The general plan outlined in this memorandum was the one followed. The Allied Provisions Export Commission acted as the buying agency for the Allies and informed the Division of Coördination of Purchase of the Food Administration of the requirements of the Allies; the Food Purchase Board acted as the recommending buying agency for the Army and Navy and gave the Food Administration the necessary information as to the requirements
of these agencies. Grains and grain products were not included in this scheme of buying for the Allies, as this buying was done through the Food Administration Grain Corporation.
The Allied purchasing was therefore completely controlled. The license to export was not issued by the War Trade Board until the application for the same had been approved by the Food Administration, and this approval would not be given if the rules of its Division of Coördination of Purchase had not been followed. It should be noted that the Food Administration did not actually complete the transaction of purchase and sale for any of the commodities. Its function was completed when buyer and seller had been brought together and the terms of sale agreed upon and approved by it. The total volume of purchases of all supplies made under the coördination of the various agencies set up by the Food Administration aggregated over seven and a quarter billion dollars during the course of its existence.
CHAPTER XI
AMERICAN FOOD ADMINISTRATION; GENERAL REGULATION, CONTROL OF WHEAT AND PORK; ORGANIZATION IN THE STATES
In attacking the problem of food control by enforced regulation Hoover frankly repeatedly described his position as that of one who was choosing the lesser of two evils; the other and greater one was that of having no regulation at all. Political economists and others called his attention constantly to the fact that the old reliable law of supply and demand would take care of his troubles if he would but let it. If, because of the great demand, high food prices prevailed, their prevalence would automatically solve the problem of food shortage. They would stimulate production and curtail consumption; our people would buy less and there would be more of a surplus to send to the Allies.
Hoover's answer was that unrestricted sky
-rocketing of prices would certainly curtail consumption, but it would be the consumption by the poor, the hosts of wage-earners and the small-salaried. It would not cut down consumption by the rich, and it would promptly lead to sharp class feeling, widespread popular dissatisfaction and resentment, even revolt. War time was no time to force any such situation as this.