Part 13

Can you picture to yourself the plight of Belgium after the cruel war-machine had mowed down all industries and trade and had swept the fields bare of crops and farm animals? Think of a country, about the size of the State of Maryland, so closely dotted with towns and villages that there were more than eight million people living there--as many people as there are in all our great western States on the Pacific side of the Rocky Mountains. This smallest country of Europe was the most densely settled and the most prosperous. The Belgians were a nation of skilled workers. Many were makers of cloth and lace. The linen, woolen, and delicate cotton fabrics woven in Belgium were as famous as Brussels carpets and Brussels lace. Since it was a land particularly rich in coal, manufacturing of all sorts was very profitable. There were important metal-works; nail, wire, and brass factories; and workshops of gold and silver articles. The glass and pottery works were also important. Little Belgium was a veritable hive of busy workers, whose products were sent all over the world.

Of course, you can see that an industrial country like this would have to import much of its food. The small farms and market-gardens could not at best supply the needs of the people for more than three or four months of the year. Just as our big cities must depend on importing provisions from the country, so Belgium depended on buying food-stuffs from agricultural communities in exchange for her manufactured articles.

Now can you realize what happened when the war came? There was no longer any chance for the people to make and sell their goods. All the mills and metal-works were stopped. The conquerors seized all the mines and metals. Everything that could serve Germany in any way was shipped to that country. The railroads, of course, were in the hands of the Germans, and so each town and village was cut off from communication with the rest of the world. The harvests that had escaped destruction by the trampling armies were seized to feed the troops. Even the scattered farm-houses were robbed of their little stores of grain and vegetables.

The task with which Mr. Hoover had to cope was that of buying food for ten million people (in Belgium and northern France), shipping it across seas made dangerous by mines and submarines of the warring nations, and distributing it throughout an entire country without any of the normal means of transportation. Let us see how he went to work. First he secured the help of other energetic, able young Americans who only wanted to be put to work. Chief among these volunteers were the Rhodes scholars at

Oxford, picked men who had been given special opportunities and who realized that true education means ability to serve. Without confusion or delay the relief army was organized and the campaign for the war sufferers under way.

It was a business without precedents, a sea that had never been charted, this work of the Relief Commission. At a time when England was vitally and entirely concerned with her war problems and when all railroads and steamships were supposed to be at the command of the government, Mr. Hoover quietly arranged for the transportation of supplies to meet the immediate needs of Belgium. Going on the principle that “when a thing is really necessary it is better to do it first and ask permission afterward,” Mr. Hoover saw his cargoes safely stowed and the hatches battened down before he went to secure his clearance papers.

“We must be permitted to leave at once,” he declared urgently. “If I do not get four cargoes of food to Belgium by the end of the week, thousands are going to die of starvation, and many more may be shot in food riots.”

“Out of the question!” replied the cabinet minister, positively. “There is no time, in the first place, and if there were, there are no good wagons to be spared by the railways, no dock hands, and no steamers. Besides, the Channel is closed to merchant ships for a week to allow the passage of army transports.”

“I have managed to get all these things,” Hoover interposed, “and am now through with them all except the steamers. This wire tells me that these are loaded and ready to sail, and I have come to you to arrange for their clearance.”

The distinguished official looked at Hoover aghast. “There have been men sent to the Tower for less than you have done, young man!” he exclaimed. “If it was for anything but Belgium Relief,--if it was anybody but you,--I should hate to think of what might happen. As it is--I suppose I must congratulate you on a jolly clever coup. I’ll see about the clearance papers at once.”

First and last, the chief obstacles with which the Relief Commission had to deal were due to the suspicions of the two great antagonists, England and Germany, each of whom was bent on preventing the other from securing the slightest advantage from the least chance or mischance. Now it was the British Foreign Office which sent a long communication, fairly swathed in red tape, suggesting changes in relief methods, which, if carried out, would have held up the food of seven million people for two days. In this stress Mr. Hoover dispensed with the services of a clerk and wrote the following letter, which served to lighten a dark day at the Foreign Office, in his own hand:

Dear Blank:

It strikes me that trying to feed the Belgians is like trying to feed a hungry little kitten by means of a forty-foot bamboo pole, said kitten confined in a barred cage occupied by two hungry lions.

Yours sincerely,

HERBERT C. HOOVER.

In April, 1915, a German submarine, in its zeal to nip England, torpedoed one of the Commission’s food-ships, and somewhat later an aëroplane tried to drop bombs on another. Mr. Hoover at once paid a flying visit to Berlin. He was assured that Germany regretted the incident and that it would not happen again.

“Thanks,” said Hoover. “Perhaps your Excellency has heard about the man who was bitten by a bad-tempered dog? He went to the owner to have the dog muzzled.

“‘But the dog won’t bite you,’ insisted the owner.

“‘You know he won’t bite me, and I know he won’t bite me,’ said the injured man, doubtfully, ‘but the question is, does the dog know?’”

“Herr Hoover,” said the high official, “pardon me if I leave you for a moment. I am going at once to ‘let the dog know.’”

Another incident which throws light on the character and influence of our citizen of the world was related by Mr. Lloyd-George, the first man of England, to a group of friends at the Liberal Club. Here is the story in the great Welshman’s own words:

“‘Mr. Hoover,’ I said, ‘I find I am quite unable to grant your request in the matter of Belgian exchange, and I have asked you to come here that I might explain why.’ Without waiting for me to go on, my boyish-looking caller began speaking. For fifteen minutes he spoke without a break--just about the clearest utterance I have ever heard on any subject. He used not a word too much, nor yet a word too few. By the time he had finished I had come to realize not only the importance of his contentions, but, what was more to the point, the practicability of granting his request. So I did the only thing possible under the circumstances--told him I had never understood the question before, thanked him for helping me to understand it, and saw that things were arranged as he wanted them.”

As Mr. Lloyd-George was impressed by the quiet efficiency of his “boyish-looking caller,” so the whole world was impressed by the masterly system with which the great work was carried forward. Wheat was bought by the ship-load in Argentina, transported to Belgium, where it was milled and made into bread, and then sold for less than the price in London. The details of distribution were so handled as to remove all chance for waste and dishonesty; and finally, the cost of the work itself--the total expense of the Relief Commission--was less than one-half of one per cent. of the money expended.

Many of the Belgians were, of course, able to pay for their food. They had property or securities on which money could be raised. The destitute people were the peasants and wage-earners whose only dependence for daily bread--their daily labor--had been taken from them by the war.

In the winter of 1917 Mr. Hoover came to America to tell about conditions in Belgium and the work of the Relief Commission. Looking his fellow-citizens quietly in the face he said: “America has received virtually all the credit for the help given, and we do not deserve it. Out of $250,000,000 that have been spent, only $9,000,000 have come from the United States, the rich nation blest with peace--who owes, moreover, much of her present prosperity to the misfortunes of the unhappy Belgians, for the greater part of the money expended for relief supplies has come to this country.”

There is not a child in Belgium who does not know how Mr. Brand Whitlock, the American Ambassador, and other American “Great-hearts,” have stood by them in their terrible need, just as they know that the wonderful “Christmas Ship,” laden with gifts from children to children, came from America. They have come to look on the Stars and Stripes as the symbol of all that is good and kind. In his book, “War Bread,” Mr. Edward E. Hunt, who was one of the members of the Relief Commission, prints several letters from Belgian children. Here is one signed “Marie Meersman.”

I have often heard a little girl friend of mine speak of an uncle who sent her many things from America, and I was jealous. But now I have more than one uncle, and they send me more than my friend’s uncle did, for it is thanks to you, dear uncles, that I have a good slice of bread every day.

All Americans who once realize that by far the greater part of the money spent for Belgium has come from the nations on whom the burdens of war are pressing most heavily must want America to do much more.

Do you know the story of the kind-hearted passer-by who was so moved by the misfortune of a workman, hurt in an accident, that he exclaimed aloud, in an agonized tone, “Poor fellow! Poor, poor fellow!” Another bystander, however, reached in his pocket and drew out some money. “Here,” he said, turning to the first speaker, “I am sorry five dollars’ worth. How sorry are you?”

That is the question that Mr. Hoover has put to America: “What value do you put on your thankfulness for peace and prosperity and your sympathy for a suffering people less fortunate than yourselves?”

As we look at Mr. Hoover, however, we say, “In giving _him_ to the work, America has at least given of her best.” And we like to think that he is truly American because his interests and sympathies are as broad as humanity, because all mankind is his business, because in deed and in truth he is “a citizen of the world.”

THE END

Typographical errors corrected by the etext transcriber:

not against flesh and bood=> not against flesh and bood {pg viii}

the United States cruiser _Kearsage_=> the United States cruiser _Kearsarge_ {pg 141}