AMERICAN FOOD ADMINISTRATION: PRINCIPLES, CONSERVATION, CONTROL OF EXPORTS

Put yourself in Hoover’s place when the President called him back from the Belgian relief work to be the Food Administrator of the United States. Here were a hundred million people unaccustomed to government interference with their personal affairs, above all of their affairs of stomach and pocketbook, their affairs of personal habit and private business. What would you think of your chance to last long as a new kind of government official, set up in defiance of all American precedent and tradition of personal liberty, to say how much and what kinds of food the people were to eat and how the business affairs of all millers and bakers, all commission men and wholesale grocers and all food manufacturers were to be run?

The stomach and private business of Americans are the seats of unusually many and delicate nerve-endings. To hit the American household in the stomach and the American business man in the pocketbook is to invite a prompt, violent and painful reaction. Yet this is what President Wilson asked Hoover to do and to face.

Hoover realized the full possibilities of the situation. He had seen the rapid succession of the food dictators in each of the European countries; their average duration of life as food dictators was a little less than six months. “I don’t want to be food dictator for the American people,” he said, plaintively, a few days after the President had announced what he wanted him to do. “The man who accepts such a job will lie on the barbed wire of the first line of intrenchments.”

But besides trying to put yourself in Hoover’s place, try also to put yourself again in your own place in those great days of America’s first entry into the war, and you will get another, and a less terrifying, view of the situation. Remember your feelings of those days as a per-fervid patriotic American, not only ready but eager to play your part in your country’s cause. Some of you could carry arms; some could lend sons to the khaki ranks and daughters to the Red Cross uniform. Some could go to Washington for a dollar a year. Yet many could, for one sufficient reason or another, do none of these things. But all could help dig trenches at home right through the kitchen and dining-room. You could help save food if food was to help win the war. You could help remodel temporarily the whole food business and food use of the country to the great advantage of America and the Allies in their struggle for victory.

Well, Hoover put himself both in your place and in his own place. And he thought that the food of America could be administered not dictated successfully, if we would try to do it in a way consonant with the genius of American people. Hoover had had in his Belgian relief work an experience with the heart of America. He knew he could rely on it. He also believed he could rely on the brain of America.

So he put the matter of food control fairly and squarely up to the people. He asked them to make the fundamental decisions. He showed them the need and the way to meet it, and asked them to follow him. He depended on the reasoned mass consent and action of the nation, the truly democratic decision of the country on a question put openly and clearly before it. It could choose to do or not do. The deciding was really with it. If it saw as he did it would act with him.

He was to be no food dictator, as the German food-minister was, nor even a food controller as the English food-minister was officially named. He was to be a food administrator for the people, in response to its needs and desire for making wise food management help in winning the war. So while the food controllers of the European countries relied chiefly on government regulation to effect the necessary food conservation and control, the American food administrator trusted chiefly to direct appeal to the people and their voluntary response.

And the response came. Even where governmental regulation seemed necessary, as it did especially in relation to trade and manufacturing practices, he attempted to have it accepted by voluntary agreement of the groups most immediately concerned before announcing or enforcing it. To do this he held conference after conference in Washington with groups of from a score to several hundreds of men representing personally, and in addition sometimes by appointment from organized food-trade or food-producing groups, the point of view of those most affected by the proposed regulation. He explained to these men the needs of the nation, and their special opportunities and duties to serve these needs. He put their self-interest and the interests of their country side by side in front of them. He showed them that the decision of the war did not rest alone with the men in the trenches: that there were service and sacrifice to render at home in shops and stores and counting rooms as well as on the fighting lines. He debated methods and probable results with them. He laid all his cards on the table and, almost always, he won. He won their confidence in his fairness, their admiration for his knowledge and resourcefulness and their respect for his devotion to the national cause.

But he knew always that he was playing with dynamite. He could not see or talk to everybody at once, and the news that ran swiftly over the country about what the Food Administration was doing or going to do was not always the truth, but it always got listened to. And the first reaction to it was likely to be one of indignant opposition. This was well expressed by the cartoon of black Matilda in the kitchen: “Mistah Hoover goin’ to show me how to cook cawn pone? Well, I reckin not.” So with the business man. But the second reaction, the one that came after listening to Hoover and thinking about the matter overnight, was different.

I remember a group of large buyers and sellers of grain, men who dealt on the grain exchanges of the Middle West, who came to Washington, not at his request but on their own determination to have it out with this man who was threatening to interfere seriously with their affairs; indeed, who threatened to put many of them out of business for the period of the war. They came with big sticks. They met in the morning for conference with the object of their wrath. Then they went off and met in the afternoon together. They came the next morning for another conference. And they met again alone to pass some resolutions. The resolutions commended the Food Administrator for the regulations he was about to put into force, and recommended that they be made more drastic than he had originally suggested!

But among the hundred million people of the United States there were some who did not justify Hoover’s belief in American patriotism and American heart. Just as there were some among the seven million Belgians who tried to cheat their benefactors and their countrymen by forging extra ration cards. So when a measure to regulate some great food trade or industry, as the wholesale grocery business or milling, was agreed to and honestly lived up to by eighty-five or ninety per cent of the men concerned, and for these could have been left on a wholly voluntary basis, there were a few for whom the regulations had to be legally formulated and energetically enforced. They were the ones who made the reluctant gifts to the American Red Cross, which was the Food Administrator’s favorite form of penalization, when he did not have to go to the extreme of putting persistent profiteers out of business.

The Food Control Law, passed by Congress in August, 1917, under which the Food Administrator, acting for the President, derived his authority, was a perfectly real law, but it left great gaps in the control. For example, it exempted from its license regulations, which were the chief means of direct legal control, all food producers (farmers, stock-growers, et al.) and all retailers doing a business of less than $100,000 a year. It did not give any authority for a direct fixing of maximum prices. It carried comparatively few penalty provisions. But it did provide authority for three primary agencies of control: First, the licensing of all food manufacturers, jobbers, and wholesalers, and of retailers doing business of more than $100,000 annually, with the prescription of regulations which the licensees should observe; second, the purchase and sale of foodstuffs by the Government; and, third, the legal entering into agreements with food producers, manufacturers or distributors, which if made only between the members of these groups themselves would have been violations of the anti-trust laws. All of these powers contributed their share to the success of what was one of the most important features of the food control and one to which Hoover devoted most determined and continuous effort, namely, the radical cutting out, or at least, down, of speculative and middleman profits. But with the limited authority of the Food Administrator it was only through the voluntary cooeperation of the people and food trades that these three kinds of powers were made really effective.

The most conspicuous features of the voluntary cooeperation which Hoover was able to obtain from the people and the food-trades by his conferences, his organization of the states, and his great popular propaganda, were those connected with what was called “food conservation,” by which was meant a general economy in food use, an elimination of waste, and an actual temporary modification of national food habits by an increased use of fish and vegetable proteins and fats and lessened use of meat and animal fats, a considerable substitution of corn and other grains for wheat, and the general use of a wheat flour containing in it much more of the total substance of the wheat grain than is contained in the usual “patent” flour.

It was with the great campaign for food conservation, too, that the Food Administration really started its work, beginning it as voluntary and unofficial war service. For although consideration of the Food Control Act began before the House Committee on Agriculture about April 21, it was not until August 10 that the bill became a law. On the same day, the President issued an Executive Order establishing a United States Food Administration and appointing Herbert Hoover to be United States Food Administrator. Hoover accepted the appointment with the proviso that he should receive no salary and that he should be allowed to build up a staff on the same volunteer basis.

But long before this, indeed immediately after the May consultation with Hoover for which he had been asked to come from Europe to Washington, President Wilson had announced a tentative program of stimulation of food production and conservation of food supply. The need was urgent, and the country could not wait for Congressional action. There was really a war on and there was an imperative need of fighting, and fighting immediately and hard in all the various and unusual ways in which modern war is fought. One of these ways which the President recognized and which Hoover, by virtue of his illuminating experience in Europe, knew as no other American did, was the food way. The President wanted something started. So again, just as at the beginning of the Belgian relief work in October, 1914, Hoover found himself in the position of being asked to begin work without the necessary support behind him; in the Belgian case he lacked money, in the present case he lacked authority. But in both cases action was needed at once and in both cases Hoover got action. He is a devotee of action.

Thus, before there was an official food administration there was an unofficial beginning of what became the food administration’s most characteristic and most widely known undertaking, its campaign for food conservation. It was the most characteristic, for it depended for success entirely on popular consent and patriotic response. It was the most widely known, for it touched every home and housewife, every man and child at the daily sitting down at table. In planning and beginning it Hoover had the special assistance of his old-time college chum and lifelong friend, President Ray Lyman Wilbur, of Stanford University, who brought to this particular undertaking a far-reaching vision, a convinced belief in democratic possibilities, and a constructive mind of unusual order.

It is well not to forget that the first appeal for food-saving was made primarily to the women of the land. And theirs was the first great response. From the very first days, in May, of general discussion in the press of the certain need of food-saving in America if the Allies were to be provided with sufficient supplies to maintain their armies and civilian populations in the health, strength, and confidence necessary to the fullest development of their war strength, the voluntary offers of assistance from women and women’s organizations, and inquiries about how best to give it, had been pouring into Hoover’s temporary offices in Washington. And through all of the Food Administration work the women of America played a conspicuous part, both as heads of divisions in the Washington and State offices and as uncounted official and unofficial helpers in county and town organizations and in the households of the country.

The picturesque details of the great campaign for food conservation and its results on the intimate habits of the people are too fresh in the memories of us all to need repeating here. A whole-hearted cooeperation by the press of the country; an avalanche of public appeal and advice by placards, posters, motion pictures, and speakers; an active support by churches, fraternal organizations, colleges and schools; the remodeling of the service of hotels, restaurants and dining-cars; and a pledging of twelve out of the twenty million households of the country to follow the requests and suggestions of the Food Administration, resulting in wheatless and meatless meals, limited sugar and butter, the “clean plate,” and strict attention to reducing all household waste of food all these are the well-remembered happenings of yesterday. The results gave the answer, Yes, to Hoover’s oft-repeated questions to the nation: Can we not do as a democracy what Germany is doing as an autocracy? Can we not do it better?

These results are impossible to measure by mere statistics. Figures cannot express the satisfied consciences, the education in wise and economical food use, and the feeling of a daily participation by all of the people in personally helping to win the war, which was a psychological contribution of great importance to the Government’s efforts to put the whole strength of the nation into the struggle. Nor can the results to the Allies be measured in figures. But their significance can be suggested by the contents of a cablegram which Lord Rhondda, the English Food Controller, sent to Hoover in January, 1918. This cable, in part, was as follows:

“Unless you are able to send the Allies at least 75,000,000 bushels of wheat over and above what you have exported up to January first, and in addition to the total exportable surplus from Canada, I cannot take the responsibility of assuring our people that there will be food enough to win the war. Imperative necessity compels me to cable you in this blunt way. No one knows better than I that the American people, regardless of national and individual sacrifice, have so far refused nothing that is needed for the war, but it now lies with America to decide whether or not the Allies in Europe shall have enough bread to hold out until the United States is able to throw its force into the field....”

I remember very well the thrill and the shock that ran through the Food Administration staff when that cable came. It seemed as if no more could be done than was already being done. The breathless question was: Could Hoover do the impossible? I suppose his question to himself was: Could the American people do it? He did not hesitate either in his belief or his action. His prompt reply was:

“We will export every grain that the American people save from
their normal consumption. We believe our people will not fail to
meet the emergency.”

He then appealed to the people to intensify their conservation of wheat. The President issued a special proclamation to the same end. The wheat was saved and sent and the threatened breakdown of the Allied war effort was averted.

Hoover felt justified in July, 1918, in making an attempt to indicate the results of food conservation during the preceding twelve months by analyzing the statistics of food exports he had been able to make to the Allies. It was, of course, primarily for the sake of providing this indispensable food support to the Allies that food conservation was so earnestly pushed. The control of these exports and the elimination of speculative profits and the stabilization of prices in connection with home purchases were the special features in the general program of food administration that were pushed primarily for the sake of our own people.

In a formal report by letter to the President on July 18, 1918, Hoover showed that the exports of meats, fats and dairy products in the past twelve months had been about twice as much as the average for the years just preceding the war, and fifty per cent more than in the year July, 1916 June, 1917. Of cereals and cereal products our shipments to the Allies were a third more than in the year July, 1916 June, 1917.

“It is interesting to note,” writes the Food Administrator, “that since the urgent request of the Allied food controllers early in the year for a further shipment of 75,000,000 bushels from our 1917 wheat than originally planned, we shall have shipped to Europe, or have en route, nearly 85,000,000 bushels. At the time of this request our surplus was more than exhausted. The accomplishment of our people in this matter stands out even more clearly if we bear in mind that we had available in the fiscal year 1916-17 from net carry-over and as surplus over our normal consumption about 200,000,000 bushels of wheat which we were able to export that year without trenching on our home loaf. This last year, however, owing to the large failure of the 1917 wheat crop, we had available from net carry-over and production and imports only just about our normal consumption. Therefore our wheat shipments to allied destinations represent approximately savings from our own wheat bread.

“These figures, however, do not fully convey the volume of the effort and sacrifice made during the past year by the whole American people. Despite the magnificent effort of our agricultural population in planting a much increased acreage in 1917, not only was there a very large failure in wheat but also, the corn failed to mature properly and our corn is our dominant crop. We calculate that the total nutritional production of the country for the fiscal year just closed was between seven per cent and nine per cent below the average of the three previous years, our nutritional surplus for export in those years being about the same amount as the shrinkage last year. Therefore the consumption and waste of food have been greatly reduced in every direction during the war.

“I am sure that all the millions of our people, agricultural as well as urban, who have contributed to these results should feel a very definite satisfaction that in a year of universal food shortages in the northern hemisphere all of those people joined together against Germany have come through into sight of the coming harvest not only with health and strength fully maintained, but with only temporary periods of hardship. The European allies have been compelled to sacrifice more than our own people but we have not failed to load every steamer since the delays of the storm months last winter. Our contributions to this end could not have been accomplished without effort and sacrifice, and it is a matter for further satisfaction that it has been accomplished voluntarily and individually. It is difficult to distinguish between various sections of our people the homes, public-eating places, food trades, urban or agricultural populations in assessing credit for these results; but no one will deny the dominant part played by the American women.”

The conservation part of the Food Administration’s work was picturesque, conspicuous and important. But it was, of course, only one among the many of the Administration’s activities. On the day of his appointment Hoover outlined his conception of the functions and aims of the Food Administration, as follows:

“The hopes of the Food Administration are three-fold. First, to so guide the trade in the fundamental food commodities as to eliminate vicious speculation, extortion and wasteful practices and to stabilize prices in the essential staples. Second, to guard our exports so that against the world’s shortage, we retain sufficient supplies for our own people and to cooeperate with the Allies to prevent inflation in prices. And, third, that we stimulate in every manner within our power the saving of our food in order that we may increase exports to our Allies to a point which will enable them to properly provision their armies and to feed their peoples during the coming winter.

“The Food Administration is called into being to stabilize and not to disturb conditions and to defend honest enterprise against illegitimate competition. It has been devised to correct the abnormalities and abuses that have crept into trade by reason of the world disturbance and to restore business as far as may be to a reasonable basis.

“The business men of this country, I am convinced, as a result of hundreds of conferences with representatives of the great forces of food supply, realize their own patriotic obligation and the solemnity of the situation, and will fairly and generously cooeperate in meeting the national emergency. I do not believe that drastic force need be applied to maintain economic distribution and sane use of supplies by the great majority of American people, and I have learned a deep and abiding faith in the intelligence of the average American business man whose aid we anticipate and depend on to remedy the evils developed by the war which he admits and deplores as deeply as ourselves. But if there be those who expect to exploit this hour of sacrifice, if there are men or organizations scheming to increase the trials of this country, we shall not hesitate to apply to the full the drastic, coercive powers that Congress has conferred upon us in this instrument.”

From the beginning of the war the food necessities of the Allies and European neutrals had led them to make the most violent exertions to meet their needs, and these exertions were intensified as the war went on. Food was war material. It existed in America and was imperatively demanded in Europe. By any means possible, without regard to price or dangerous drainage away from us Europe meant to have it. Hoover early saw the danger to America in this. Things had to be balanced. We were ready to exert every effort to supply the Allies every pound of food we could afford to let go out of the country, but there was a limit, a danger-line. Hoover could not trust to appeal to the European countries to regard this danger; they were in a state of panic. It required recourse to legal regulation. There was necessary an effective control of exports. Without such control the tremendous pressure of demand from the European countries, with the sky-rocketing of prices incident to it would have broken down the whole fabric of Hoover’s measures for guarding the food needs of our own people and of stabilizing prices and preventing an actual food panic and consequent industrial break-down in our country at a moment when we were calling on our industries and our people as a whole for their greatest efforts.

The Food Law alone was not sufficient to give Hoover the strength he needed for this control. But casting about for assistance he formed a close working alliance between the Food Administration and the War Trade and Shipping Boards to effect the needed regulation. The combination had the power to establish an absolutely effective control of exports and imports. Not a pound of food could be sent out of the country without the consent of the Food Administration.

Growing out of this export control and really including it, was the wider function of the centralization and cooerdination of purchases not only for the Allies and Neutrals but in connection with the buying agencies of our Army, Navy, Red Cross, and other large philanthropic organizations. Under the pressure of the need for food control, the foreign governments had taken over almost completely, early in the war, the purchases of outside foodstuffs for their peoples, and the Allies had so closely associated themselves in this undertaking that they had it in their power, if they cared to use it, to dominate prices to the American farmer. Hoover very early saw the advisability of an American centralization of the purchases for foreign export as an offset to this danger. He further recognized in such a cooerdinating centralization the possibilities of much good in the stimulation of production and stabilization of home prices. A Division of Cooerdination of Purchase was therefore formally set up about November 1, 1917, under the efficient direction of F. S. Snyder.

In a memorandum dated November 19, the Food Administrator stated that he considered it vital to the general welfare that all large purchases of certain commodities should be made by plans of allocation among food suppliers at fair and just prices, “the efforts of the Federal Trade Commission to be directed to see that costs are not inflated.” The memorandum further stated that all allotment plans between Allied countries and the food industries should be entered into with the Allied Provisions Export Commission through the Division of Cooerdination of Purchase; and that all estimated and specific requirements of food products of all characters for the Allied countries should be furnished the Division of Cooerdination of Purchase by the Allied Provisions Export Commission and that such requirements shall bear the approval of the Allied Provisions Export Commission. Also, that on the question of issuing licenses for the exporting of the purchases, the approval to export will be arranged by the Food Administration’s Division of Cooerdination of Purchase, and the War Trade Board; and the final action taken on each requirement shall have the approval of the head of the Division of Cooerdination of Purchase.

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 Cooerdination 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 Cooerdination 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 cooerdination of the various agencies set up by the Food Administration aggregated over seven and a quarter billion dollars during the course of its existence.