as to its rights and wrongs. The
strength of the penalty is based upon the con-
viction that neither side can afford to lose pub-
lic good will. Pressure to rectitude by gov-
ernment investigation is distinctly an Ameri-
can institution. It is not an intervention of
public interest that is usually welcomed. In
the plan of this Conference, this general re-
pugnance to investigation is depended upon as

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HERBERT HOOVER

a persuasive influence to the parties of the con-
flict to get together and settle their own quar-
rels. They are given the alternative of investi-
gation or collective bargain under persuasive
circumstances. In order to increase the moral
pressiu'cs surrounding the investigation, either
one of the parties to the conflict may become a
member of the board of investigation, provided
he will have entered on an a priori imdertaking
that he is prepared to submit his case to orderly
and simple processes of adjustment. Thus his
opponent will be put at more than usual dis-
advantage in the investigation. If both sides
should agree to submit to normal processes of
settlement, the board of investigation becomes
at once the stage of a collective bargain and the
investigation ceases.

I will not trouble you with the elaborate de-
tails of the plan, for they involved a great deal
of consideration as to many difficult questions
of selection of representatives, provision for
action by iraipires, for appeal to a board in
Certain contingencies, the character of ques-
tions to be considered, methods of enforcement,
standards of labor, and so on. The point that
I wish to make clear is that the Conference
plan is fundamentally the promotion of collec-
tive bargaining under fair conditions of repre-
sentation by both sides and the definite organi-

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APPENDIX in

zation of public opinion only as a pressure on
the parties at conflict to secure it. It is there-
fore basically not a plan of arbitration, nor is it
an industrial court. It is stimulation to self-
government in industry. The plan contains
no essence of opposition to organized labor or
organized employers. It involves no dispute of
the right to strike or lock out, nor of the closed
or open shop. It simply proposes a sequence of
steps that should lead to collective bargain
without imposing compulsions, coiu'ts, injunc-
tions, fines, or jail. It is at least a new step
and worth careful consideration before em-
ployees and employers subject themselves to
the growth of public demands for the other al-
ternatives of wider governmental interference.
The Conference has set out the critical ne-
cessity of the development within industry it-
self of a better basis of imderstanding as hav-
ing the great values that all prevention has over
cm'es. There have been hopeful developments
in American industry during the past two or
three years in this direction. The first unit of
employment relationship is each industrial es-
tablishment, and if we would battle with mis-
imderstanding and secure mutual action it
must be at this stage. It takes its visible form
in the organization in many establishments
under various plans of shop councils, shop

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HERBERT HOOVER

committees, shop conference, all of which are
based on the democratic selecticai of represen-
tatives of employees who shall remain in con-
tinuous open and frank relation and confer-
ence with the employer in the interests of both.
Where this development has had success it
has had one essential foundation; that is, that
it must be conceived in a spirit of cooperation
for mutual benefit and it has invariably lost
out where it has been conceived solely to bar-
gain for wages and conditions of labor. It does
not necessarily involve profit-sharing, but it
does involve a human approach to the problems
on both sides and a mutual eflfort at better-
ment.

It is the organization of such contact be-
tween employer and employees which distin-
guishes this advance from the previous drift
in large industry. This type of organization
has met with success not only in non-union
shops but in imionized shops, and in the latter
case it has imported the spirit of mutuality in
addition to sheer negotiation of grievance as
to conditions of labor. It cannot, in our view,
succeed if it is to be conceived in a spirit of an-
tagonism either to employer or to imion or-
ganization.

The trade unions of the United States have
conferred such essential services upon their

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APPENDIX m

membership and upon the commimity that their
real values are not to be overlooked or de-
stroyed. They can fairly claim great credit
for the abolition of sweat shops, for recogni-
tion of fairer hours in industry, reduction of
overstrain, employment under more healthful
conditions, and many other reforms. These
gains have been made through hard-fought
collective bargains and part of the difficulties
of the labor situation today is the bitterness
with which these gains were accomplished. In
my own experience in industry I have always
found that a frank and friendly acceptance of
the imions' agreements, while still maintaining
the open shop, has led to constructive relation-
ship and mutual interest.

In the early days trade imionism was domi-
nated mainly by the economic theories of Adam
Smith, and union labor at that time adopted as
one of its tenets that a decrease of productive
eflfort by workers below their physical necessi-
ties would result in more employment and bet-
ter wage. During the past twenty-five or
thirty years, this economic error has bcten stead-
ily diminishing in American trade unions and
while it may be adhered to by some isolated
cases today it is not the economic conception
of large parts of #that body. The great major-
ity have long since realized that an increased

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HERBERT HOOVER

standard of living of the whole nation must de-
pend upon a maximum production within the
limits of proper conservation of the human ma-
chine. We find, during the past few years,
many of the imions embracing the further prin-
ciple of actual cooperation with the employer
to increase production. I believe the develop-
ment of this latter theme opens avenues for
the usefulness and growth of trade imionism of
greater promise than any hitherto tried. I am
aware of the cm-rent criticism in some imion
quarters of the development of the shop
council idea for this piu'pose, and there are per-
haps isolated cases that give merit to this op-
position. The strongest argument of union
labor against the shop council system should lie
in the fact that nation-wide organization of
labor is essential in order to cope with the im-
f air employers, but I believe that if they em-
brace encouragement to shop council organi-
zation they open for themselves not only this
prevention of imfaimess but the whole new
field of constructive cooperation and the fur-
ther reduction of industrial conflict.

Attempts by governments to stop industrial
war are not new. The public interest in con-
tinuous production and operation is so great
that practically every civilized government
has time and again ventured upon an attempt

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APPENDIX in

at its reduction. There is a great background
of experience in this matter, for the world is
strewn with failure of labor conferences, con-
ciliation boards, arbitration boards, and indus-
trial courts. This Conference, of course, had
in front of it and in the experience of its mem-
bers this background of the past score of years.
I understand that recently you have had ably
presented to you the industrial solution that
has been enacted into legislation by the State
of Kansas. I think some short discussion of
this legislation may be of interest in illuminat-
ing the diflference in point of view between the
industrial conference and that legislation. The,
Kansas plan is, I believe, the &st large attempt
at judicial settlement of labor disputes in the
United States. With the exception of one par-
ticular, it is practically identical with the in-
dustrial acts of Australasia of fifteen to twenty
years ago. It comprises the erection of an in-
dustrial court, the legal repression of the right
to strike and lockout under drastic penalties,
the determination of minimum wage, and in-
volves a consideration of a fair profit to the
employer. The Kansas machinery goes one
step further than any hitherto provided in this
particular of placing more emphasis on fair
profits and it also provides for the right of the
State to take over and conduct the industry in

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HERBERT HOOVER

last resort. Under the enumerated industries
in the Kansas law, probably two thirds of
Massachusetts industry would be involved.
No man can say that this legislation may not
succeed in Kansas or under American condi-
tions. The experiment isf valuable, and if it
should prove a success to both employees and
employers Kansas will have again taken the
initiative in service to her sister states.

I will not be taken as a carping critic if I
point out the difficulties in its progress on the
basis of Australasian experience. It may, as
did the Australasian acts, have a period of ap-
parent success, and the workers benefit by an
initial service in planing out the worst injus-
tices. So far as I can see today, there is no
reason why it will not run the same course as
in Australia, where the amount of strikes and
dislocation was ultimately as great under these
laws as in countries without them. In periods
of industrial prosperity, the advancing wage
usually adjudicated by the industrial courts
prevents strikes, but in times of industrial de-
pression decisions against the work people give
rise to the old form of resistance.

No one denies the right of the individual
to cease work. The question involved in this
form of legislation is the right to combination
in common action by strike. Whatever the

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APPENDIX III

right may be, it is a certainty that the working
community of the civilized world adheres to
this right as an absolute fundamental to their
protection. They believe that the aggregation
of capital into large imits under single control
places them at an entire disadvantage if they
cannot threaten to use their ultimate wea-
pon of combined cessation of labor. While
it may be argued that the State may intervene
in such a manner as to substitute the protection
of justice for the right of strike and lockout,
the belief in the right to strike has become im-
bedded in the minds of the laboring commimity
of the world to an extent that it will not receive
with confidence any alternative in driving its
own bargains.

There are other difficulties in compulsory
adjudication of disputes. , The workings of
such law necessarily result in ultimate deter-
mination of minimum wage for all crafts and
industries. Every different industrial imit will
claim a different minimum based upon its local
economic sm-roundings. Otherwise the com-
petitive basis upon which industry is established
will be undermined. No court has ever yet ade-
quately solved these differentials and some dis-
location of industry results. I would expect
to see develop out of this type of minimima
wage the same phenomenon that existed in

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HERBERT HOOVER

some parts of Australia, where certificates of
inability to earn the minimum, and therefore
permission to undertake emplojmaent at less
than this wage had to be issued in order that
employment might be found for the aged and
disabled. The employers will naturally in face
of a minimum wage retain in employment that
quality of worker that can give the maximum
eflFort. Another difficulty is the tendency for
wages of all workers, regardless of their abil-
ity, to fall to the minimimi, for the employer
natiu-ally reduces the good to average with the
poor worker. I would not want to be under-
stood to necessarily oppose the possibilities of a
minimum wage for women over large areas, as
distinguished from craft minimums for men,
because certain social questions enter that prob-
lem to an important degree.

There is another featiu'e of the Kansas Act
that should be given a great deal of considera-
tion, and that is its essential provision that in
the determination of wage disputes it shall be
based on a fair profit to the employer. This
must ultimately lead to a determination as to
what a fair profit consists of, just as minimum
wage will need be found for every craft and
every establishment. I do not assume that any
employer will contend for an unfair profit, but
the termination of what may be a fair or imf air

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APPENDIX in

profit in respect to the hazards involved in the
institution of a business, in its conduct over a
long term of years, its necessary provisions for
its replacement and futiu'e disasters, is a mat-
ter that has not yet been satisfactorily deter-
mined by either theoretic economics, legisla-
tion, or coiu'ts. In competitive industry the
processes of business determine this matter
every day, and owners will only claim such
determination by the State when the competi-
tive tide is against them. We have long since
recognized the rights of the State to determine
maximimi profits in case of a monopoly, but
the determination of minimum profits (for fair
profit is a minimum as well as maximum) may
deliver large biu'dens to the people. Moreover,
I doubt whether labor wiU ultimately welcome
such determination, for an imsuccessful plant,
instead of abandoning its production to its
competitors, will claim wage reductions from
the coiu'ts, and the general level of wages can
thus be driven down and the State, at least
morally, becomes a guarantor of profits in over-
developed industry. This plan in the long run
substitutes government control of industry for
competition.

As to whether such acts will not tend to crush
out initiative, credit, and curtail the proper de-
velopment of industry, can only be determined

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HERBERT HOOVER

with time. Generally, it should be clearly
understood that compulsory settlement of em-
ployment at best only assures continuity of
production through just wages, hours and pro-
fits. It does not approach the problem from
the point of view of upbuilding a relation in
industry that will, if successful, not only elimi-
nate strikes and lockouts, but make construc-
tively for greater production and cheaper costs.

The economic repercussions from such regu-
lation do not all lie in favor of either capital
or labor. To ciu'tail the activities in one is not
necessarily a favor to the other.

I am sure you would, upon consideration,
view the entry of the Government on a nation-
wide scale into the determination of fair wage
and fair profit in industry, even if it could be
accomplished without force, with great appre-
hension. There are some things worse in the
development of democracy than strikes and
lockouts, and whether by legislative repression
we do not set up economic and social repercus-
sions of worse character is by no means deter-
mined. They have also the deficiency in tiiat
they imdermine the real development of self-
government in industry and that, to me, is part
of the growth of democracy itself. Courts and
litigation are necessary to the preservation of
life and property, but they are less stimulus

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APPENDIX in

to improved relations among men than are dis-
cussion and disposal of their own differences.

The whole world is groping for solution to
this problem. If we cannot solve it progres-
ively, our civilization will go back to chaos.
We cannot stand still with the econcwnic and
social forces that surround us. There has
never been a complete panacea to all human re-
lationships so far in this world. The best we
can do is to take short steps forward, to align
each step to the tried ideals that have carried us
thus far. The Conference has endeavored to
find a plan for systematic organization of the
forces that are making for better relationships,
to encourage the growing acceptance of collec-
tive bargaining by providing a method that
should enable it to meet the objections of its
critics and to aggregate around this the forces
of conciliation and arbitration now in such wide
use. It has sought to do this without legal re-
pression but with the organized pressure of
public opinion.

To me there is no question that we should try
the experiment of the perhaps longer road pro-
posed by the Industrial Conference for the de-
velopment of mutuality of relationship be-
tween employer and employee, rather than to
enter upon summary action of coiu't decision
that may both stifle the delicate adjustment of

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HERBERT HOOVER

industrial processes and cause serious conflict
over human rights. We must all agree that
those deficiencies in our social, economic and
political structure which find solution through
education and voluntary action of our people
themselves are the solutions that endure. To
me, the upbuilding of the sense of responsibil-
ity and of intelligence in each individual unit
in the United States with the intervention of
government only to promote the development
of these relations, the suppression of domina-
tion by any one group over another, is the basis
upon which democracy must progress.

Upon the solution of industrial peace and
good will does the gradual lift of the standard
of life of our whole people rest by increase in the
material and intellectual output and its proper
distribution among all of us. To me the philo-
sophic background of solution lies in rigorous
application to economic life of our tried na-
tional ideal — ^the equality of opportunity and
the preservation of industrial initiative; that
is, the stimulation of every individual by his
own eflfort to take that position in the commim-
ity to which his abilities and character entitle
him and the protection to him to attain that
end. In the earlier days of our democracy,
with its simpler economic life, we were con-
cerned more with the application of this ideal

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APPENDIX m

in its sociaK and political phases. It has been
so long and firmly established there that it is
no longer a matter of discussion. With the
growth of greater complexity in our economic
life, its practical application to the sharing in
the material and intellectual output in propor-
tion to effort, ability, and character, becomes
more difficult. It must, nevertheless, be ad-
hered to if the ideal of our democracy is not
to be abandoned.

I do not believe we can attain this equality
of opportunity or maintain initiative through
crystallization of economic classes or groups
arraigned against each other, exerting their
interest by economic and political conflicts, nor
can we attain it by transferring to governmen-
tal bm'eaucracies the distribution of material
and intellectual products. I do believe that
we can attain it by systematic prevention of
domination of the few over the many and
stimulation of individual effort in the whole
mass.

It is well enough to hold a philosophic
view, but the problems of day to day that
arise imder it are very practical problems that
require concrete solution, and the employment
relation is one of them.

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APPENDIX IV

SOME NOTES ON AGBICULTUKAL BEADJUSTMKNT
AND THE HIGH COST OF LIVINQ^

By Herbert Hoover

The high cost of living is a temporary eco-
nomic problem, surrounded by high emotions.
The agricultural industry is a permanent eco-
nomic problem, surrounded by many dangers.
We are now entering into our regular f oin*-
year period of large promises to sufferers of
all kinds. Except to demagogues and to the
fellows who farm the farmer, there are no easy
formulas; nevertheless, there are constructive
forces that can be put in motion — and these
are good times to get them talked about.

As bearing upon some suggestion of con-
structive solution, I wish to establish and ana-
Ijrze certain propositions. Amongst other
things they involve a clear understanding of
the bearings of different segments of the total

1 Saturday Evening Post, Issue April 10, 1920.

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APPENDIX IV

price of food between the different links in the
chain of production and distribution. These
propositions are:

First: That the high cost of living is due
largely to inflation and shortage in world pro-
duction; speculation is an incident of these
forces, not the cause.

Second: That the farmer*s prices are fixed
by the impact of world wholesale prices; that
such prices bear only a remote relation to his
costs of production.

Third: That any increase or decrease in the
cost of placing the farmer*s products into the
hands of the wholesaler is a deduction from or
addition to the farmer*s prices; that is, an ex-
pansion or contraction of the margin between
the farm and wholesale prices makes an in-
crease or decrease in the farmer's return.

Fourth: That increase or decrease in the
cost of distributing food from the wholesaler
to the door of the ultimate consimier is a de-
duction or addition predominantly to the con-
sumer's cost; that is, the margin between the
wholesaler and consumer in its increases or
decreases is largely an addition or subtraction
from the consumer's price.

Fifth : That these two margins in most of oiw
commodities except grain were, before the war,
the largest in the world; that they have grown

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HERBERT HOOVER

abnonnally during the war, except during the
year of food control.

Sixth: That analysis of the character of the
margui between the farmer and wholesaler wiD
show that decreases in price find immediate
reflection on the farmer, while immediate in-
creases in price are absorbed by the trades be-
tween and the farmer gets but a lagguig in-
crease.

Seventh: That an analysis of these margins
will show that they can be constructively di-
minished but that, regrettable as it is, the prose-
cution of profiteers will not do it.

Eighth: That the problem must be solved, if
our agriculture is to be maintained and if the
balance between agriculture and general in-
dustry is to be preserved so as to prevent our
becoming dependent upon imports for food,
with a train of industrial and national dangers.

Pbesent Prices Due to Inflation and
Shortage in World Production

Our war inflation does not lie so much
in our increased gold and currency. Our
currency per capita has increased by per-
haps 25 or 80 per cent, but, compared to
European practice of currency inflations of
200 to 800 per cent, oiw conduct has been

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APPENDIX IV

provident indeed. This is not, however, the
real area of inflation. It lies in the expan-
sion of our bank credits. If we exclude the
savings bank as not being credit institutions
in the ordinary sense, and if we compile the
commercial bank deposits, we still no doubt
gather in some real savings, but nevertheless
the figures show a considerable color of inflation
somewhiere. No one need think we have got-
ten so suddenly rich as the money complexion
of these figures might indicate. At the outset
it should be emphasized that all figures of this
kind are subject to dispute and interpretation;
but, after all such deductions, the indication of
tendencies remains.

Year

Bank Deposits
Total

Per Cent

Change

from 1913

1913

11,390,918,596

100.0

1914

11,974,760,593

105.1

1915

12,282,097,638

107.8

1916

15,398,090,701

135.2

1917

18,444,103,496

161.9

1918

20,425,067,839

179.3

1919

24,971,784,000

219.2

It will be accepted at once that the volume of
bank deposits must grow with increased com-
modity production and therefore we may
roughly examine into this as well. If we com-
bine the tonnage productivity of agriculture,
metals, coal, salt, cement, lumber and the quar-

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HERBERT HOOVER

ries, we shall cover the great bulk of our prod-
ucts. These figures also must be taken as
merely indicating the tendencies of the times.

Year

Production
in Tons

Per Cent

Change

from 1913

1913

1,081^93,417

100.0

1914

1,019,018,207

94.2

1915

1,073,472,988

99.3

1916

1,162,489,530

107.5

1917

1,241,173,806

114.8

1918

1,247,787,883

115.4

1919

1,117,181,233

103.3

If we attach the index of prices during these
periods and compare them with the per cent
variation in commodity production and bank
deposits, we have the following interesting
parallels:

Department

Per Cent

of Labor

Change in

Wholesale

Production

Bank Deposits

Index

Year

from 1913

of All
Commodities

1913

100.0

1914

94.2

105.1

99.3

1915

99.3

107.8

100.5

1916

107.5

135.2

120.5

1917

114.8

161.9

175.9

1918

115.4

179.3

196.6

1919

103.3

219.2

214.5

Two different extreme schools of economics
will interpret these tables differently. One will

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APPENDIX IV

hold that the increase in credit and money must
influence prices in exact ratio. The other will
hold the rise of prices as due to shortage in
production, either at home or abroad, and that
rise in price necessitates an increase in credits
and money to carry on commerce. Both are
probably right, for short productibn and infla-
tion probably alternatively serve as cause and
eflfect. The first school has some claims upon
the large volume of gold we imported the first
three years of the war and multiplied into
credits — as the cause prior to oin* coming into
the war. They can also point out that our
Treasury and banks deliberately inflated bank
credits in order to place war loans and that if
this form of credits was removed our expan-
sion would be nothing like its present volume.
As necessary as it may have been to use this
method in securing quick money at a low rate
during the war, there are the strongest objec-
tions to it since the armistice was signed. If
oiir post-war finance at least had been seciwed
from savings by oflfering sufiiciently attractive
terms, the inflation would be less although
the market price of Liberty Bonds might
be lower.

That short world production has been one
of the causes of rising prices cannot be denied.
The waning powers of Europe took 60,000r

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HERBERT HOOVER

000 men from production (nearly one third
their productive man power) and put it to de-
struction. They have lived to a great degree
by gain of commodities from the United
States, and thus brought their shortage to our
shores. They have not yet altogether recovered
from the holidays of victory, the gloom of de-
feat, the persuasive "isms" that would find pro-
duction without work, the destruction of their
economic , unity, transportation, credits, and
other fundamentals necessary to maintain pro-
duction. It will be some time before they do
recover. In the meantime, they are perforce
reducing their consumption — ^their standard of
living — ^because they have largely exhausted
their securities, commodities or credit to con-
tinue the borrowing of our commodities for
their own short production, as during the war.
The exchange barometer is today witness of
the end of this procedure of living on borrowed
money. In passing, it may be mentioned that
exchange is no more a cause of their inability
to buy from us than is the barometer the cause
of blizzards. The storm is that they have mostly
exhausted their credits and they have not re-
covered production so as to oflPer commodities
to us in exchange for ours.

Our own industrial production, as distin-
guished from agricultural production, has

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APPENDIX IV

fallen rapidly since the armistice. Some of the
fall is due to war weariness, some to "isms"
that have infected us from Europe, some to
the natiwal abandonment of high cost produc-
tion brought into play diu*ing the war, some
to strikes and a host of other wastes. Our con-
sumption has greatly increased since the re-
straints of war. Decrease had not penetrated
our agricultural community up to 1919 har-
vest, nor will such decrease arise from these
causes, but as I will set out later, forces are en-
tering that will decrease our agricultiu-al pro-
duction. Our production in nearly all impor-
tant food commodities except sugar is in sur-
plus of our own need. It only becomes a short-
age a£Pecting prices imder the drain of exports.
Therefore, it is the world shortage that is af-
fecting our price levels, and not, so far, a
deficiency for our needs.

So far as relief from price influence by short-
age in production is concerned, it may arise in
two ways. First, slowly through gradual re-
cuperation in world production. Second, by
compulsory reduction of consimiption in Eu-
rope through their inability to pay us by com-
modities, gold or credits. This latter has been
very evident through the drop in exchange and
engagements for export during the past few
weeks.

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The THit£E Divisions of the Pmcb

The cost of food to the consumer is divided
among the farmers on one hand and storage,
manufacture, jobbers, wholesalers, retailers
and transportation on the other. I believe these
charges between the farmer and consumer fall
into two distinct groups — ^the charges compris-
ing the margin between the farmer and whole-
saler which mainly concern the farmer, and
charges between the wholesaler and consumer,
which mainly concern the consumer. To es-
tablish this division, it is necessary to analyze
shortly the datum point by which price is
determined.

The diet of the American people from a nu-
tritional (not financial) standpoint comprises
the following articles and proportion:

Wheat and Rye 29.5%

Pork Products 15.7%

Dairy Products 15.3%

Beef Products 5.3%

Com Products 7.0%

Sugar Products 13.2%

Vegetable Oils 3.6% 89.6%

All other, including potatoes 10.4%

100.0%

The wholesale price of about 90 per cent of
our food in normal times is only remotely de-

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APPENDIX IV

termined by the cost of production, but mostly
by world conditions. We export a surplus of
most commodities among the 90 per cent and
the prices of exports are determined by com-
petition with other world supplies in the Euro-
pean wholesale markets. Those items in this
90 per cent that we do not export are influ-
enced by the same forces, because in normal
times we import them on any considerable
variation in price and the wholesaler natiwally
buys in the cheapest market. Even milk is to a
considerable degree controlled by butter im-
ports in normal times. When we import but-
ter it releases more milk in competition. This
cannot be said to such extent of most of the
odd 10 per cent, because they are largely per-
ishables that do not stand overseas transport
and consequently rise and fall more nearly di-
rectly upon local supply and demand. Some
economists will at once argue that if prices are
unprofitable to the farmer the situation will
correct itself by diminished production and,
consequently, a general rise in the world level
of prices. In the abstract, this is true, but as
a matter of fact the surplus which oiw farmers
contribute for export is only a small portion
of their total production or of the world pool,
yet the total of the world pool operating through
this minor segment makes the prices for a large

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HERBERT HOOVER

part of the farmers' commodities. Therefore,
the eflfect in normal times of restriction in
production in any one country does not affect
price so much as theoretic argument would
believe. The farmer must plant if he would
live, and he must plant long in advance of
his knowledge of prices or world production.
He can make no contracts in advance of his
planting, nor can he cease operations on the
day prices fall too low. He is driven on,
year after year, in hope and necessity, and
will continue over long periods with a stan-
dard of return below rightful living because
he has no other course — ^and always has hopes.
He will vary fairly rapidly from one com-
modity to another — from wheat to other
grains, for instance — ^but he mostly raises
his maximum of something. In the long
run of decreasing prices he would imdoubtedly
reach so low a standard as to cease production.
Then comes a comparatively short period of
higher prices in some commodity; production
is again stimulated and followed by long
intervals of low standards. As shown by
the following table, on the whole, the farmer
has not been underpaid during the war, but
the currents again are turning against
him.

It will be seen that the farmer enjoyed prices
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APPENDIX IV

Department of Labor
Wholesale Index of
All Commodities

Index of Prices at the

Farm in Principal

Produce States

c3 s

e
6

Pre-war

First Quarter 1918.
Last Quarter 1918.
First Quarter 1919.
Last Quarter 1919.

100

187

200

213

224

254

206

204

223

220

258

200

202

225

228

264

230

206

178

216

277

100
246
246
215
268

equivalent to or higher than the general level
up to the last six months. He is now, however,
falling behind in some important products.
Unlike the industrial workers, he is imable to
demand an adjustment of his income to the
changed index of living.

For the moment, what I wish to estab-
lish is only that the farmer*s prices are not
based upon any conception of the cost of
production, but upon forces in which he has
no voice. He can never organize to put his
industry in a "cost plus" basis as industrial
producers do, and remedy must be foimd
elsewhere.

The Two Maegins

As stated, the margin between tiie farmer
and consumer falls into two divisions — one of

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HERBERT HOOVER

vrhich predominantly aflPects the farmer and
the other the consimier. It is really the whole-
sale prices that govern the farmer, rather than
retail prices, for it is in wholesale prices that
the farmer competes with the world. As the
prices paid hy the wholesaler are mostly fixed
by overseas trade at the datmn point on the
Atlantic seaboard or iji Em'ope, then if the
margins between the wholesaler and the farmer
are imduly large, or increase, it is mostly to
the farmer's detriment. For instance, as the
price of the farmer's wheat in normal times
is made in Liverpool, any increase in handling
comes out of the farmer's price. Likewise,
as the wholesale price of butter is made by
the import of Danish butter into New York,
any increase in the numbers or charges between
our farmer and the wholesale buyer comes, to a
considerable degree, out of the farmer.

As the datimi point of determining prices
is at the wholesaler, the accretion by the
charges for distribution from that point for-
ward to the consumer's door will not aflPect the
farmer, but will affect the consumer. When
competition decreases through shortage the
consumer pays the added profits of these trades.

Studies of the cost of our distribution sys-
tem, made by the Food Administration during
the war, established two prime conditions. The

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APPENDIX IV

first is that the margins between our farmers
and the wholesaler in commodities other than
grain in some instances, are, even in normal
timeS) the highest in any civilized state — ^fully
25 per cent higher than in most European
coimtries. The expensiveness of our chain of
distribution in most commodities in normal
times, as compared to Continental coimtries, is
due partly to the wide distances of the produc-
ing areas from the dominating consmning areas,
but there are other contributing causes that can
be remedied. In Europe, the great public
markets in the cities bring farmer and consumer
closely together in many commodities, but in
the United States the bulk of products are too
far afield for this. The farmer must market
through a long chain of manufacturers, brok-
ers, jobbers and wholesalers with or without
their own distribution system, who must es-
tablish a clientele of direct retailers; and thus
public markets, except in special locations and
in comparatively few conunodities, have not
been successful. Another major factor in oiu*
cost of distribution is the increasing demand
for expensive service by our consumers. There
are many other factors that bear on the problem
and the economic results of our system which
are discussed, together with some suggestion
of remedy, later on.

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HERBERT HOOVER

The second result of these studies was to
show the great widening of this margin during
the war. During the year of the Food Admin-
istration's active restraint on this margin,
there was an advance of six points in the whole-
sale index while the farmer's index moved up
25 points. Both before and after that period
the two indexes moved up together. The same
can be said of the margins between the whole-
saler and the consumer. Taking the period of
the war as a whole, the margin between the
farmer and consumer has widened to an ex-
travagant degree.

A good instance of a movement in margins
is shown in flour in 1917. The farmer's aver-
age return for wheat of the 1916 harvest, as
shown by the Department of Agricultm-e, was
about $1.42. As about four and one-half bush-
els of wheat are required to make a barrel of
flour, the farmer's share of the receipts from
this harvest was about $6.40 per barrel. In
1917, before the Food Administration came
into being, flour rose to $17.50 per barrel to
the consimaer, or, at that time, a margin of
$11.00 per barrel. During the Administration,
the farmer received an average of about $2.00
for wheat at the farm, or about $9.00 out of a
barrel of floin*. The consumer paid $12.50, the
margin being about $3.50 per barrel.

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APPENDIX IV

This increase in margins shows vividly in the
higher priced foods, for instance, pork prod-
ucts. If we take hogs at the railway station
over the great hog states contiguous to Chi-
cago as a basis, we find:

Price of

Price of Hogs

Cured Prod-

Margin

Six

in Principal

, ucts to Con-

Between

Months

States

sumer from

Farmer and

Per 100 Lbs.

100 Lbs. Hogs

Consumer

1914

$7.45

$18.97

$11.52

1919

16.27

37.33

21.06

1920

15.37

37.71

22.34

Thus, while the farmer has gained about
$7.92 in his price, the margin has increased by
$10.82 to the consimier and, incidentally, dur-
ing the last year since food control restraints
were removed, the consumer has paid $.80 more
while the farmer got $.90 less. These instances
could be greatly multiplied.

It is imf ortimate that our national statistics
do not permit a complete analysis of the distri-
bution of margin between all the various
groups in the chain between the farmer and
consimier in diflFerent commodities. It would
be helpful if we could take the farmers, rail-
ways, manufacturers, wholesalers and retail-
ers, and determine what proportion each re-
ceives.

These margins between farmer and consiuner
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HERBERT HOOVER

are made up of a necessary chain of charges for
transport, storage, manufacture and distribu-
tion. The great majority of citizens who are
engaged in the processes that go to make up
this portion of food costs are employed in an ob-
viously essential economic f imction, and they do
not approach it in a spirit of criminality, but as
a very necessary, proper, and honorable func-
tion. They have, since the European War be-
gan, rather over-enjoyed the result of economic
forces that were not of their own creation.
That a considerable margin is necessary to
cover the legitimate costs of, and profits on, dis-
tribution is obvious. The only direction of
inquiry is how they can be legitimately mini-
mized. These margins, starting from the im-
duly high expense of a faulty system, have in-
CTcased not only legitimately, due to increased
transportation, labor, rent, taxes, and in-
creased interest upon the large capital re-
quired, but they have, except during the period
of control, increased imduly beyond these ne-
cessities. There are two general character-
istics of this margin that are of some interest.
In the first instance, all of the transport, stor-
age, manufacture and handling is conducted
upon a basis of cost plus either fixed returns or,
as is more usually the case, a percentage of
profit upon the whole cost of operation. Any

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APPENDIX ly

distributing agency ceases to operate when it
does not secure costs and a profit. Conse-
quently, all those links put up a resistance to
a curtaihnent of the margin which the farmer
is imable, except by absolute exhaustion, to put
against reduction of his price levels. If rapid
falls in food prices occur, the farmer, at least
in the first instance, has to stand most of the
fall because he cannot quit. The farmer's costs
of production relate to a period long prior to
the fall. Thus, if wages are due to fall as a
result of a fall in food prices, the farmer is
always selling on the old basis of his costs. The
farmer has but one turn-over in the year. The
middleman has several and can thus adjust
himself quickly.

Second, the custom of many of these busi-
nesses is to operate upon a percentage of profit
on the value of the commodities handled, even
after deducting all their increased costs, inter-
est or other charges. When we have rising
prices, therefore, a doubling of prices, for in-
, stance, tends to double profits on the same vol-
ume of commodities handled. In a rising mar-
ket, competitive pressures are much diminished
and the dealer can assess his own profits to
greater degree than usual. While the packers
make a profit of, say, two cents on the dollar
value of commodities, it represents double the

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HERBERT HOOVER

profit per pound over pre-war, even after al-
lowing such items as interest on the larger
capital involved.

Reductions of the Maegens

Aside from the necessary rise in the margin
that has grown out of the rise in cost of labor,
rent, etc., from inflation and world shortage,
there are some causes which have accumulated
to increase the margins between the farmer and
the wholesaler and the wholesaler and consumer
that could be greatly mitigated.

Better Tax Distribution

During the war, in order to restrain wild
greed and profiteering in the then existing
unlimited demand, margins between pur-
chase and sale in the diflFerent manufacturing
and handling trades were fixed in all the
great commodities — iron, steel, cement, lum-
ber, coal and foodstuffs. The first task of
the war was to secure production, and
the margms were therefore fixed at such
breadth as would allow the smaller high cost
manufacturer and the smaller dealer to live.
Otherwise, the smaller competitors would have
been extinguished, production would have been
lost, and, worse yet, the larger low-cost opera-

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APPENDIX IV

tor would have been left witH much inflated
monopoly. The excess profits tax was levied
as a sequent corrective to this necessary first
step, so as to take the imdue profits of the large
producer back to the public. It was a wise
war measure, but the moment restraints on
profits were taken oflF and there was a free and
rising market ahead, then the tax was added to
prices by all the participants and passed on
to the consumer, or deducted from the farmer
when world levels crowded his prices down.
It should have been repealed at the time the
controls were abandoned, but our legislatin*es
have been busy with other things and, in the
meanwhile, in food it not only increases the
margin between the farmer and the consmner
but tends, as stated above, to come out of the
farmer to a large degree. It has other vicious
results in that it also stimulates dealers and
manufacturers to speculate their profits away
in imsoimd business, rather than to pay
it to the government. It does soimd well
to tax the great manufacturers, but to make
them the agency to collect taxes from the
population is not altogether soimd govern-
ment

It is a very important tax to the Govern-
ment, bringing as it does over a billion a year,
and a place to put this load is not to be f oiind

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HERBERT HOOVER

easily. The income tax does not have so malign
an eflFect, for it comes to a great extent from the
individual and not from business. The present
method of income tax, however, has some weak-
nesses. The same levy is made upon earned
incomes as upon those that are unearned. The
tax on earned incomes tends in certain cases
to be passed on to the consmner or deducted
from the farmer, and, besides, it is not just
that a family living by giving productive ser-
vice to the commimity should pay the same as
a family that contributes nothing by way of
eflFort. A stiflF tax on these latter families might
send them to work, and certainly would induce
economy. Moreover, the earner of income must
provide for old age and dependents while the
imeamed income taxpayer has this provision
already. Altogether, it would seem the
part of wisdom at least to increase the income
tax on the larger imeamed income and de-
crease it on the earners. It is argued that
this drives great incomes to evasion by
investment in tax-free securities, which is
probably true. We need more comparative
figures than the Treasury statistics yet show
to answer this point. In any event, relief to
the earner would free his savings to invest in
taxable securities and we need above all things
to stimulate the initiative of the saver. Income

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APPENDIX IV

taxes, except when too high on earned mcomes,
do not destroy mitiative, and every other gov-
ernment has, in taxing, recognized the essential
diflFerence between earned and unearned in-
come. This distinction would generally relieve
the range of smaller incomes, for they are
mostly earned.

The inheritance tax has not been fully
exploited as yet. It cannot be deducted from
either farmer or consmner, it does not aflFect
the cost of living, it does not destroy initiative
in the individual if it leaves large and proper
residues fo^r dependents. It does redistribute
overswollen fortunes. It does make for equal-
ity of opportunity by freeing the dead hand
from control of our tools of production. It
reduces extravagance in the next generation,
and sends them to constructive service. It has
a theoretic economic objection of being a dis-
persal of capital into income in the hands of
the government, but so long as the govern-
ment spends an equal amoimt on redemption
of the debt or productive works, even this argu-
ment no longer stands.

We may need to come to some sort of in-
creased consmnption taxes in order to lift that
part of excess profits and tax on earned incomes
that cannot be very properly placed elsewhere.
When it comes, it should lie on other commodi-

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HERBERT HOOTER

ties than food, except perhaps sugar, one half
of which is a luxury consumption. The ideal
would be for it to be levied wholly on non-
essentials in order that it should be a burden on
luxury and not on necessity. There is no doubt
difficulty in classifying. Jewelry and furs are
easy to class, but where necessity leaves off and
luxury begins in trousers is more difficult to
determine.

It requires no lengthy economic or moral
argument as a platform for denunciation of
all waste and useless expenditure. Some sane
medium is needed between comfort and luxury.
Failing definition, and objection to blue laws,
the theme must be taken into the area of moral
virtues and become a proper subject for the
spiritual stimulations of the church. There is
a psychology in luxury wherein we all buy
high-priced things because they are high-priced,
not because they add comfort — and this has
contributed also to our high cost of living, for
those who do it drive up prices on those who
try to avoid it. From an economic point of
view, the only recipes are taxation as a device
to make it expensive.

More constructive than increasing taxes is
to take a holiday on governmental expendi-
tures and relieve the taxpayer generally. If
we could stave off a lot of expensive sugges-

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APPENDIX IV

tions for a few years and secure more efficiency
in what we must spend, then our people could
get ahead with the process of earning some-
thing to be taxed. This would at least be com-
forting to the great farming and business com-
munity.

Better Teanspoetation Facilities

There is a great weakness in our present
railway situation bearing upon the farmer and
consumer. Everyone knows of the annual
shortage of cars during the crop-moving sea-
son. Few people, however, appreciate that this
shortage of cars often amounts to a stricture in
the free flow of commodities from the farmer
to the consumer. The result is that the farmer,
in order to sell his produce, often unknown to
himself makes a sacrifice in price to local glut.
The consumer is compelled at the other end
to pay an increased price for foodstuffs due to
the shortage in movement. The constant
fluctuations in our grain exchanges locally or
generally from this cause are matters of pub-
lic record almost monthly. On one occasion a
study was made imder my administration into
the eflFect of car shortage in the transportation
of potatoes, and we could demonstrate by chart
and figures that the margin between the farmer

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HERBERT HOOVER

and the consumer broadened 100 per cent in
periods of car shortage. Nor did the middle-
man make this whole margin of profit, because
he was subjected to unusual losses and destruc-
tion, and took unusual risks in awaiting a mar-
ket. The same phenomenon was proved in a
large way at time of acute shortage of move-
ment in com and other grains.

The usual remedy for this situation is insis-
tence that the railways shall provide ample
rolling stock, trackage and terminals to take
care of the annual peakload. We have fallal
far behind in the provision of even normal rail-
way equipment during the war and an addi-
tional 500,000 cars and locomotives are no
doubt needed. Above a certain point, however,
this imposes upon the railways a great invest-
ment in equipment for use during a compara-
tively short period of the year when many com-*
modities synchronize to make the peak move-
ment. The railways naturally wish to spread
the movement over a longer period. The bur-
den of equipment for short time use will prob-
ably prevent their ever being able to take entire
care of the annual delays in transport and stric-
ture in market, although it can be greatly mini-
mized.
I There is possible help in handling the peak
load by improving the waterways from the

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APPENDIX IV

Great Lakes to the Atlantic seaboard by way
of the St. Lawrence River, so as to pass full
seagoing cargoes. It has already been deter-
mined that the project is entirely feasible and
of comparatively moderate cost. The result
would be to place every port on the Great
Lakes on the seas. Fifteen states contiguous
to the Lakes could find an outlet for a portion
of their annual surplus quickly and more
cheaply to the overseas markets than through
the congested eastern trunk rail lines. It would
contribute materially to reduce this eflFectual
stricture in the free flow of the farmer's com-
modities to the consmners. Of far greater im-
portance, however, is the fact that the costs of
transportation from/ tlie Lake ports to Europe
would be greatly diminished and this dimin-
ished cost would go directly into the farmer's
pockets. It is my belief that there is a possible
saving here of five or six cents a bushel in the
transportation of grain."^ Although a compara-
tively small proportion of our total grain
production flows to Europe, I believe that the
economic lift on this minor portion would
raise the price of the whole grain production
by the amount saved in transportation of this
portion of it. The price of export wheat,
rye, and barley — sometimes corn — usually
hogs — ^in Chicago at normal times is the

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HERBERT HOOVER

Liverpool price, less transportation and other
charges, and if we decrease the transport in
a free market the farmer should get the
difference. Not only should there be great
benefits to the agricultural population, but
it should be a real benefit to our railways in
getting them a better average load without the
cost of maintaining the surplus equipment and
personnel necessary to manage the peakload
during the fall months. It has been computed
that the capital saving in rolling stock alone
would pay for the entire cost of this waterway
improvement over a comparatively few years.
The matter also becomes of national importance
in finding employment for the great national
mercantile fleet that we have created during
these years of war.

Another factor in transportation bearing
upon the problem of marketing is the control
by food manufacturing and marketing con-
cerns of refrigeration and other special types
of cars. This special control has grown up
largely because, owing to seasonal changes in
regional occupation for these cars over differ-
ent parts of the coimtry, no one railway wished
to provide sufficient special cars and service
for use that may come its way only part of the
year. The result has been to force the building
up of a domination by certain concerns who

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APPENDIX IV

control many of the cars and stifle free compe-
tition. Much the same results have been at-
tained by special groups in control of stock
yards and, in some cases, of elevators. Where
such formal or informal monopolies grow up,
they are public utilities, and if the farmer is to
have a free market they must be replaced by
constructive public service.

A Feee Maeket

Every impediment to free marketing in
produce either gives special privileges or in-
creases the risks which the farmer must pay
for in diminished returns. We have some com-
modities where manufacture has grown into
such units that these imits exert such an in-
fluence that they consciously or imconsciously
aflFect the price levels of the farmer's produce.
When a few concerns have the duty of manu-
facturing and storing the seasonal reserves in
a single commodity they naturally reduce
prices during the heavy production season and
increase them in the short season as a method
of diminishing their risk and increasing profits.
Moreover, their tendency is often to sell the
minor portion of their product that goes for
export at lower than the domestic price in
order to dispose of it without depressing local
prices. They do not need to conspire, for

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there can be perfectly coincident action to meet
the same economic currents. Such coincidence
has much greater possibilities of general influ-
ence with a few concerns in the field than if
there were many.

The experience gained in the Food Admin-
istration on these problems during the war led
to the feeling expressed at that time, that such
business should be confined to one line of activ-
ity, just as we have had to confine our railways,
banks and insiu'ance companies. This is use-
ful to prevent reliance being placed upon the
profits of alternative products when engaged
in stifling of competition, through selling be-
low cost on some other item. Even this restric-
tion may not prove to be sufficient protection
to free market by free competition. I am not
a believer in nationalization as the solution to
this form of domination, but I am a believer in
regulation, if it should prove necessary. If
experience proves we have to go to regulation,
it is my belief that it should be confined to over-
swollen imits and that the point of departure
should not be the amount of capital employed
but the proportion of a given commodity that
is controlled. The point of departin*e must
depend upon the special commodity and its
ratio to the whole. When such a concern ob-
tains such dimensions that it can influence

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APPENDIX IV

prices or dominate public affairs, either with
deliberation or innocence, then it must be placed
under regulation and restraint. Our people
have long since realized the advantage of large
business operation in improving and cheapen-
ing the costs of manufacture and distribution,
but when these operations have become so en-
larged that they are able to dominate the com-
munity, it becomes of social necessity that they
shall be made responsible to the community.
The test that should apply, therefore, is not
the size of the institution or the volume of capi-
tal that it employs, but the proportion of the
commodity that it controls in its operationis.
It is my belief that if this were made the datum
point for regulation, and if regulation were
made of a rigorous order, this pressure would
result in such business keeping below the limit
of regulation. Thus the automatic result
would be the building up of a proper com-
petition, because men in manufacturing would
rather conduct a smaller business free of
governmental regulation than enjoy large
operations subject to governmental control.
There are probably only a very few con-
cerns in the United States that would fall
into this category, and they should be glad
of regulation in order to secure freedom from
criticism.

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HERBERT HOOVER

Speculation and Peofiteeeing

There are three kinds of speculation and
profiteering in the food trades. The first is
of the inherent speculative character of food-
stufifs due to their seasonal nature. The farmer,
more by habit than necessary, usually markets
the bulk of his grain in the fall. By necessity
he must market his animals at certain seasons
for they must be bred at certain seasonal
periods, they must be fed at certain seasons^
and thus they come to market in waves of pro-
duction larger than the immediate demand;.
In perishables he must market fairly promptly
as he cannot himself maintain necessary special
types of storage. Thus, the dealer must specu-
late on carrying the commodities for distribu-
tion during the period of short production
while the farmer markets in time of surplus
production. While full competitive conditions
might reduce the charges for this hazard, there
is a possibility of reducing the hazard by bet-
ter organization and, consequently, the charge
for th^hazard that is now debited to the f ar-

, ^ mer5_A It is worth an exhaustive national in-
vestigation to determine whether an extension

1 of a system of central markets would not afford
great help. I do not mean the extension of our
.so-called exchanges dealing in local produce,

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APPENDIX lY

but the creation of great central exchange mar-
kets with responsibilities for service to the en-
tire people. This help would arise in two ways.
The first is the hourly determination of price at
great centers that all may know, and thus the
farmer protects himself against local variations
and manipulation. The second is a system of
forward contracts through such a market be-
tween farmer and consimaer on standardized
commodities. Such contracts in effect remove
the necessity of a speculative middleman. This
system exists in grain and in cotton and in its
processes eliminates large part of the. haz-
ard and carries the commodity at the lower
rate of interest. The present trouble with the
system of future contracts is that it lends it-
self to manipulation, but I believe this could
be eliminated.

Take the case of potatoes; here is an
unstandardized, seasonal commodity, with no
national market and therefore no established
daily price as a datum point. A grower in
Florida, Maine, or Wisconsin, through a local
agent, or through local sale, consigns potatoes
to Pittsburgh because a larger price is reported
there than in Chicago. The grower can usu-
ally make no actual sale to an actual retailer or
wholesaler at destination because the buyer has
no assiurance of quality. Coincident shipment

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HERBERT HOOVER

from many points to a hopeful market almost
daily produces a local glut at receiving points
somewhere in the country. Often enough the
shipper gets no return hut a hill for freight and
the perishahles sometimes rot in the yards. If
potatoes were standardized and sold on con-
tract in national market, protected from ma-
nipulation, three things should result. First,
there would he a daily national price known to
growers. Second, hy the sale of a contract for
delivery the grower would he assured of this
price. Third, the contract and directions for
shipment would flow naturally to the distribu-
tor where the potatoes were needed, and thus
the present fearfully wasteful system would
be mitigated. Potatoes would be a most dif-
ficult case to handle; dried beans, peas, even
butter and cheese would be easier. I am not
advocating widespread dealing in futures, but
short contracts giving time for delivery would
probably greatly decrease the margin between
farmer and local distributor by saving great
wastes in transport, in spoilage and in manipu-
lation.

The second class of speculation is one largely
of the war as a period of rising prices growing
out of inflation, and so forth. It lies in the
marking up of goods on the shelf to the level
of the rising daily market. This marking up

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APPENDIX IV

has been one of the large factors in increasing
the margin during the war. No better exam-
ple exists than the rise of flour during the 1916-
1917 harvest year, referred to elsewhere. We
shall have a remedy for this the moment the
tide of inflation turns. The farmer and con-
simier cannot, however, expect that they will
get even during such a reverse period for their
losses on the rise, because the trades have too
great an individual power of resistance against
selling goods at a loss. Anyway, the mark-
ing up of goods will cease when prices cease
to rise — ^and there is a limit.

The third class of speculation is wholly vi-
cious. That is the purchase of foodstuflFs, in
times of rising economic levels, sheerly for the
rise in price or the deliberate manipulation of
markets diu'ing normal times. These opera-
tions are against the common welfare; they
can find no moral or economic justification.
They are not to be reached by prosecution;
they must be reached by prevention. Our great
boards of trade in fine patriotic spirit proved
their ability during the war to control delib-
erate manipulation of grain and other fu-
tures.

The two latter types of speculation are
an impediment to free markets and they be-
come an unnecessary charge on the margin.

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HERBERT HOOVER

Co-operative Mabketino by the Faemee

There can be no question of the improvement
in position of both farmer and consmner in
eases where cooperative marketing can be or-
ganized. The high development of coopera-
tive citrus fruit marketing has resulted in lower
average prices to consimier, better quality, and
better retiun to the grower. Here is a case
of scientific distribution lamentably absent in
many other commodities. There are other
specialized products to which it could be well
extended. To reach its best development
it should have parallel cooperative develop-
ment among consumers as have we discussed
elsewhere.

SuNDEY Items

There are many ways of assisting the agri-
cultural industry not pertinent to this discus-
sion on the cost of distribution. They do de-
mand inquiry, and public illvmiination; most of
them do not demand legislation so much as
public education and consideration when legis-
lating on other subjects. Our agricultiu-al in-
terests also need a foreign policy. For in-
stance, diu'ing the last month there has been
a consolidation of control of buying in world

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APPENDIX IV

markets by the European Governments. How
far it may be extended in its policies is not
clear. Nevertheless, a combination of import-
ers in all Europe under government control
could determine the prices on every farm in the
United States.

The Maboin Between the Wholesaler
AND Consumer

As the datum point of price determination is
the wholesaler's market, the accretions of
charge for distribution from that point for-
ward, the economy of extravagance in these
costs, is of primary interest to the consumer.
The same phenomena of marking up goods on
the shelf, calculating profits not on commodi-
ties but on dollars handled, a minor amount
of vicious speculation, and the passing on
of excess profits tax, are present in those trades
during the past years. A much more pertinent
phenomenon in unduly increasing their mar-
gins is the increasing demands of the consumer
as to service. Several deliveries daily, pur-
chases on credit, the abandonment of the mar-
ket basket in favor of the telephone, mean many
costs. One of them much overlooked is that
customers must always have "first'* quality
when they buy over the telephone, and the sec-

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HERBERT HOOVER

onds and thirds of equal food value in many
commodities go to waste and are added to the
price of the firsts. That there are some peo-
ple in the United States who want to huy
sanely is evidenced by the 400 per cent increase
in "cash and carry'* shops. There are also too
many people in the final stages of distribution.
One city in the United States has one meat re^
tailer for every 400 inhabitants; it would be
equally well served with one dealer for every
1200. The result is high margin to the retailers
and no out-of-the-way income to any of them.
There is no very immediate remedy for this.
One possibility is an extension of cooperative
buying by consimaers. It has proved a great
success abroad. It ismot socialism, for it arises
from voluntary action and initiative among the
people themselves.

Ill Balance of Aguicultuke and General
Industry

There is now a tendency to ill balance be*
tween the agricultural and general industry.
For many years we were large exporters of
food and importers of manufactured goods..
We gradually imported mouths, manufactured
our own goods and just as rapidly diminished
oiu: food exports. Up to the point where we

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APPENDIX IV

consumed our own food and manufactured our
own goods it has been a great national devel-
opment. Oiu* annual exports of food decreased
dtu^ing the past twenty-five years from some
15,000,000 tons to about 6,000,000 just before
the European War. In the meantime we in-
creased the import of such commodities as
sugar, rice, vegetable oils, until our net ex-
ports were about 5,000,000 tons. Of the kinds
of food exported this probably represents a
decreased export of from twenty-five or thirty
per cent of our production down to five per
cent of it..

Dinging the war we gave special stimulus to
food production and produced greater econo-
mies in consumption so that these later years
somewhat befog the real current, for om* agri-
cultural siu-plus in normal years is really very
small. During the war and since, we have
given great stimulus to our manufacturing in-
dustries. J^ If we shall continue to build up our|
manufacturing industries and oiu* export trade
without corresponding encoiu^agement to agri-
culture, we will soon have more mouths in our
country than we can feed on our own produce.
We shall, like the Em-opean States which have
devoted themselves to industrial development,
ultimately become dependent upon overseas
food supplies. If we examine their situation

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HERBERT HOOVER

we find the very life of their people is thus de-
pendent upon maintaining open free access to
overseas markets. From this necessity have
grown the great naval armaments of the world,
and the burden they imply on all sections of
the population. Such nationsyiof necessity,
have engaged in fierce competition for markets
for their industrial products. Thus they built
up the background of world conflicts. The ti-
tanic struggles that have resulted have endan-
gered the very lives of their people by star-
vation. Their war tactics have, in large degree,
been directed to strangle food supplies. One
other result of this development is the terrible
congestion of populations in manufacturing
areas with all the social and hiunan difficulties
jthat this implies.

There is a jeopardy in industrial over-de-
velopment which has received too little atten-
tion because the world has only experienced it
during the past eighteen months. In times of
industrial depression, or great increase in the
cost of living, whether brought about by war
or by the ebb and flow of world prosperity,
these populations, oppressed with misery, turn
to political remedies for matters that are be-
yond human control. They naturally resent
the lowering of their standards of living, and
they inevitably resort to industrial strife, to

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APPENDIX IV

strikes and disorder. Theirs is the breeding
ground of radicalism — for all such phenomena
belong to the towns and not to the country.

By and large, oiu* industries are now in a
high state of prosperity. More favorable hoiu'S,
more favorable wages, are today offered in in-
dustry than in agriculture. The industries are
drawing the workers from our farms. If this
balance in relative returns is to continue, we
face a gradual decrease in our agricultural pro-
ductivity. If we should develop our industrial
side during the next five years as rapidly as
we have during the past five years, we shall by
that time be faced with the necessity to import
foodstuffs to supplement oiu* own food sup-
plies. Some economists will argue, of coiu-se,
that if we can manufacture goods cheaper than
the rest of the world and exchange them for
foodstuffs abroad, we should do so. But such
arguments again ignore certain fundamental
social and broad political questions. These
dangers have become more emphasized by ex-
perience of the war. From dependence on
overseas supplies for food, we will, by the very
concern that will grow in public mind as to the
safety of these supplies, soon find ourselves
discussing the question of dominating the seas.
Our international relations will have become
infinitely more complex and more difficult.

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HERBERT HOOVER

Unless the League of Nations serves its ideals
we will need to burden ourselves with more
taxation, to maintain great naval and military
forces. But of far more importance than this
is that social stability of oiu* coimtry, the de-
velopment of oiu* national hfe, rests in the
spirit of our farms and surrounds our villages.
These are the sources that have always sup-
plied oiu* country with its true Americanism^
its new and fresh minds, its physical and its
moral strength. Industry's real market is with
the farmer by the constant increase of his stan*-
dard of living. We want our exports to grow
in exchange for commodities we need from
abroad, but we want them to grow in tune with
our social and political interests, and to do so
they must grow in step with our agriculture.

In concluston we are in a period of high in-
flation and shortage of world production, and
consequent abnormal prices. The tide is likely
to turn almost any time. Some of the outrage-
ous margin between the farmer and consumer
will be remedied by the turn in the tide itself,
for it will eliminate the marking up of goods
and the opportunity of vicious speculation.
The dangers of the turn are twofold. First,
unless we constructively remedy the im-
necessary margin between the farmer and the
wholesaler the farmer will receive the brunt of

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APPENDIX IV

the fall long before the supplies he must buy
and the labor he must employ will have fallen in
step. It will bring to him the greatest suflFer-
ing in the community.

The farmer's position can be remedied by bet-
ter distribution of the tax load, by improvement
in oiu* transportation system, by getting our
markets free of impediments to free flow of
competition, and by constructive improvement
in our whole distribution system. The con-
sumer will get relief from deflation, improve-
ment in world production, and by eliminating
the same wastes and imnecessary costs in our
distribution system.

The second danger is that deflation itself will
take place without constructive consideration.
Great wisdom will be required on the part of
oiu* government in its great control of credit
that it shall take place progressively and with
care, in order that there shall be no sudden
breaks, with their resulting demoralization, un-
employment and misery.

We require a careful balance of general in-
dustry to agriculture. We cannot afford to
build this nation into an industrial state de-
pendent upon other lands for its food supply.
We want our industries to grow, but we want
agriculture to grow in pace with them. Many
of our farmers made great sacrifices in the

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HERBERT HOOVER

war; they do not want to be coddled in peace ;
but they must have mi equiflity of opportunity
with all the other elements in the country.

(1)

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