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