Office of the Historian

File No. 654.119/71

The Food Administrator ( Hoover) to the Assistant Secretary of State ( Phillips)

Washington, December 1, 1917.
[Received December 3.]

Dear Mr. Phillips: I inclose some documents from the Swiss Minister,1 and a reply that I propose to make if it meets your approval.2 I have gone farther than I should have with anybody else.

Faithfully yours,

Herbert Hoover
[Enclosure]

The Food Administrator ( Hoover) to the Swiss Minister ( Sulzer)

Washington, December 1, 1917.

Your Excellency: The situation as to our supplies of many commodities mentioned upon the list of pending applications for export to Switzerland is so critical in other circumstances the applications would of necessity be refused at the present time. On the other hand we have every desire to meet your situation in every [Page 1184] way in our power and we are recommending to the War Trade Board to grant the applications for the following commodities:

  • 500 tons of lard substitutes
  • 93 tons oleo stock
  • 12½ tons oleo oil
  • 200 tons cottonseed oil
  • 500 tons beef products
  • 3¼ tons and 93 packages meat extract
  • 80 tons sausage casings
  • 200 tons of tallow
  • 42 tons cornstarch
  • 6 puncheons Jamaica rum
  • 20 tons dextrine white
  • 0.288 tons breath perfume and chewing gum
  • 39 tons Bon Ami
  • 2 tons baking powder
  • 0.69 tons brown wax
  • 10 lbs. China tea
  • 20 tons malt extract

I have also Your Excellency’s letter of November 30,1 on the subject of our action to liquidate hoards of cottonseed oil held here by private citizens. I think Your Excellency will grant that we cannot differentiate between violators of the food law on the ground of nationality. All such holdings in this country must be subject to our law.

Yours faithfully,

[No signature indicated]
  1. Not printed.↩
  2. The Department’s approval was given in a letter to Mr. Hoover of Dec. 3 (same file number as above), and on Dec. 6 Mr. Hoover replied: “I am instructing the War Trade Board to release the articles to the Swiss embodied in the list attached to my letter of the first.” (File No. 654.119/74.)↩
  3. Not printed.↩