The Food Administration's task was to awaken millions of families to recognize the necessity of food conservation, to educate millions of producers to maximum effort, and to banish greed from the business of thousands of distributors. The last presented the greatest difficulty. Yet the readiness of dealers to be content with living-profit margins and to increase efficiency, the eagerness of commission men to discourage all speculation and to help constructively in effecting adequate deliveries on full cars, and the assurances of most distributors that they would aid in bringing recalcitrants into subjection, promised that the problem was not impossible of solution. Profiteering had been one of the banes of the war in Europe, and the Government sought to check this rapacious method of using war conditions to acquire ill-gotten gains by traders who preyed upon public necessities. Mr. Hoover thus presented the situation in the autumn of 1917: "There is plenty of food in this country, and our problem is one of surplus and not a deficit. This does not mean that we can send to the Allies all they need, for there is not enough when considered from the war point of view. The wheat we export will be the direct amount that the people save out of their bread, for we have shipped our surplus and must keep the bread supply for the country. We will ship wheat or flour from month to month, but such shipments will not be allowed except our supply warrants them. Through conservation we are gaining a 20 per cent. surplus of wheat. This means literally that every one who saves a slice of bread is giving a slice of bread to our Allies. We are consuming 20 per cent. less wheat than last year." According to Mr. Hoover, the Allies' wheat requirements from the United States amounted to 210,000,000 bushels. The country's production of wheat in 1916 was 670,000,000 bushels, of which 590,000,000 bushels was consumed at home, leaving only 80,000,000 bushels available for export. There were thus 130,000,000 bushels to be found to fulfill the Allies' needs, that is, by saving that much from the normal consumption of flour by the people. The Food Administration found a spokesman in President Wilson, who, in a proclamation, called on the people at large to observe more wheatless days, and on wheat traders to curtail their stocks and sales.