“Nobody seemed to know what was to be done with us, and nobody seemed to care,” explained a Vassar girl. “Their mobilizing was the only thing that mattered to them. There were no trains and steamers for us, and no money for our checks and letters of credit. Then Mr. Hoover came to the rescue. He saw that something was done, and it was done effectively. It took generalship, I can tell you, to handle that stampede—to get people from the Continent into England, to arrange for the advancement of funds to meet their needs, and to provide means of getting them back to America. They say he is a wonderful engineer, but I don’t think he ever carried through any more remarkable engineering feat than that was!”
The matter of giving temporary relief and providing transportation for some six or seven thousand anxious Americans was a simple undertaking, however, compared to Mr. Hoover’s next task.
In the autumn of 1914 the cry of a whole nation in distress startled the world. The people of Belgium were starving. The terror and destruction of war had swept over a helpless little country leaving want and misery everywhere. There was need of instant and efficient aid. Of course only a neutral would be permitted to serve, and equally of course, only a man used to handling great enterprises—a captain of industry and a master of men—would be able to serve in such a crisis. It did not take a prophet or seer to see in Herbert Clark Hoover, that master of vast engineering projects who had given himself so generously to helping his fellow-Americans in distress, a man fitted to meet the needs of the time. And Mr. Walter H. Page, American Ambassador to England, appealed to Mr. Hoover, American in London, citizen of the world and lover of humanity, to act as chairman of the Commission for Relief in Belgium.
“Who is this Mr. Hoover, and will he be really able to man and manage the relief-ship?” was demanded on every side, in America as well as in Europe.
“If anybody can save Belgium, he can,” vouched Mr. Page. “There never was such a genius for organization. He can grasp the most complex problems, wheels within wheels, and get all the cogs running in perfect harmony. Besides, he will have the courage to act promptly as well as effectively when once he has determined on the right course to pursue. He is not afraid of precedent and red tape. A man who has developed and directed large mining interests all over the world and who has been consulting engineer for over fifty mining companies, he cares more about doing a good job than making money. He’s giving himself now heart and soul to this relief work, and we may be sure, if the thing is humanly possible, that he will find a way.”
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