Herbert Hoover: The Man and His WorkKellogg, Vernon L. (Vernon Lyman)
History
Herbert Hoover: The Man and His Work
Kellogg, Vernon L. (Vernon Lyman)
Hoover, Herbert, 1874-1964; World War, 1914-1918 -- Food supply
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 personally helping to win the war, which was a
psychological contribution of great importance to the Government's
efforts 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 suggested by the contents of a cablegram which Lord
Rhondda, the English Food Controller, 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 first,
and in addition to the total exportable surplus from Canada, I
cannot take the responsibility 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 staff 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 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 American people save from
their normal consumption. 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 threatened breakdown of the Allied war
effort 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 exports he had been able to make to the
Allies. It was, of course, primarily for the sake of providing 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 features in the general program of food
administration that were pushed primarily for the sake of our own
people.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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