File No. 855.48/796b
The Secretary of State to the Secretary of War ( Baker)
Sir: The Belgian relief situation has reached an acute stage from the political no less than the humanitarian point of view. From a message to the President received from Baron de Broqueville, the Belgian Prime Minister, it appears that the King of Belgium and the Belgian Cabinet decline to assume the responsibility of the moral and material disaster which confronts Belgium if immediate and thorough measures be not resorted to at once, De Broqueville adding that, “this responsibility rests with the Allied Governments.” Mr. Clemenceau, the French Premier, with whom the matter was taken up, states that he could do nothing but transmit Mr. De Broqueville’s appeal to the President, at the same time supporting the measure with all his energy.
Mr. Hoover believes that actual starvation in Belgium could be averted if the Commission for Relief in Belgium could have at once 40,000 tons of shipping for May loading, 55,000 tons for June loading, and 26,000 tons for July.
In view of the international importance of this critical situation, I considered it advisable to take the matter up with the President and am now in receipt of his reply stating that he regards this question of Belgian relief as of capital importance from every war point of view as well as from every humanitarian point of view; that Mr. Hoover has obtained a little additional tonnage by subtraction from the Cuban sugar trade, but far from enough; and that the President does not think that we can too earnestly press the matter home to the serious attention and early action of those who control shipping.
I beg to bring the foregoing to your attention for such urgent action as may be taken in the premises.
I have [etc.]