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 ma
chinery 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.