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 established primarily for the sake of stimulating an imperatively needed increased production. In the second place the assurance of the Food Administration given to the growers in November, 1917, that it would do what it could to maintain the 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. Besides 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 restrictions. 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 corn and difficulty. 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 a 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 turn 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 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 assuming some share in this "decentralized administration." If we had not all become Federal Food Administrators of states, or county, or city, or rural sub-food administrators, or even members of food conservation committees or members of honor ration leagues, we were all at least, household food administrators. 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 administration right down to each one of us.