Conservation of food : the public services of Herbert C. Hoover

SL .

CONSERVATION OF FOOD

The Public Services of
HERBERT C. HOOVER

SPEECH

OF ,

HON. JAMES aPHELAN 'i«?fe <

/ »

OF CALIFORNIA 7/

13^0

IN THE

SENATE OF THE UNITED STATES

JULY 16, 1917

2730—17729

WASHINGTON

GOVERNMENT PRINTING OFFICE
1917

SPEECH

OF

F ON. JAMBS D. PHELAN

CONSERVATION OF FOOD.

The Senate as in Committee of the Whole resumed the consideration
of the bill (II. I{. 4901) to provide for the national security and defense
by encouraging the production, conserving the supply, and controlling
the distribution of food products and fuel.

Mr. PHELAN. Mr. President, the Senator from Pennsylvania
[Mr. PENROSE] the other clay seemed to intimate in the course
of his speech that it was only when California was concerned
that I was moved to take part in the debate.

I have listened to the philippic against my esteemed country-
man, Mr. Herbert C. Hoover, delivered by the Senator from
Missouri [Mr. REED], and I can not see, after listening for sev-
eral hours, that in any way has his personal integrity been im-
pugned, hi's capacity impeached, or his ability to serve his coun-
try in this crisis in any way discredited. If he were not a
man who had attracted the attention of the world, he would
not be the subject of discussion in this Chamber. If he were
not a man who had already demonstrated his fitness, his name,
which is not before us in any official way, would not be con-
sidered in a long and serious argument. The Senator from
Missouri seeks more to criticize the methods proclaimed by
Mr. Hoover, growing out of his long experience abroad, than
to inform us positively why in 'this, emergency, if he should
be selected, he would not be the most admirable and capable
man of whom the world to-day has knowledge for this special
task.

I know the Senator from Missouri has been accustomed in
his own State to try before juries men indicted for and doubt-
less guilty of petty offenses. He has pursued a style in his
argument which reminds one more of the method of a lawyer
pleading' to a jury in condemnation of some culprit than of
trying to convey information to the Senate now engaged in the
consideration of a measure which but incidentally involves the
services of Mr. Hoover. I think the Senator from Missouri
enjoyed quite as much as we liave enjoyed his address and
discussion, because he was relieved from following the rules of
evidence, and he introduced any kind of matter without regard
to its relevance in order to make his address, if not convincing,
at any rate entertaining.

The first indictment the Senator made against Mr. Hoover
was that there was a doubt as to his Americanism. The Sen-
ator from Missouri did not say that Mr. Hoover was not born
in the wheat belt, because he was born, confessedly, in the
State of Iowa. The Senator did not say that Mr. Hoover lacked
experience in a State where the products are so diversified as in

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California,- because as a young man lie went to California, lived
among her people, participated in their activities, and wa's
graduated at the great Stanford University at Palo Alto, by
which he is considered to-day one of its honored trustees and
worthy sons. The faculty take an especial pride in the achieve-
ments of the boy whom they sent out upon the world.

His sin began when, with the advantages of birth in Iowa and
education in California, he dared to go to China and to Aus-
tralia and South Africa — certainly a most serious offense. No
American can tolerate, in his amiable conceit, the thought of
one of his fellows going out of the limits of the United States,
because, be it known, our country embraces everything that
is both good and wise, everything in the domain of the vege-
table, the mineral, the animal, and the intellectual kingdoms,
and therefore a man is put on the defensive when he goes
abroad. But

Hew much the fool who has been sent to roam
Excels the fool who has been kept at home.

It has occurred to the proverb maker, and possibly it is within
our own experience, that a man who has traveled not only be-
comes possessed of more information but I believe he becomes
even a better American. If he goes abroad and garners expe-
rience in every field and still remains an American, his asset to
us as an American citizen is very much greater than had he
remained at home.

He went to Australia. We know that vast field. He \vent to
China to open mines. He went to South Africa. In those coun-
tries he not only acquired knowledge and experience of men and
affairs but he acquired an honorable fortune. Going away
from the apron strings of his native land into the hard places
of the earth, there in competition with men, engineers like him-
self and miners like himself, to have wrested from the reluctant
earth a fortune, which he has wisely employed, certainly should
riot be a matter of reproach. All these things he has done.

Before the war he found himself in London. My first knowl-
edge of Mr. Hoover's work was in London, when in 1913 I went
there in an official capacity to interest the British Government -
to participate in the Panama-Pacific Exposition. At that time
Mr. Hoover stood at the head, not of Englishmen, not of
Australians, not of Africanders, but of Americans. It became
advisable to organize a committee for the purpose of proving
to the British Board of Trade that there was a real and
valuable trade purpose to be subserved by participating in that
international exposition. Mr. Hoover undertook that work,
having been unanimously selected by his fellows. I may say
here that a remarkable thing about this man is his quality of
leadership and genius for organization. There, in a strange land
and among his compatriots he was regarded as the first citizen
and to him they turned.

Then the war broke out, and Mr. Hoover, among the Ameri-
cans who were in London, not as exiles, but in prosecuting the
world's work in which Africa, Australia, China, and America
were all involved, had become international, not only in his
vocation, not only in his affairs, but in his comprehensive under-
standing of and sympathy with the needs of humanity. Whefl
a man has traveled he learns probably better to understand his
fellow man and does not confine his affections and exclusive
2736—17729

12.

interest to those who are nearest to him. It is a kind of
religion, an elevation of spirit, a broadening of vision. As
Thoreau said, " When a man has traveled, when he has robbed
the horizon of his native fields of their mystery and trampled
the blue of the distant mountains with his feet, he begins to
think of another world " — the world of humanity.

Travel is an expansive process, giving breadth, love, and
universality of vision to the man who is so fortunate as to
enjoy its opportunities.

As was said when America began to grow —

No pent-up Utica confines our powers,
But the whole boundless continent is ours.

And now that the world war has given us the world for our
stage, let us have a world-wide man to do our work.

There is a craving to get out of our provincialism and expand
more and more. Hoover is a pioneer American, you may say, in
that realm of usefulness, both in the world development of re-
sources and in the practical expression of humane sentiments.
What was the magnitude of the enterprise which gave him fa me?
How much money was involved in his work in Belgium, of which
we have heard? He presided over the Belgian relief committee
and organized it. We have relief committees on every corner in
the United States. Everybody within his limitations is trying to
help ; but there he was at the head — and he was the head, and
it is well that he was the head — of a commission which possessed
the confidence of England, of France, and of the United States.
Into his hands — I am speaking of him individually now — there
was deposited no less than $250,000,000 for Belgian relief and
for the relief of the people of the north of France within the
very few years during which the war has progressed.

I was told on one occasion that he was given a check on the
French Treasury for $4,000,000, without any understanding
whatever that it should be accounted for, nor was he required
to make an accounting ; but he did make an accounting. He is
a business man. He was not going to expose himself to the
taunts of the malicious or the ignorant. He kept books, and
the overhead expense in the administration of that great fund
was only one-sixteenth of 1 per cent. It was a labor of love,
and he calls upon those to help in the same spirit as volun-
teers; and here to-day in Washington, rallied by his side, are
hundreds of volunteers,. willing under his leadership to carry on
this work of relief and conservation. An overhead expense of
one-sixteenth of 1 per cent is certainly a most excellent showing
in the administration of a relief fund involving $2oO,000,000 in a
strange land ; and, having acquired that priceless experience, he
is available for our purposes. Do we not need such a man?

The Senator has intimated that he was a self-seeker. I inter-
rogated him to ask whether as a matter of fact the President
of the United States had not sent for him. The President did not
know him personally ; but the President lives in the world.
As a citizen of the world he knew of the fame of Hoover, and
he called upon Hoover, not to confer any benefit upon Hoover;
he called upon Hoover to render assistance to his native land.
While the Senator from Missouri was talking I rang up Mr.
Hoover and asked him as to his citizenship. " Why," he said, " I
am an American. I never for one minute relinquished my citi-
zenship. I am a citizen of the United States and a resident of
2736—17729

California, qualified to vote in California. I never had any
other thought."

It is rather painful that a man should be expatriated, even in
the course of an afternoon's speech, when his great achievements
are the glory of his country. Hoover, the American — so he is
regarded abroad, as he should be regarded at home, with appre-
ciation and affection. He is a man that gives no offense. He is
a man, as you have observed, of quiet manner. That he lias been
the subject of voluminous advertising is no fault of his own.
The instincts of our journalists are very often true. They find
a man modest, and in proportion to his modesty they make him
conspicuous, if he has merit. If he is a self-seeker, they leave
him alone. Because Mr. Hoover has won the esteem of the
press and his achievements have been published far and wide
is no reason why Mr. Hoover himself is not a modest man. He
is a modest man, because " modesty is the chastity of merit."

He can not make a speech as eloquent as. a speech by the Sena-
tor from Missouri. If he could, how convincing indeed he would
be, having both the eloquence and the facts ! He lacks the ability
to present his case ; and because he is here this afternoon made
the subject of such severe criticism I have ventured, all unpre-
pared, to tell you the manner of man he is and the character of
his work.

I do not think, though, that anything in the remarks of the
Senator from Missouri really made any impression, except— and
it was new to me — the assertion that he engaged in speculation
in foodstuffs. In an inspired article, as I should call it, by
Ernest Poole, in the Saturday Evening Post of May 26, 1917, I
find that among the difficulties experienced by Hoover in pur-
chasing supplies from charity funds, meager as they were in
proportion to the vast need, it was incumbent upon him as
a humanitarian as well as a business man to drive as hard and
fast a bargain for the suffering poor as though he were en-
gaged in a gainful business for himself. There is no charge
here that he did engage in speculation for himself. The
learned Senator from Missouri exonerates him from all fault
of that kind ; but still he says that he did speculate. This is
the character of the speculation, the object manifestly being
to get the most food against the hoarding of speculators for the
hungry mouths of the unfortunate people for whom he had been
administering this great trust.

I read from the article I mentioned:

It—

This great work —

must be done cheaply and without fail. And, in order to save every
possible dollar, only those kin,ds of food must be bought that would give
the greatest nourishment. This they learned from expert dietitians.

But as to purchasing supplies there were big men on the C. R. B.
who needed no expert advice. They knew all the tricks of the
business. When the price of beans began to rise they bought 1,000
tons of beans and threw them back in one lot on the market. Down
went prices. They bought in small lots. Slowly again the price
began rising ; but once more the terrific impact of 1,000 tons of beans
was felt. Again the price dropped, and again their ageats bought
beans in small lots.

So again and again did that same thousand tons of beans hammer
down prices and save the day. The same was true wherever they
went. In food and in shoes and clothing repeatedly through expert
advice of business men as shrewd as themselves they went into the
market and bought at cost, and often below it.
2730—17729

6

These are the facts. That is the method of the speculator,
if you please — to buy and to sell — and the market is affected by
purchases and by sales. That is where he utilized his knowledge
of the business methods of the world and turned them to good
account. Certainly that is not a reproach.

While the Senator from Missouri was talking, I rang up Mr.
Hoover on the telephone again and said that he was being
accused of speculating, not necessarily in his own interest, with
the funds of the Belgian relief commission. I said, "What
truth is there in it?" desiring to communicate his own state-
ment to the Senate. He expressed very considerable indigna-
tion. He may be a mild-mannered man, as is described, but,
mild mannered as a man may be, he would naturally resent any
imputation which he thought reflected upon his good name or
his honor. I hastily assured him there was no accusation of
that kind ; but I said : " What was the practice in securing
your food supplies, in making your purchases in the open mar-
ket, with a view possibly of getting better rates for the trust
which you were administering? " He said there was no specu-
lation of any character. He went into the open market and
purchased goods, and if he sold goods it was in order to make
more advantageous purchases ; and the nearest thing that might
approach speculation, he said, was when in the United States
he purchased a quantity of goods of some character, and could
not find a ship for it, and therefore was obliged to sell it in
the market, netting, I believe, a profit; but that profit went
into the Belgian relief fund, and made more easy the adminis-
tration of his trust in meeting the demands of those who were
dependent upon it.

Mr. REED. Mr. President

The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. JOHNSON of California in
the chair). Does the Senator from California yield to the
Senator from Missouri?

Mr. PHELAN. I do.

Mr. REED. I should like to have the Senator, now, be specific.
I should like to know if Mr. Hoover repudiates this beau story
that is printed over Mr. Poole's signature in the Saturday Even-
ing Post?

Mr. PHELAN. I have read approvingly the bean story pub-
lished by Mr. Ernest Poole in the Saturday Evening Post. I
have not Mr. Hoover's word for it. I had not read the story
when I telephoned half an hour ago to Mr. Hoover, but I do
not know why Mr. Hoover should disavow it, and I am willing
to assume that it is true

Mr. REED. Very well.

Mr. PHELAN. For this reason : This excerpt was given to me
by Mr. Hoover's friend, Judge Curtis Lindley, of California,
who is one of his coadjutors. I asked him for information about
Hoover, and he handed me this. That is why I said I believed
it was inspired, and therefore true.

Mr. REED. When the Senator says " He handed me this,"
he has in his hand the Saturday Evening Post containing Mr.
Poole's article, and that is what he refers to as an inspired ar-
ticle.

Mr. PHELAN. It is.

Mr. REED. The Senator admits that statement to be true,
and in addition to that says that Mr. Hoover states that if he
2736 — 17729

sold anything in this country it was with the idea of buying more.
Now, will the Senator toll the Senate and the country why a man
engaged in buying foodstuffs for Belgium, and having bough't
foodstuffs for Belgium, should sell them for the purpose of buy-
ing more, unless he did it to affect the price? Why sell the very
goods you had bought with the intention of immediately buying
more unless you did it for the purpose of breaking the market?

Mr. PHELAN. I think it was. perfectly plain in my state-
ment, Mr. President, that the deliberate intention of Mr. Hoover,
according to this article, was to force down the mounting prices
which heartless speculation had sought to impose even upon a
charity fund. I can not see that any apology is necessary for
Mr. Hoover in a warfare of that kind, fighting the devil witty
fire, to unload a carload here and there in order to buy more
advantageously a larger quantity for the purposes which I
mentioned.

Mr. REED. Mr. President, I do not want to interrupt the
Senator

Mr. PHELAN. It does not interrupt me.

Mr. REED. The Senator, then, admits that the process was
to go into the market and buy in small quantities until a very
large amount had been accumulated? That, of course, would
have the effect gradually of raising the price. Having raised
the price, the process then was to throw the whole of that which
had been bought into the market and break it, and repeat the
operation. Now, if that be not strictly in accordance with the
most approved methods of Wall Street gambling and of wheat-
pit gambling, will the Senator please tell us what the better
methods are?

Mr. PHELAN. It is not the gallows that makes the crimg.

Mr. REED. No; but it is the crime that makes the neces-
sity for the gallows.

Mr. PHELAN. Granted. An act may be done by a patriot
which, if done by a lesser mortal, would be crime. In history,
patriots have committed what we call crimes believing that they
were acting in a righteous cause. History, for instance, has never
put Brutus in the category of ordinary offenders. A man may
commit an overt act of any kind not strictly in accordance with
the law and history would find justification for him on account
of the purity of his motives. It is all a matter of ethics and
viewpoint.

To buy and sell speculatively in Wall Street is an offense, if
you please. I do not know that it is even a statutory offense.;
To buy and sell in the wheat pit in Chicago is an offense ac-
cording to the Senator from Missouri. I do not know that it is
a statutory offense. At any rate, it is frequently practiced.
But assuming that it is an offense, it is not an offense of such
a character as to deter from engaging in it a man actuated by
good and pure motives in a conflict with speculators. He might
buy in the ordinary market from jobbers and from brokers find
easily consume the entire sum which was at his disposal with-
out accomplishing one tithe of the good which he would have
accomplished had he resorted to the methods of the broker and
the speculator.

I am not here to apologize for Mr. Hoover's action as de-
scribed in this article by Mr. Poole. If these acts in themselves
were of a reprehensible character — which I can not admit, be-
cause they violate no law, the buying and selling on the mar-
2730—17729

8

ket — if these acts were of a reprehensible character, what must
be the character of the conduct of those men who presented an
almost impassable barrier to the Belgian Relief Commission
seeking food for hungry people? In order to overcome that bar-
rier it was necessary for Mr. Hoover and his confreres to break
it down or to scale it. They accomplished their just purposes by
resorting to the methods practiced by brokers, let us admit, and
those methods are not wrongfully employed when employed for
good purposes ; certainly not wrongfully employed when em-
ployed to overcome a barrier against the Belgian relief, in this
instance, seeking food for hungry people.

Mr. REED. Mr. President —

The PRESIDING OFFICER. Does the Senator from Cali-
fornia yield to the Senator from Missouri?

Mr. PHELAN. I do.

Mr. REED. If the Senator will yield for one further inter-
ruption, the Senator speaks of a barrier that had been created.

Mr. PHELAN. The, barrier of high prices.

Mr. REED. Yes. Now, let us see. Mr. Hoover went into the
market and bought his 10,000 tons of beans. He bought them
on a market that existed. It is not claimed that the market
then was very high ; but the buying of these 10,000 tons of beans
ran the market up. ^ Now, he had his beans ; he had bought
them in a market that was not controlled; but having thus
gained control of the market, he proceeded to hurl all the
10,000 tons of beans into the market at once, and, to use the
expression of the writer, the eulogist, the impact of that blow
broke the market; and so he repeated the operation. Now, I
think the Senator is not warranted in saying that there was any
barrier of high prices set against him in the first instance. He
simply did as others have done ; in buying enough to control
the market he boosted the prices. He was safe in doing it be-
cause, having complete control of the market, he could drive
them down. I think the Senator's assumption that he had a
barrier of high prices is not borne out by anything stated in the
article, or by any fact known to anybody. However, I thank
the Senator. I should not have so long interrupted him.

Mr. PHELAN. I think the Senator from Missouri under-
stands quite as well as I the nature of the offense which he
has charged to Mr. Hoover, and I am confidently disposed to offer
a plea of justification ; and I will leave that to the consideration
jof the Senate.

There is one other point which the Senator made, and were
it not so serious it would be amusing. I think the Senator over-
looks the fact, so accustomed is he to these piping hours of peace
within these precincts, that we are at war, serious war, and
in order to win a victory it is not only necessary to have men
and munitions and those " great guns which make ambition
virtue " ; it is necessary to have food supplies not only for the
combatants but for the noncombatants, for the civilian popula-
tion. We have lived so long in luxury and abundance that it
is hard, I admit, to conceive of any condition \vhere there will
not be enough food for us all, even when traveling in palace
cars. We have been unused to privation.

Now, we are to profit only by our own experience? The wise
man has said that experience is the mistress of fools. We must
profit by the experience of others if we are wise ; and I have here
this startling statement :

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9

This year we are faced with a world shortage.

This statement was made by Mr. Hoover at Brown University.

Next year this shortage will be greater. * * * Our whole food
problem revolves around one single factor — the diminishing productivity
of Europe and the disruption of commerce by armored barriers.

He goes on to say :

Uppermost in my mind, and present I hope in yours, is the problem
which I was recalled from Europe to engage myself with on behalf of
the President.

In passing, I may say that Mr. Hoover was not a self-seeker,
but was brought to this country by the President. At Washing-
ton on May 19 the President issued the following statement.

After calling attention to the desperate condition in which this
country would be involved on account of a food shortage and
speculation, he adds :

I have asked Mr. Herbert Hoover to under takey this all-important task"
of food administration. He has expressed his willingness to do so on
condition that he is to receive no payment for his services, and that the
whole of the force under him. exclusive of clerical assistance, shall be
employed, so far as possible, upon the same volunteer basis.

He has expressed his confidence that this difficult matter of food
administration can be successfully accomplished through the voluntary
cooperation and direction of legitimate distributers of foodstuffs and
with the help of the women of the country.

Although it is absolutely necessary that unquestionable powers shall
be placed in my hands in order to insure ths* success of this adminis-
tration of the food supplies of the country, I am confident that th^
exercise of those powers will be necessary only in the few cases where
some small and selfish minority proves unwilling to put the Nation's
interests above personal advantage, and that the whole country wi.U
heartily support Mr. Hoover's efforts by supplying the necessary vol-
unteer agencies throughout the country for the intelligent control of
food consumption and securing the cooperation of the most capable
leaders of the very interests most directly affected, that the exercise
of the powers deputed to him will rest very successfully upon the good
will and cooperation of the people themselves, and that the ordinary
economic machinery of the country will be left substantially undis-
turbed.

Now, continuing Mr. Hoover's own statement before Brown
University, the food controller by appointment of the President,
says :

I do not propose in these few minutes to enter the forest of dietetic,
administrative, and economic difficulties with which the problem is sur-
rounded. I wish to present but one theme to your mind. Our whola
food problem revolves around one single factor — the diminishing pro-
ductivity of Europe and the disruption of commerce by armored 'barriers.

Since the wonderful world harvest of 1915 the food supplies of the
world have been steadily lessening. This year we are faced with a
world shortage and next year the shortage will be greater. Severity
million men in Europe have been called out of productive labor and
devoted' to fighting and the production of implements of war. The
women have been unable to in full renew the harvest, and there, has
been a great diversion of animals and transport to war. The land is
no longer receiving the fertilizer of old. In order to decrease the
production of fodder grains and increase the production of bread grains,
and to secure protein and fat supplies, Europe is eating into her capita!
of animals. This again reacts on the productivity of the land, ami
foodstuffs are beyond this daily being destroyed at sea in shipload,;.
Our own allies are separated from their normal markets of Russia.
Bulgaria, Roumania, while the Argentine has had a crop failure, and
the shortage of our allies 'therefore is more acute than their own de-
cline represents. Bancroft L

It is the impact of this shortage that has knocked at every door ai
the United States. We are # country of abundant surplus, jet the re-
verberation of Europe's shortage would have thundered imperiously,
even had we never entered the war.

The reaction of Europe has raised our prices above the endurable
level, and will, if we do nothing, raise them still higher, for their m-rd
grows yearly. By our entry into the war we arrive at two issues :
First, the issue we must have partially fronted in any event, the control
of our food so as to ameliorate prices, for unless we e&a do so we must
273G— 17729

10

meet a raise of wages with all its vicious circle of social disruption at
a time when maximum efficiency is vital to our safety; second, that
we may also moot the increased demands of our allies that they may
remain constant in the war.

These problems are not insoluble if taken in time. In their solu-
tion lies a prime test of democracy. The question is, Can our form of
government put forward the organization, the devotion, the self-denial,
the efficiency, the preparation in advance of storm? Must we wait
until disaster is upon us and then reap the whirlwind in a lament of
"Too late"? Caw it not only do this in time, but can it also do so
without resort to measures of Prussianism ? I believe it can. I believe
our faith is right. I believe democracy can not only defend itself but
it can prepare in time. I believe that the spirit of self-sacrifice and
idealism runs higher among our people than in any other land. I be-
lieve with the mobilization of the voluntary support of our people these
problems are soluble, but I know that no people are of such idealism
but that some individuals and their selfishness would defeat the ma-
jority. To this end we must give power, but that is not the power of
Prussianism any more than is the power of police to repress crime.

In our abundance, our undeveloped resources, our wastage and ex-
travagance, we hold it in our power, and ours alone, to keep the wolf
from the door of the world. This duty is wider than war — it is as wide
as our humanity.

I submit that a man who has such broad experience, who so
well marshals his facts, who is so convincing in his statements,
is entitled to be considered an authority upon a subject on
which most of us are densely ignorant.

There is nothing in his career to indicate that he has any
other purpose than tftat of doing good to his country and to
our allies. He wishes to conserve the food at reasonable prices ;
and I have heard him, in the presence of many Senators, say
that one of his first concerns was to give an adequate return
to the farmer. Certainly there is no plan involved under the
administration of this American to deprive the producer of ade-
quate returns for his product. I have heard him debate in con-
versation with a Member of this body whether it would not be
better to fix a price of $1.50 for wheat rather than $1.25, and he
favored the larger amount.

It is only to prevent excessive charges, speculative prices,
that he is to act as a food administrator. He is there now in a
volunteer capacity under the authority of the President, and his
only purpose is to be of service. Shall we not enlist his service?

The Senator from Missouri, in the defense of the spirit of
American liberty and the Constitution, again reverts to the
danger of investing too much power in one man ; that the power
of a food regulator might be administered for the injury of the
people and that it might be easily abused. I think we must as-
sume in giving a man a position of power and responsibility that
power brings with it that he is there to serve the Government
that selected him for a particular task, and not to serve private
interests or speculation ; that is, he is there in the spirit which
seems to be the atmosphere of a man, in the spirit of helpful
and patriotic service.

Of course when we get in trouble, as in war, we turn aside
for the hour from the so-called established principles or doc-
trines of democracy. We have done it in the Senate time and
time again, and we let down our checks and balances. We see
that effective and prompt action is vitally necessary. But let
us hope it will very soon be over ; everything done is for " the
period of the war." We can not use the methods of peace and
win victories in war ; that seems to be conceded ; and that we
have a President who has none of the taint of the usurper in his
composition is a very good thing for us in a national crisis like
this. We are working under our " war powers," and our Presi-

27oG — 17729

11

deiit lias become the Commander in Chief of the ~Army and
Navy.

History has given us examples of men who, invested with
power, were loath to give it up. It was the surprise of Europe
that Washington having been in the supreme command should
have relinquished his authority. It was unknown in the Old
World for a man to have attained power and yield it. Byron
expressed a surprise and gratification when he said :
Where can the wearied eye repose

When gazing on the great,
Where neither guilty glory glows

Nor despicable state?
Yes ; one, the first, the last, the best,

The Cincinnatus of the West,
Whom envy dare not hate,

Bequeath the name of Washington ;
To make man blush, there is but one !

In the long succession of American Presidents the example of
Washington has been such that there has never even been so
much as a suspicion of usurpation, of seizing power which the
people would fain deny. The unwritten law even has been ob-
served with respect to a third presidential term. Can it be
possible that a food conserver, invested with the power of regu-
lating the supplies of food, is going to menace our democratic
institutions? That is not the kind of power that destroys democ-
racies, but I really think, having heard the gentleman describe
the dietary which the food controller is about to impose, it would,
if observed, improve rather than impair our constitutions !

Now, Mr. President, can we not safely accept this dictator
without fear?

Mr. CHAMBERLAIN. Mr. President, may I interrupt the
Senator for a moment? When I heard the statement some clays
ago that Mr. Hoover has practically expatriated himself, or,
rather, concluded from the statement that he was really not a
citizen of the United States, to satisfy myself I asked and re-
ceived a brief statement from his secretary as to his life, which
I submit to the Senator and in the Senator's time I ask that he
read it into his speech. It is very brief and it will save any
further questions.

Mr. PHELAN. At the request of the Senator from Oregon,
I am very glad to read the brief statement, which is authentic.

Mr. CHAMBERLAIN. It was sent to me by Mr. Hoover's
secretary.

Mr. PHELAN. It is vouched for by the secretary of Mr.
Hoover. Here is the true story of his life :

Herbert Clark Hoover : Born West Branch. Iowa, August 10, 1874.
Quaker parents. After death of parents in 1883, sent to Oregon in
charge of relatives, residing at Newberg and Salem, Oreg., until 1891.
Became self-supporting at 13 years of age. Went to Stanford Uni-
versity, California, 1891. graduating 1895 as mining engineer. Em-
ployed professionally in New Mexico, Colorado, California, and Oregon
until 1897, part time with United States Geological Survey. In 1897
went to Australia in administrative metallurgical work and mining.

Returned to California 1899. After few months left for China as
an engineering adviser to the Chinese Government. Returned to
California 1900, after outbreak of Boxer rebellion. After few months
left California again for China as manager of industrial works, com-
prising coal mines and works, fleet of .20 ships, canals, railways, and
harbor works, employing some 25,000 men. Returned to California
in 1901.

I observe that he has always returned to California ; he could
not stay away.

Mr. REED. How long did he stay there? A few months?
2736—17729

12

Mr. PIIELAN (reading) —

Thereafter opened offices in San Francisco, New York, and London,
visiting ail points annually. Employed in administration of large in-
dustrial works, embracing railways, metallurgical work, mining, iron
and steel, shipping, land, and electrical enterpises in California, Colo-
rado, Alaska, Mexico, India, Russia, and China, until the Avar broke
out in 1914. Was a trustee of Stanford University, Cal., and spent
much time there. 1901-1914, in affa.'rs of that institution and on con-
duct of business in that State. Went to London just before war broke
out. When the war broke out became engaged in the organization of
return of stranded Americans: In October, 1914, organized commission
for relief in Belgium, and remained in Europe during the, war with the
exception of a return to the United States in the fall of 1915 and the
winter of 1017.

The commission for relief in Belgium from October, 1914, until April,
1917, handled the import of upwards to 100,000.000 bushels of wheat,
rice, beans, peas, and other cereals, together \v_ith many thousands of
tons of meat products ; operating its own fleet of from 50 to 70 ships,
its own mills, and in addition thereto acquired and redistributed
cereals and several other staples in the occupied territory involving
between 30,000,000 and 40.000,000 bushels of other cereals and large
quantities of meats, et cetera, et cetera. The commission for relief in
Belgium organized and distributed a ration to 10,000,000 people, di-
rectly employing upward of 125,000 people in its operations. The
personnel was in a great majority volunteer, and the total overhead
expenses of the commission up to April, 1917, were three-eighths of 1

Eer cent. The aggregate amount of mon,ey expended on imported
oodstuffs and through the organisation in tfce purchase of native food
supplies was approximately $500,000 000.

Never sought public office in any suape or form —

I hope he is not reproaching the rest of us —

Returned to the United States on the direct request of the Govern-
ment, acting entirely as a volunteer for service during the war only.

It shows his close association, Mr. President, with the United
States through his California citizenship and residence. That
he is an American there is no question. That he is a usurper
with a sinister and malign design of seizing power for some
unholy use is absolutely out of the question; that is not in
the genius of an American, and he is par excellence an Ameri-
can. It is true he has traveled, but " in spite of all temptations
to belong to other nations " he remains an American.

I ask permission to insert in the RECOBD an article on Mr.
Hoover, the subject of discussion, published in the Saturday
Evening Post of May 26, 1917.

The PRESIDING OFFICER. If there is no objection, it is
so ordered.

The matter referred to is as follows :
HOOVER OF BELGIUM.
[By Ernest Poole.]

Whether this war is to be won for democracy and a lasting peace, or
is to be halted, through starvation, in a truce that will make its blood-
shed of no avail to humanity — this, to a very large degree, is to be
settled now and here by the people of America. We must feed not only
our own population but the people of our allies. That we can do this
there is little doubt. The resources, of this land are so varied and ex-
haustless that, given the will, the way will be found. And to rouse the
will and point the way the Council of National Defense has chosen
Hoover of Belgium.

A better leader could not have been found. To rouse the will of this
Nation — a will mysteriously vast, compounded of the purposes, the
small desires, selfish plans, the hopes and dreams and great ideals, the/
firm beliefs and the suspicions of more than, a hundred million people—-
here is one whose very name is a great national asset now. For it has
become a symbol of that honesty and generous will, that clean, effi-
cient action, which will sweep out of our Yankee minds the suspicion
of graft and slackness here. There was no graft in Belgium and there
shall be none here. There was clear, hard thinking, exhausting toil
and unselfishness in Belgium, and there shall be those qualities here.
But to those sentimentalists who love to hear great stirring appeals
to their emotions, let it be clearly said at the start that Hoover will
disappoint them.
2736—17729

. 13

BIG JOBS IN BOTH HEMISPHERES.

For a more intensely sensible man it would be hard to discover. He
is 42 years old. Though by no means large of frame, he gives at once
an impression of force. His limbs look hard ; his smooth face is strong ;
there is a determined look to his jaws, and his eyes are steady and
direct. He is a mining engineer, a man from a ruthless, fighting world,
to whom at the outbreak of this War something very like a miracle

Herbert Clark Hoover was born, in 1874, in Iowa. In his boyhood
there and in Oregon he early developed an instinct for striking out on
his own account. To a large extent he worked his way. He went to
school, but learned much more from life itself and the struggles he had.
At 17 he entered the School of Mines at Stanford University, where he
not only supported himself but was always loaning money to friends.
At 21 he graduated and went out with the Geological Survey. One year
later he was appointed assistant manager of two large Australian mines,
and his work there was so successful that in 1897 he was chosen by the
great British mining firm of Bewick, Moreing & Co. to become their
chief of staff in western Australia. He held that position for three years.

Then the Chinese Government asked him to take charge of its bureau
of mines ; and a year later he became general manager of a Belgian cor-
poration there. During the Boxer rebellion Hoover worked a machine
gun Soon after that he was made a partner of Bewrck, Moreing & Co.
and director of their mining activities. He was still but 28 years old.

Living in London his work now took him far and wide. "In Russia,"
said a friend of his, " I went with him to a mining region he was
directing in the Ural Mountains. This property was larger than Belgium,
It took us several hours by train, and many days more in sledges ovel?
snow and ice, to inspect it all. One reason for his success in this project
was the way he treated the Russians. They did not care for foreigners,
who had always treated them with varying degrees of contempt. Hoover
did the opposite. He took the Russian ways of work and whenever
possible made them his own. He cooperated in every way, and they
had soon taken him as their friend. And this is typical of him. He has
always somehow or other turned each obstacle to his use."

In his hospitable London home he has led a simple life. He is no
society man at all ; his manners are far from " finished," and small talk
bores him to extinction. He seldom tells funny stories himself, though
he likes to hear them. When he plays bridge he plays it hard. When he
has a day off he likes to motor with his family out into the country,
build a fire, and cook in the open. Another dissipation of his is the
reading of detective stories. In these he takes a huge delight. But the
rest of Hoover's life is work. At times he labors day and night. " When
you're with him on a job," said a friend, " you can call him up at 1 a. m.
and he won't appear in the least annoyed." The same is true of his
reading. He reads hard and grows absorbed. He has a passion for
histories and biographies of all kinds.

By sheer work he has made himself a decidedly forcible writer. His
book the Principles of Mining gives in a clear, simple style the methods
he himself used to rise. And his other achievement in this line is the
translation of De Re Metallica, an old book on metals and mining,
written in 1530 by Georg Agricola, a Saxon, who wrote in a doggrel
Latin that had defied the efforts of translators for over 400 years. In
slaving at this puzzle Hoover took a grim delight. For several years it
took his spare time. It was one of his ways of resting.

He was always quietly helping young engineers to get a start. His
house was always open to them. As for outsiders in need of assistance,
whoever asked Hoover for money was asked, in turn, for his name and
address, and these were promptly sent to an officer of the Salvation
Army whom Hoover employed to look up such appeals. He was a gen-
erous giver — but always, first, he had to be shown. He often helped the
Salvation Army ; but to other large organized charities or social work
of any kind he had given little thought or time except when approached
for funds.

Such was Hoover's _early life — a swift, almost miraculous rise. In
1914 he was living in London, wealthy and successful, though but in
his fortieth year. The fees he received as an engineer amounted to
hundreds of thousands of dollars. He was known among miners all over
the world. It had been a ruthless, fighting world of big mining opera-
tions and finance on an international scale. He had not lived the sort
of life that is very likely to make a man kind.

Then came the war. On the morning of August 4, 1014, the American
consul in London called Hoover on the telephone. " Mr. Hoover," he
said, "there's a mob of American citizens here, trying to change letters
of credit, bank drafts, and express orders for English gold. And we re
swamped ! For God's sake come over and help up out !
2736—17729

14

GETTING FUNDS FOR PENNILESS TOURISTS.

Hoover went over and got to work. He telephoned to all his
friends: "How much money have you in your safes? Get all the cash
you can raise at once ; get in at the back doors of the hanks. Get it
anyway short of larceny." These friends responded to his call. They
raised about $1200,000. The Government loaned the same amount.
And, through their efforts, in two months 45,000 Americans were sent
safely home.

Meantime, over in Belgium things were getting desperate. Seven and
a half million people were facing starvation ; and Hoover was asked to
handle the work of relief in Belgium and northern France. At once he
called together a few big, able Americans, most of them engineers like
himself : and they lost no time in getting to work. The first day they
had three rooms — the second day, a dozen.

Their office was organized with a speed that made old England gasp
for breadth. As a rule, it took two weeks at least for the Government
telephone company to install a telephone. In this office it was done
overnight, with a switchboard and dozens of instruments. And they
thanked the company in a way that has won its devotion ever since.
Meantime Hoover had organized. He had sent one man to arrange for
ships, and another over to Rotterdam to make ready to transport the
supplies from there into Belgium. Others were already buying food.

Hoover's way is to do things first and ask permission later. He and
his associates 'had only $500,000 promised from the English Govern-
ment. But, with this in sight, they arranged to place orders every week
for $2,000,000 worth of food ! They purchased food, got it to the
docks, chartered vessels, and loaded them. Then, when the hatches
were all closed, Hoover sought permission to make shipment. He went
before the proper official.

" Unless I get four shiploads of food to Belgium before the end of the
week those people will starve," he said.

The high official deeply regretted his inability to aid him. The food
could not be purchased ; the railroads were choked with munitions of
war ; the ships were all under Government orders. Hoover heard him to
the end.

" I have attended to all that," he said. " The ships are loaded and
ready. All I need now is clearance papers."

The official stared at him.

" Young man," he said, " there have been men sent to the Tower for
less than you have done here. If it were anyone else, or for any other
'cause, I hate to think what might happen."

The ships sailed a few hours later. So the work of the C. R. B. began.

" We had thought initially," Hoover said, " that so terrible a situa-
tion could exist only for days ; that we must find a few millions of
dollars. -But within a month we realized that we were confronted with
a task not merely over days but months, and an expenditure far beyond
the dreams of any relief hitherto known."

FFEDING THE HUNGRY.

He appealed to the French and English Governments for immense ap-
propriations ; and meantime, in tactful cooperation with native leaders
over in Belgium and northern France, Hoover and his American friends
began to bring order out of chaos. The generous men who intended to
help only for days or weeks stayed on for years. Hoover's spirit held
them there. The number of these volunteers swelled to 50,000. Some
200 were Americans ; the rest were French and Belgians. Thousands
labored day and night, and practically all served without pay. The
overhead charges of the commission have been six-tenths of 1 per
cent ; for there was a great cause and a great leader here. And week by
week and month by month there grew up a vast intricate organization,
with some 4,000 committees all over the world raising money and pur-
chasing supplies, and in Belgium and northern France a carefully
worked-out system of over 4,000 other committees, large and small, rest-
ing at the bottom upon a group in every commune, with a small ware-
house from which food and clothing were issued upon ration cards.

There were soup kitchens, baby canteens where 400,000 babies got spe-
cial food. In addition 1,200,000 school children got a special meal each
day to help check the rapid and ominous spread of tuberculosis among
them. This meal cost a million and a quarter dollars a month ; but,
even so, it did not go far. The public health had to be carefully watched.
There had to be rigid control of the distribution of all supplies, both
native and imported. Justice must be done to all. Fertilizers and seeds
must be found. By the decrease of these and of live stock the native
supplies now swiftly declined. The problem grew harder every month.
Always more money must be secured ; always new remedies must be
found.

Nor was it only a problem of feeding. One-half of the Belgians were
out of work : and there were the regular paupers — the blind, the
orphans, and the helpless. Three million five hundred thousand people
2736—177^0

15

in Belgium and 2,000,000 more in northern France were wholly desti-
tute. They must be -clothed with millions of garments, warmed by
thousands of tons of cool ; and those who were homeless must be
housed. New committees constantly had to be formed. In the pres-
ence of diminished shipping the inward flow of food must increase. It
must be done cheaply "an.' without fail. And, in order to save every
possible dollar, only those kinds of food must be bought that would give
the greatest nourishment. This they learned from expert dietitians.

But, as to purchasing supplies, there were big men on the C. R. B.
who needed no expert advice. They knew all the tricks of the. business.
When the price of beans began to rise they bought 1,000 tons of beans
and threw them back in one lot on the market. Down went prices.
They bought in sma<l lots. Slowly again the price began rising; but
once more the terrific impact of 1,000 tons of beans was felt. Again
the price dropped, and again their agents bought beans in small lots.

So again and again did that same thousand tons of beans hammer
down prices and save the day. The same was true wherever they went.
In food and in shoes and clothing repeatedly, through expert advice
of business men as shrewd as themselves, they went into the market
and bought at cost, and often below it.

They employed some 70 cargo ships flying the flag of the C. R. B.
They used hundreds of fugs and canal boats and railroad cars. They
operated not only warehouses but large mills and factories. And they
distributed every month 220,000,000 pounds of bread, 20,000,000 pounds
of bacon and lard, 5,000,000 tins of condensed milk, beans, corn,
coffee, sugar, and thousands of tons of other supplies. Each month
their dependents consumed the wheat product of nearly 200,000 acres.
The commission expended $14,000,000 every month, and made every
dollar count. Hoover was in full action now.

But, despite all these resources and these Herculean efforts, " We
were haunted in every dark hour," he says, " by the grim tragedy of
possible failure ; for we never saw a timq when our finances were cer-
tain for 60 days ahead, or a time when our contracts did not exceed
our assets from five million to twenty million dollars." They went
begging to the world, and at first the response was promising.

" In a moment of desperation," he writes, "I assessed the miners of
Australia, where I had had a connection lor years. I told them wliat
they ought to give, and I received in two months $750,000 for Belgium
from a country already combed to the bottom for relief and distress
work. We appealed to the miners of Johannesburg, and the laborers
in the mines gave 10 per cent of their wages, and the owners dupli-
cated the amount."

THE OLD LADIES' GIFT.

So it was in other parts of the world. There were responses large and
small. A letter from two old ladies in England inclosed 12 silver
buttons, which they had cut from their best gowns. They said it was
all they had to give. Hoover replied, I was told by a friend, to this
effect :

" DEAR LADIES : It is not necessary yet to permit such sacrifice as
yours. Your action has led one of us here to contribute £10 to the
Belgian cause. So what you have done was not in vain. I return your
buttons — all except one, which, if you will alow me, I shall keep as .a
reminder that there are people like you in the world."

But there were not enough people like that, it seemed. And for its
work the C. R. B. has been driven to count more and more on the
French and British Governments. Of the $250,000,000 spent in the
work more than four-fifths has come from them or from their banks and
has been debited to the Belgian nation or to the communes and munici-
palities in northern France that have received its benefits.

Hoover soon won such implicit trust from the French and British
Governments that they asked for no accounting. They put their money
in his hands and simply told him to go ahead.

But Hoover did not do business that way. Before many months he
had organized an immense and tortuous system of bureaus of account-
ing, audit, statistics, find inspection covering the whole range of their
work from New York and Buenos Aires to the last village in northern
France.

" The monument of our efficiency," he said, " lies in the fact that the
bread sold in Belgium to those whp can pay has always been from 15
to 20 per cent cheaper than in New York City.J)

From such a record Hoover's fame spread over Europe far and wide.
All the Governments of the allies were soon seeking his counsel in re-
gard to the pressing food problems they had at home. And in Germany
when Herr Batocki was made the food dictator there he was prompt in
asking Hoover's advice.

Hoover's relation with Germany made the most difficult part of his
task. In the life he has led for nearly three years, in London and in
2736—17729

16

Paris, in Holland and in Belgium, foremost among the chaos of tasks
was the anxiety of dealing each d;\y Avith an occupying army, with
arbitrary methods and everchanging rules and laws. He had to nego-
tiate and maintain international agreements for the protection of foods
and ships ; for guaranties that his supplies should not be consumed by
the invaders. It required tact and dogged persistence.

At first the Germans could not understand him. He did not fit into
their scheme of things. His Kultur was not the same, and he had no
Schreckliehket at all — except his Yankee stubbornness. At last, how-
ever, they trusted him. They could not let the Belgians die, and here
was relief work free of charge.

His businesslike ways appealed to them. Individual German officers
became his warm friends and gave him support, and their Government
gradually came into line, lie still had his troubles, but overcame them.
When one of his ships was torpedoed Hoover took a trip to Berlin,
where; he wa,s solemnly assured that it would never happen again.

" Your excellency," he said to the German, " there was a man once whj)
was annoyed by a snarling dog. He went to see the owner and asked him
to muzzle the dog. 'There is no need of that,' said the owner, 'the
dog will never bite you.' ' Maybe,' said the man. ' You know the dog
will not bite me. I know the dog will not bite me. But does the dog
know? ' "

" Pardon me one moment, Herr Hoover. I Avill telephone at once
to the dog."

Hoover's parable got action.

That was over two years ago, and there came a respite from subma-
rines. There were other troubles, but he stood his ground. He tried
to talk to the German officials as though he had behind him an America
ready to rise to a man. But the Germans refused to believe it.

They knew that, in spite of all the appeals Hoover had made to this
country, we had contributed to his cause less than 4 per cent of the total
amount. And this notAvithstanding the fact that his commission had
spent more than $150,000,000 here in the purchase of supplies ! Our
profits out of the Belgian relief had been $30,000,000 at leasr. We had
given $9,000,000 in return. And Hoover felt this deeply.

" Time and time again." he has stated, " Avhen the door of Belgium
threatened to close Ave defended its portals by the assertion that this
was an American enterprise, and that the sensibilities of the American
people would bo Avounded beyond measure — would be outraged — if its
work Avcre interfered with.

But the Germans scoffed at this idea. In one crisis with a high
official, Avhen Hoover had made a \*eiled threat of this kind, the official
responded as i'olloAvs :

" Mr. IIooA'er, I Avill grant your request — not on account of your
country, but on account of you and your friends, a small group of
eccentric gentlemen Avho happen to be of American birth. You have
worked miracles here in Belgium and the Avorld will not forget you.
But don't speak to me of America ; for it ?.s not behind you. Your
country cares for nothing on earth but money, Avar profits — -only that."

In sizing up other countries, however, Germany has not been strong.
And as the causes have piled up and the great issue has grown clear —
democracy or tyranny — the nation despised by the German official
has at last roused to the summons and taken, with its free allies, the
great road that leads to a liberal world.

And so Hoover has been called back home to lead us in that part
of our task which is perhaps most pressing now. He is coming to
the aid of pur Department of Agriculture with the most careful and
comprehensiA^e kuoAvledge of all such problems as Ave must solve, gath-
ered not only from his OAVII Avork, but from all that he has observed of
similar ATast operations in the countries of the allies.

Moreover, before coming home he took nearly a month for consul-
tation Avith members of the British, Fr-ench, and Italian ministries,
and for an accurate survey of the food and shipping situation. And
the groundAvork has been laid for interallied cooperation in handling
and transporting the vast food supplies required from us.

As to the great cause at stake and to the Germany he has known,
Hoover has had this to say :

"For tAvo and a half years AVC have been obliged to remain silent
Avitr.osscs of the character of the forces dominating this Avar. But
AVO arc now at liberty to say that, though we break with great regret
our association with many Gorman indiA7iduals, yet it is our convic-
tion, born of our intimate expedience and contact, that there is no hope
for democracy or liberalism, and consequently for the real peace and
safety of our country, unless the system which brought the Avorld
into this unfathomable misery is stamped out, once and for all."
2736—1772!)

O