Herbert Hoover: The Man and His Work

by Vernon L. Kellogg

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 mil

lions 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 benevo

lence, 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 Bel

gium, and what America was doing and could further do to help meet the need.