Before actual relief work could be intelligently 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 investigating missions were sent out in December, 1918, and January, 1919, to all of the suffering countries. Hoover had quickly gathered about him, 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 officers, 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 "wait." There were a thousand considerations of old-time diplomacy, of present and future political and commercial considerations in their minds. They were conferring with each other and referring back to their governments for instructions and then conferring again. Common sense and necessity were being restrained by political sensitiveness and inertia. In Hoover's mind one thing was perfectly clear. Time was of the essence of his contract. Every day of delay meant more difficulty. The Eastern countries, struggling to find themselves in the chaos of disorganization, waiting for an official 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 immediately the time for help. It was like that pitiful period after the battle when the bloody field is taken over by the stretcher-bearers, the Red Cross nurses, and the tireless surgeons. So Hoover had already clearly in mind that the hand of charity was going to be extended to the sufferers 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 Switzerland to get into close touch with the situation in Eastern and Central Europe, listened, for him, in Berne to the pitiful pleas of the representatives 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. Taylor and I were reporting the German situation from Berlin.