THE RELIEF OF BELGIUM; SCOPE AND METHODS
I have dropped the thread of my tale. Our narrative of the organization
of the Commission for Relief in Belgium had brought us only to the time
when the Commission was actually ready to work, and we have leaped to
the very end of those bitter hard four years. We must make a fresh
start.
First, then, as to money. And to understand about the money it is
necessary to understand the two-phased character of the relief of
Belgium. There was the phase of _ravitaillement_, the constant
provisioning of the whole land; and the phase of _secours_, the special
care of the destitute and the ill and the children.
The ring of steel did not immediately make beggars of all the Belgians
enclosed within it. Many of them still had money. But, as I have already
said, the Germans would not allow any of this money to go out. It could
buy only what was in Belgium. And as Belgium could produce only about
half the food it needed to keep its people alive, and only one fourth of
the particular kind of foodstuffs that were necessary for bread, and as
it was arranged, by control of the mills and bakeries, that these
bread-grains should be evenly distributed among all the people, it meant
that even though banker this or baron that might have money to buy much
more, he could really buy, with all his money, only one fourth as much
bread as he needed. There had to be, in other words, a constant bringing
in of enough wheat and flour to supply three fourths of the bread-needs
of the whole country, and another large fraction of the necessary fats
and milk and rice and beans and other staples. This was the
_ravitaillement_.
But even with the food thus brought in there were many persons, and as
the days and months and years passed they increased to very many, who
had no money to buy this food. They were the destitute, the families of
the hundreds of thousands of men thrown out of work by the destruction
of the factories and the cessation of all manufacturing and commerce.
And there were the Government employees, the artists, the lace-making
women and girls, and a whole series of special kinds of wage-earners,
with all wages suddenly stopped. To all these the food had to be given
without pay. This was the _secours_.
To obtain the food from America and Argentina and India and wherever
else it could be found a constant supply of money in huge amounts was
necessary. Hoover realized from the beginning that no income from
charity alone could provide it. His first great problem was to assure
the Commission of means for the general _ravitaillement_. He solved the
problem but it took time. In the meanwhile the pressure for immediate
relief was strong. He began to buy on the credit of a philanthropic
organization which had so far no other assets than the private means of
its chairman and his friends.
The money, as finally arranged for, came from government subventions
about equally divided between England and France, in the form of loans
to the Belgian Government, put into the hands of the Commission. Later
when the United States came into the war, this country made all the
advances. Altogether nearly a billion dollars were spent by the C. R. B.
for supplies and their transportation, at an overhead expense of a
little more than one half of one per cent. This low overhead is a record
in the annals of large philanthropic undertaking, and is a measure of
the voluntary service of the organization and of its able management.
For the _secours_, fifty million dollars worth of gifts in money, food
and clothing were collected by the Commission from the charitable people
of America and Great Britain. The Belgians themselves inside the
country, the provinces, cities, and well-to-do individuals, added, under
the stimulus of the tragic situation and under the direction of the
great Belgian National Committee, hundreds of millions of francs to the
_secours_ funds. Also the Commission and the Belgian National Committee
arranged that a small profit should be charged on all the food sold to
the Belgians who could pay for it, and this profit, which ran into
millions of dollars, was turned into the funds for benevolence. All
this created an enormous sum for the _secours_, which was the real
"relief," as benevolence. And this enormous sum was needed, for by the
end of the war nearly one-half of all the imprisoned population of over
seven million Belgians and two and a half million French were receiving
their daily bread wholly or partly on charity. Actually one half of the
inhabitants of the great city of Antwerp were at one time in the daily
soup and bread lines.
Of the money and goods for benevolence that came from outside sources
more than one third came from England and the British Dominions--New
Zealand gave more money per capita for Belgian relief than any other
country--while the rest came chiefly from the United States, a small
fraction coming from other countries. The relief collections in Great
Britain were made by a single great benevolent organization called the
"National Committee for Relief in Belgium." This Committee, under the
chairmanship of the Lord Mayor of London and the active management of
Sir William Goode as secretary and Sir Arthur Shirley Benn as
treasurer, conducted an impressive continuous campaign of propaganda and
solicitation of funds with the result of obtaining about $16,000,000
with which to purchase food and clothing for the Belgian destitute.
But in the United States the C. R. B. itself directly managed the
campaign for charity, using its New York office as organizing and
receiving headquarters. Part of the work was carried by definitely
organized state committees in thirty-seven states and by scattered local
committees in almost every county and large city in the country. Ohio,
for example, had some form of local organization in eighty out of the
eighty-eight counties in the state, and California had ninety local
county and city committees all reporting to the central committee.
The American campaign was different from the English one in that instead
of asking for money alone, the call was made, at first, chiefly for
outright gifts of food, the Commission offering to serve, in connection
with this benevolence, as a great collecting, transporting and
distributing agency. This resulted in the accumulation of large
quantities of foodstuffs of a wide variety of kinds, much of it in the
nature of delicacies and luxuries and most of it put up in small
packages. Tens of thousands of these packages were sent over to Belgium,
but the cry came back from the Commission's workers there that food in
this shape was very difficult to handle in any systematic way. It was
quickly evident that what was really needed was large consignments in
bulk of a few kinds of staple and concentrated foods, which could be
shipped in large lots to the various principal distribution centers in
Belgium and thence shipped in smaller lots to the secondary or local
centers, and there handed out on a definite ration plan.
A number of states very early concentrated their efforts on the loading
and sending of "state food ships." California sent the _Camino_ in
December, 1914, and in the same month Kansas sent the _Hannah_ loaded
with flour contributed by the millers of the state. In January and
March, 1915, two Massachusetts relief ships, the _Harpalyce_ (sunk by
torpedo or mine on a later relief voyage) and _Lynorta_, sailed. Oregon
and California together sent the _Cranley_ in January, 1915, loaded with
food and clothing, and several other similar state ships were sent at
later dates. A gift from the Rockefeller Foundation of a million dollars
was used to load wholly or in part five relief ships, and the "Millers'
Belgian Relief" movement organized and carried through by the editor of
the Northwestern Millers, Mr. W. C. Edgar, resulted in the contribution
of a full cargo of flour, valued at over $450,000, which left
Philadelphia for Rotterdam in February, 1915, in the steamer _South
Point_. The cargo was accompanied by the organizer of the charity, who
was able to see personally the working of the methods of the C. R. B.
inside of Belgium and the actual distribution of his own relief cargo.
His Good Samaritan ship was sunk by a German submarine on her return
trip, but fortunately the philanthropist was not on her. He returned by
a passenger liner, and was able to tell the people of America what was
needed in Belgium, and what America was doing and could further do to
help meet the need.
Later, when it became necessary to obtain food from other primary
markets in addition to those of America, appeal was specifically made
for gifts of money in place of goods. In response to this call various
large gifts from wealthy individual donors were made, among them one of
$210,000, another of $200,000, and several of $100,000 each, and various
large donations came from the efforts of special organizations, notably
the Daughters of the American Revolution, the New York Chamber of
Commerce, the Cardinal Gibbons' Fund from the Catholic children of
America, the Dollar Christmas Fund organized by Mr. Henry Clews, the
"Belgian Kiddies, Ltd.," fund, organized by Hoover's brother mining
engineers of the country, and, largest of all, the Literary Digest fund
of more than half a million dollars collected by the efforts of Mr. R.
J. Cuddihy, editor of the Digest, in sums ranging from a few pennies to
thousands of dollars from children and their parents all over the land.
By far the greater part of the money that came to the Commission through
state committees or through special organizations, or directly from
individuals to the New York office, was made up from small sums
representing millions of individual givers. And it was a beautiful and
an important thing that it was so. The giving not only helped to save
Belgium from starvation of the body, but it helped to save America from
starvation of the soul. The incidents, pathetic, inspiring, noble,
connected with the giving, gave us tears and smiles and heart thrills
and thanksgiving for the revelation of the human love of humanity in
those neutral days of a distressing pessimism.
But finding the money and food and clothing was but the first great
problem for the resourceful C. R. B. chairman to solve. Next came the
serious problem of transportation, both overseas and internal. Ships
were in pressing demand; they constantly grew fewer in number because of
the submarine sinkings, and yet the Commission had constant need of more
and more. Some way Hoover and his associates of the New York and London
offices got what it was necessary to have, but it was only by a
continuous and wearing struggle. Altogether the C. R. B. delivered seven
hundred and forty full ship cargoes and fifteen hundred part cargoes of
relief food and clothing into its landing port, Rotterdam. The seventy
ships under constant charter as a regular C. R. B. fleet crossed the
seas under guarantees from both the Allies and Germany of
non-molestation by sea raiders or submarines. A few accidents happened,
but not more than twenty cargoes were totally or partly lost at sea.
Most of the losses came from mines, but a few came from torpedoes fired
by German submarines which either did not or would not see the C. R. B.
markings on the ships. The signals were plain--conspicuous fifty-foot
pennants flying from the mast-heads, great cloth banners stretching
along the hull on either side, a large house flag, wide deck cloths, and
two huge red-and-white-striped signal balls eight feet in diameter at
the top of the masts. All these flags and cloths were white, carrying
the Commission's name or initials (C. R. B.) in great red letters.
Despite all these, a few too eager or too brutal submarine commanders
let fly their torpedoes at these ships of mercy.
Hoover's most serious time in connection with the overseas
transportation, and the most critical period as regards supplies in the
whole course of the relief was just after the putting into effect by the
Germans, in February, 1917, of the unrestricted submarining of all boats
found in the so-called prohibited ocean zones. These zones covered all
of the waters around the United Kingdom, including all of the English
Channel and North Sea. This cut us off entirely from any access to
Rotterdam from the West or North. But it also cut Holland off. And
between our pressure and that of Holland the German authorities finally
arranged for a narrow free, or "safe," north-about route extending from
the Dutch coast north to near the Norwegian coast, thence northwest to
the Faroe Islands, and thence west to the Atlantic beyond the barred
zone. At one point this "safe" zone was only twenty miles wide between
the German and English mine-fields in the North Sea and any ship getting
a few rods across the line either east or west was in great danger from
mines and was exposed to being torpedoed without warning. Imagine the
state of mind of a skipper who had not seen the sun for three or four
days in a North Sea fog, trying to make out his position accurately
enough by dead reckoning to keep his boat in that "safe" channel.
But even this generous concession to the Commission and Holland was not
arranged until March 15, and in the six weeks intervening between
February 1 and this time we did not land a single cargo in Rotterdam.
Belgium suffered in body and was nearly crazed in mind as we and the
Belgian relief heads scraped the very floors of our warehouses for the
last grains of wheat.
Another almost equally serious interruption in the food deliveries had
occurred in the preceding summer (July, 1916), when, without a whisper
of warning, Governor General von Bissing's government suddenly tied up
our whole canal-boat fleet by an order permitting no Belgian-owned canal
boat--although chartered by us--to pass out from Belgium into Holland
without depositing the full value of the boat in money before crossing
the frontier. The Governor General had reason to fear, he said, that
some of the boats that went out would not come back, and he was going to
lose no Belgian property subject to German seizure without full
compensation. As the boats were worth, roughly, about $5,000 each, and
we were using about 500 boats it would have tied up two and a half
million dollars of our money to meet this demand, and tied it up in
German hands! We simply could not do it. So we began negotiations.
Oh, the innumerable beginnings of negotiations, and oh, the interminable
enduring of negotiations, the struggling against form and "system,"
against obstinate and cruel delay--for delay in food matters in Belgium
was always cruel--and sometimes against sheer brutality! How often did
we long to say: Here, take these ten million people and feed them or
starve them as you will! We quit. We can't go on fighting your floating
mines and too eager submarines, your brutal soldiers and more brutal
bureaucrats. Live up to your agreements to help us, or at least do not
obstruct us; or, if you won't, then formally and officially and
publicly before the world kick us out as your arch-jingo, Reventlow,
demands.
But we could not say it; we could not risk it; it was too certain to be
starving rather than feeding. So we did not say it, but went on with the
negotiations. In this particular case of the canal boats we finally
compromised by putting up the value of five boats. If one did not come
back the Germans were to take out its value and we were to replace the
money so as to keep the pot full. Of course all the boats did come back,
and now the Belgians and not the Germans have them.
Thus, guarded by guarantees and recognition marks, there came regularly,
and mostly safely, across wide oceans and through the dangerous
mine-strewn Channel or around the Faroe Islands, the rice from Rangoon,
corn from Argentina, beans from Manchuria, and wheat and meat and fats
from America at the rate of a hundred thousand tons a month through all
the fifty months of the relief. At Rotterdam these precious cargoes were
swiftly transhipped into sealed canal boats--a fleet of 500 of them
with 35 tugs for towing was in service--and hurried on through the
canals of Holland and across the guarded border, and then on to the
great central depots in Belgium, and from there again by smaller canal
boats and railway cars and horse-drawn carts under all the difficulties
of carrying things anywhere in a land where anything and everything
available for transport was subject to requisition at any time by an
all-controlling military organization, to the local warehouses and
soup-kitchens of every one of the 5,000 Belgian and French communes in
the occupied territory. And always and ever through all the months and
despite all difficulties on water or land the food had to come _in
time_. This was the transportation undertaking of Hoover's C. R. B.
Finally when the food was brought to the end of its journeying it had to
be protected from hungry Germans and divided fairly among hungry
Belgians. Always the world asked: But don't the Germans get the food?
and it still asks: Yes, didn't they? Our truthful answer then and now
is: No. And you need not take our answer alone. Ask the British and
French foreign offices. They knew almost as much as we did of what was
going on inside of the steel ring around Belgium and occupied France.
Their intelligence services were wonderful. Remember the guarantees of
the German government to us and our protecting ministers and
ambassadors, the diplomatic representatives of neutral America and Spain
and Holland. The orders of von Bissing and the General Staff were
explicit. Official German placards forbidding seizure or interference by
German soldiers or officials were on all the canal boats and railway
cars and horse carts and on all the warehouses used by the Commission.
Of course there were always minor infractions but there were no great
ones. The Germans after the early days of wholesale seizure during the
invasion and first few months after it, got but a trifling amount of
food out of Belgium and almost none of it came from the imported
supplies. Every Belgian was a detective for us in this ceaseless watch
for German infractions and we had our own vigilant service of
"Inspection and Control" by keen-eyed young Americans moving
ceaselessly all over the country and ever checking up consumption and
stocks against records of importation.
And this brings us to the American organization inside of Belgium. The
New York and London and Rotterdam C. R. B. offices had their
hard-working American staffs and all important duties but it was those
of us inside the ring that really saw Belgian relief in its pathetic and
inspiring details. We were the ones who saw Belgian suffering and
bravery, and who were privileged to work side by side with the great
native relief organization with its complex of communal and regional and
provincial committees, and at its head, the great Comite National, most
ably directed by Emile Francqui, whom Hoover had known in China.
Thirty-five thousand organized Belgians gave their volunteer service to
their countrymen from beginning to end of the long occupation. And many
thousands more were similarly engaged in unofficial capacity. We saw the
splendid work of the women of Belgium in their great national
organizations, the "Little Bees," the "Drop of Milk," the "Discreet
Assistance," and all the rest. My wife, who was inside with us, has
tried to tell the story of the women of Belgium in another book, but as
she rightly says: "The story of Belgium will never be told. That is the
word that passes oftenest between us. No one will ever by word of mouth
or in writing give it to others in its entirety, or even tell what he
himself has seen and felt."
But the Americans inside know it. Its details will be their ineffaceable
memories. It is a misfortune that so few Americans could share this
experience. For we were never more than thirty-five or forty at a time;
the Germans tried to limit us to twenty-five. We were always, in their
eyes, potential spies. But we did no spying. We were too busy doing what
Herbert Hoover had us there to do. Also we had promised not to spy. But
it was a hard struggle to maintain the correctly neutral behavior which
we were under obligation to do. And when the end of this strain came,
which was when America entered the War, and the inside Americans had to
go out, they all, almost to a man, rushed to the trenches to make their
protest, with gun in hand, against German Kultur as it had been
exemplified under their eyes in Belgium.
Altogether about two hundred Americans represented the C. R. B. at
various times inside of Belgium. They were mostly young university men,
representing forty different American colleges and universities in their
allegiance. A group of twenty Rhodes Scholars whom Hoover hurriedly
recruited from Oxford at the beginning of the work was the pioneer lot.
All of these two hundred were selected for intelligence, honor,
discretion, and idealism. They had to be able, or quickly learn, to
speak French. They had to be adaptable and capable of carrying delicate
and large responsibility. They were a wonderful lot and they helped
prove the fact that either the American kind of university education, or
the American inheritance of mental and moral qualities, or the two
combined, can justly be a source of American self-congratulation.
They were patient and long-suffering under difficulties and provocation.
Ted Curtis, whose grandfather was George William, did, on the occasion
of his seventeenth unnecessary arrest by German guards, express his
opinion of his last captor in what he thought was such pure Americanese
as to be safely beyond German understanding. But when his captor dryly
responded in an equally pure argot: "Thanks, old man, the same to
youse," he resolved to take all the rest in silence. And it was only
after the third stripping to the skin in a cold sentry post that Robert
W., a college instructor, made a mild request to the C. R. B. director
in Brussels to ask von Bissing's staff to have their rough-handed
sleuths conduct their examinations in a warmer room.
The relation of the few Americans in Belgium to the many Belgian relief
workers was that of advisors, inspectors and final authorities as to the
control and distribution of the food. The Americans were all too few to
hand the food out personally to the hosts in the soup lines, at the
communal kitchens, and in the long queues with rations cards before the
doors of the bakeries and the communal warehouses. They could not
personally manage the children's canteens, the discreet assistance to
the "ashamed poor," who could not bring themselves to line up for the
daily soup and bread, nor the cheap restaurants where meals were served
at prices all the way from a fourth to three fourths of their cost. The
Belgians did all this, but the Americans were a seeing, helping,
advising, and when necessary, finally controlling part of it all.
The mills and bakeries were all under the close control of the
Commission and the Belgian National Committee. The sealed canal boats
were opened only under the eyes of the Americans. The records of every
distributing station were constantly checked by the Americans. They sat
at all the meetings of National and Provincial and Regional committees.
They raced about the country in all weathers and over all kinds of roads
in their much-worn open motor-cars, specially authorized and constantly
watched and frequently examined by the Germans, each car carrying the
little triangular white and red-lettered C. R. B. flag, that flapped
encouragement as it passed, to all the hat-doffing Belgians.
I am constantly asked: What were Hoover's personal duties and work in
the relief days? It is a question one cannot answer in two words. His
was all the responsibility, his the major planning, the resourceful
devising of ways out of difficulty, the generalship. But the details
were his also. He kept not only in closest touch with every least as
well as greatest phase of the work, but took a personal active part in
seeing everything through. Constant conferences with the Allied foreign
offices and treasuries, and personal inspection of the young men sent
over from America as helpers; swift movements between England and France
and Belgium and Germany and America, and trips in the little motor
launch about the harbor at Rotterdam examining the warehouses and food
ships and floating elevators and canal boats; these were some of his
contrasting activities through day following day in all the months and
years of the relief.
Hoover had to make his headquarters in London at the Commission's
central office. Here he could keep constantly in touch by cable and
post with the offices in New York, Rotterdam, and Brussels. The Brussels
office was allowed to send and receive German-censored mail three times
a week by way of Holland, and we could do a limited amount of censored
telegraphing to Rotterdam over the German and Dutch wires and thence to
London by English-censored cable. But Hoover came regularly every few
weeks to Brussels, taking his chances with mines and careless
submarines. These were no slight chances. A Dutch line was allowed by
England and Germany to run a boat, presumably unmolested, two or three
times a week between Flushing and Thamesmouth. These jumpy little boats,
which carried passengers only--the hold was filled with closed empty
barrels lashed together to act as a float when trouble came--were the
only means of bringing our young American relief workers to Belgium and
of Hoover's frequent crossings. After seven of the ten boats belonging
to the line had been lost or seriously damaged by mines the thrifty
Dutch company suspended operation. We had then to cross secretly by
English dispatch boats, protected by destroyers and specially hunted by
German submarines.
On the occasion of one of Hoover's crossings two German destroyers lying
outside of Flushing harbor ordered the little Dutch boat to accompany
them to Zeebrugge for examination. This happened occasionally and was
always exciting for the passengers, especially for the diplomatic
couriers, who promptly dropped overboard their letter pouches, specially
supplied with lead weights and holes to let in the water and thus insure
prompt sinking. As the boat and convoying destroyers drew near to
Zeebrugge, shells or bombs began to drop on the water around them.
Hoover thought at first they were coming from English destroyers aiming
at the Germans. But he could see no English boats. Suddenly an explosion
came from the water's surface near the boat and the man standing next to
him fell with his face smashed by a bomb fragment. Hoover seized him and
dragged him around the deck-house to the other side of the boat. Another
bomb burst on that side. He then heard the whir of an airplane and
looking up saw several English bombing planes. Their intention was
excellent, but their aim uncertain. The anti-aircraft guns of the German
destroyers soon drove them away, and the convoy came into Zeebrugge
harbor where the Dutch boat and passengers were inspected with German
thoroughness. On Hoover's identity being revealed by his papers, he was
treated with proper courtesy and after several of the passengers had
been taken off the boat it was allowed to go on its way to Tilbury.
Hoover enjoyed an extraordinary position in relation to the passport and
border regulations of all the countries in and out of which he had to
pass in his movements connected with the relief. He was given a freedom
in this respect enjoyed by no other man. He moved almost without
hindrance and undetained by formalities freely in and out of England,
France, Holland, occupied Belgium and France, and Germany itself, with
person and traveling bags unexamined. It was a concrete expression of
confidence in his integrity and perfect correctness of behavior, that
can only be fully understood by those who had to make any movements at
all across frontiers in the tense days of the war.
Governor General von Bissing once said to me in Brussels, apropos of
certain charges that had been brought to him by his intelligence staff
of a questionable behavior on the part of one of our men in
Belgium--charges easily proved to be unfounded: "I have entire
confidence in Mr. Hoover despite my full knowledge of his intimate
acquaintance and association with the British and French Government
officials and my conviction that his heart is with our enemies." As a
matter of fact Hoover always went to an unnecessary extreme in the way
of ridding himself of every scrap of writing each time he approached the
Holland-Belgium frontier. He preached absolute honesty, and gave a
continuous personal example of that honesty to all the C. R. B. men
inside the steel ring.
Each time he came to Brussels all of us came in from the provinces and
occupied France and gathered about him while he told us the news of the
outside world, and how things were going in the New York and London
offices. And then he would talk to us as a brother in the fraternity
and exhort us to forget our difficulties and our irritations and play
the game well and honestly for the sake of humanity and the honor of
America. After the group talks he would listen to the personal troubles,
and advise and help each man in his turn. People sometimes ask me why
Hoover has such a strong personal hold on all his helpers. The men of
the C. R. B. know why.
The Belgian relief and the American food administration and the later
and still continuing American relief of Eastern Europe have been called,
sometimes, in an apparently critical attitude, "one man" organizations.
If by that is meant that there was one man in each of them who was
looked up to with limitless admiration, relied on with absolute
confidence, and served with entire devotion by all the other men in
them, the attribution is correct. No man in any of these
organizations--and Hoover gathered about him the best he could get--but
recognized him as the natural leader. He was the "one man," not by
virtue of any official or artificial rank but by sheer personal
superiority in both constructive administrative capacity and effective
practical action.
Whenever Hoover came, he tried to keep his presence unknown except to us
and Minister Whitlock and the heads of the Belgian organization and the
German Government with whom he had to deal. He would not go, if he could
help it, to the soup lines and children's canteens. Like many another
man of great strength, he is a man of great sensitiveness. He cannot see
suffering without suffering himself. And he dislikes thanks. The
Belgians were often puzzled, sometimes hurt, by his avoidance of their
heart-felt expression of gratitude. Mr. Whitlock was always there and
had to be always accessible. So they could thank him and thank America
through him. But they rarely had opportunity to thank Hoover.
I remember, though, how their ingenuity baffled him once. He had slipped
in quietly, as usual, at dusk one evening by our courier automobile from
the Dutch border. But someone passed the word around that night. And all
the next day, and for the remaining few days of his stay there went on
a silent greeting and thanking of the Commission's chief by thousands
and thousands of visiting cards and messages that drifted like
snowflakes through the door of the Director's house; engraved cards with
warm words of thanks from the nobility and wealthy of Brussels; plainer,
printed ones from the middle class folk, and bits of writing paper with
pen or pencil-scrawled sentences on them of gratitude and blessing from
the "little people." My wife would heap the day's bringing on a table
before him each evening and he would finger them over curiously--and try
to smile.
When the Armistice had come the Belgian Government tried to thank him.
He would accept no decorations. But once again Belgian ingenuity
conquered. One day just after the cessation of the fighting he was
visiting the King and Queen at La Panne in their simple cottage in that
little bit of Belgium that the Germans never reached. After luncheon the
members of the Cabinet appeared; they had come by motors from Le Havre.
And before them all the King created a new order, without ribbon or
button or medal, and made Hoover its only member. He was simply but
solemnly ordained "Citizen of the Belgian Nation, and Friend of the
Belgian People."
I have spoken only of Belgium. But of the ten million in the occupied
regions for whom Hoover waged his fight against starvation, two and a
half million were in occupied France. Over in that territory things were
harder both for natives and Americans than in Belgium. Under the
rigorous control of a brutal and suspicious operating army both French
and Americans worked under the most difficult conditions that could be
imposed and yet allow the relief to go on at all.
The French population, too, was an especially helpless one, for all the
men of military age and qualifications had gone out as the Germans came
in. They had time and opportunity to do this; the Belgians had not. Each
American was under the special care--and eyes--of a German escort
officer. He could only move with him at his side, could only talk to the
French committees with his gray-uniformed companion in hearing. He had
his meals at the same table, slept in his quarters. The chief
representative of the Commission in occupied France had to live at the
Great German Headquarters at Charleville on the Meuse. I spent an
extraordinary four months there. It is all a dream now but it was, at
the time, a reality which no imagination could equal. The Kaiser on his
frequent visits, the gray-headed chiefs of the terrible great German
military machine, the _schneidige_ younger officers, were all so
confident and insolent and so regardless, in those early days of
success, of however much of the world might be against them. One night
my officer said at dinner: "Portugal came in today. Will it be the
United States tomorrow? Well, come on; it's all the same to us." When
the United States did come in we Americans were no longer at
Headquarters, so what my officer said then I do not know. But I am sure
that it was not all the same to him.
And so the untellable relief of Belgium and Northeast France went on
with its myriad of heart-breaks and heart-thrills following quickly on
each other's heels, its highly elaborated system of organization, its
successful machinery of control and distribution, and all, all
centering and depending primarily on one man's vision and heart and
genius. He had faithful helpers, capable coadjutors. One cannot make
comparisons among them, but one of these lieutenants was so long in the
work, so effective, so devoted, so regardless of personal sacrifice of
means and career and health, that we can mention his name without
hesitation as the one to whom, next to the Chief, the men of the C. R.
B. and the people of Belgium and France turned, and never in vain, for
the inspiration that never let hope die. This is William Babcock Poland,
like his chief an engineer of world-wide experience, who served first as
assistant director in Belgium, then as director there, and, finally,
after Hoover came to America to be its food administrator, director,
with headquarters in London, for all the work in Europe.
In April, 1917, America entered the war, and Minister Whitlock came out
of Belgium with his shepherded flock of American consuls and relief
workers, although a small group of C. R. B. men, with the director,
Prentis Gray, remained inside for several weeks longer. In the same
month Herbert Hoover heard his next call to war service. For almost
immediately after our entrance into the war President Wilson asked him
to come to Washington to consult about the food situation. This
consultation was the beginning of American food administration. It did
not end Belgian relief for Hoover, for the work had still to go on and
did go on through all the rest of the war and even for several months of
the Armistice period, with the C. R. B. and its Chief still in charge,
although Dutch and Spanish neutrals replaced the Americans inside the
occupied territory. But the new call was to place a new duty and
responsibility on Hoover's broad shoulders. Responding to it, he arrived
in New York on the morning of May 3, 1917, and reached Washington the
evening of the same day. On the following day he talked with the
President and began planning for the administration of American food.