Paris Peace Conf. 840.48/1
Statement Furnished by Messrs. Hoover and Davis to the Committee Appointed by the Allied Premiers To Consider Relief Matters, London, December 10, 1918
In consideration of suggestions made by the U. S. in connection with relief, it may be helpful to state and understand some of the difficulties in the relation of the U. S. to the task in hand.
The Armistice and the sequent liberation of considerable shipping will open to the Allies the Chief food markets of the southern hemisphere and thus automatically create a larger surplus during the next eight months from the U. S. than would have been the case with continued war. This surplus, however, will be entirely deficient in providing for the larger number of mouths now proposed to feed unless rationing can be continued by the American people on a voluntary basis and any other basis than voluntary action could not be forced upon the American people under Armistice or Peace conditions except under an appeal for high humanitarian service. It must be obvious [Page 652] that the continued provision of such services through voluntary action can only be obtained by American officials and in the belief that these savings are being devoted to purely humanitarian purposes through the administration of their own agents.
The American people, far removed as they are from the seat of action, necessarily believe that the trade restrictions which have been imposed by the Government will be quickly removed and control of price of export foodstuffs which exists today will be felt more and more onerous as time goes on. The pressure of various trades for freedom of action is already being felt to a marked degree and any indication that the price control and distribution of American foodstuffs was carried out by agencies over which their government did not have absolute control would break down the whole basis of American systems under these policies. The Allied Buying Agencies in the U. S. are already subject to suspicion, not because of any failure of proper action but simply because of the large volume of their transactions and to extend these Buying Agencies to a practical purchasing of the entire surplus of the U. S. would raise an amount of opposition that would break all hope of price restraint. Furthermore, any attempt to use these agencies to control the direct trading between the U. S. and neutrals (with agreed restrictions regarding re-export) would be the death-[knell of such associations.]27
It should be possible on the background of the necessities of starving people to maintain through the agency of solely American Government Officials who are responsible to their own people, a background of high sentiment upon which a reasonable and proper control can be built. The American people have given ample evidence of their repugnance against profiteering but any action on their part must be voluntary and not compulsory by virtue of the control of foreign buying agencies.
A third matter of great importance lies in the fact that there is a strong tendency on the part of the American people to return to their instinctive desire for separation from European entanglements beyond cooperation with their associates in winding up the war. It is manifest that the American people must be impressed constantly with their national duty in participation in the helping of the Allied and other countries of Europe from the effects of the war. There is no way through which the national conscience can be so awakened and retained constantly upon this problem as through their participation in a matter which so strikes national imagination and that is that by self-denial on their part that they should be providing food stuffs for millions of people in Europe.
[Page 653]The logical development of the organization of relief to liberated neutrals and enemy populations, as proposed by the President, would be as follows:
The Director General of Relief would departmentalize his organization into Purchase, Transportation, Finance, Statistic, Alimentation, etc.
Purchases in countries of Associated Governments would be made from or through the Governmental agencies in such countries and in neutral countries through or in co-operation with established interallied agencies.
Transportation would likewise be secured from the Associated Governments or, in the case of the chartering of neutral shipping, it would be through established Allied Agencies, or in the case of enemy shipping, operated by various governments in accord with the President’s proposal.
In finance, neutral countries and Germany must pay in acceptable exchange, some sections of Austria and certain liberated populations probably likewise. This portion of the problem becomes one of working capital which the Director General can probably solve without call upon the European Allies. Certain liberated populations must be financed by advances contributed, presumably by the Associated Governments. Necessarily, accountability for ail operations would be organized under the Finance Department.
Statistics on world supplies and world needs must be organized in close cooperation with agencies of the Associated Governments in determination of available resources.
A Department of Alimentation with competent investigators into the needs of populations relieved would need to be maintained.
In order to maintain intimate contact with the various Food Ministries, Foreign Offices, Blockade, Munitions, and Military Controls of the Associated Governments, and the Inter-Allied Committees on Food Transport, Purchase, Blockade, etc., a series of liaison officers would need to be set up by the Director General between himself and staff and these agencies.
It may be found advisable to maintain a Director of Relief in some of the countries relieved, to attend to Administrative matters, acting in accord with the representatives in those countries of the Associated Governments, in the same manner as the Director General accords with the Supreme War Council or with such delegated body as may be agreed in the broad policies as suggested by the President.
As distribution must be carried out through Governments or Municipalities the Administrative staffs in various countries would be very small.
All staff and personnel would be chosen and retained on the grounds of personal fitness and loyalty to the organization, without regard to nationality.
- Bracketed phrase supplied from copy filed under Paris Peace Conf. 862.5018/7.↩