After the war, audits of the CRB’s books showed not only a lack of personal profit for anyone involved, but also an incredibly low margin of overhead, less than one half of 1 percent, made possible by the donated time and resources that epitomized the mission. Today, many charities take pride if they can hold overhead to 20 percent.42 When it closed its books as an active organization, the CRB had on hand a surplus of undistributed food, which it sold in Europe. This, combined with its low overhead, enabled the charity to finish with a surplus of about $35 million. Hoover had decided as early as 1916 that any money left over should be devoted to Belgian education, which had been virtually destroyed by the war. More than $18 million was donated directly to the universities of Brussels, Ghent, Liège, and Louvain and to other educational institutions. During the 1920s, an additional $1.6 million was given for the rebuilding of the University of Louvain. Most of the remainder was used for an educational exchange program that enabled Belgian scholars to study in America and vice versa.43
“When this war is over,” Hoover told a group of students in 1915, “the one thing that will stand out will not be the number of dead and wounded, but the record of those efforts which went to save life.”44 Before the war he had been barely known outside his profession, yet his service in the CRB had made him a figure of international stature. Now, upon America’s declaration of war, President Wilson immediately cabled Hoover to consult with him about the U.S. food supply. Based on his experience, Hoover seemed the best-qualified man to deal with the complex production, conservation, and distribution of food to Allied and neutral nations. Wilson and Hoover shared the belief that with the generous resources of America at their command, the Allies could wear down the Central Powers. The war would be won in part on the home front, and the troops and civilians who were best fed would have higher morale than their adversaries. Hoover arrived in New York Harbor on May 3, traveling that evening to Washington to consult with Wilson. Hoover’s Stanford friend Ray Lyman Wilbur, now president of Stanford, awaited him onshore. “Word was sent to me that he would come on a certain boat,” Wilbur remembered. “I can well remember the grey morning when his liner came in to the dock in New York City. The ship ahead of his and the one just behind had been torpedoed.”45
Hoover spoke with the president for about an hour and did most of the talking. He had lobbied for the position and had strong support from Colonel House and Interior Secretary Franklin Lane. Yet his nomination encountered resistance. Agriculture Secretary David Houston worried about Hoover poaching on his turf. Agricultural spokesman Henry Wallace opposed Hoover, as did Henry Cabot Lodge, who objected to federal control of agriculture on the grounds that it would concentrate power in the hands of President Wilson. The most vehement opposition arose from farmers, who considered Hoover a businessman and wanted a farmer or a farm-state representative in the position who would put farm interests first.
Hoover had mapped out his plans while crossing the Atlantic. He wanted a single-headed organization, not a committee, which might quibble endlessly and conclude indecisively. He insisted that he be permitted to serve without pay and that he continue to direct Belgian relief. When the president proposed labeling him the “food czar,” Hoover said he preferred the unpretentious title of “food administrator,” which was less likely to offend Congress. Wilson, a former college president, was accustomed to working through committees, but Hoover helped persuade him that in wartime the committee approach lacked decisiveness and dispersed responsibility. Later, Wilson reorganized his advisers into a war cabinet, including each cabinet member and leader of a major agency with war-related responsibilities who discussed contentious issues. Wilson made the final decision on the spot. As food administrator, Hoover reported directly to the president and sat on the war cabinet.46
Initially, Hoover was to serve in an advisory capacity, although he was compelled to take action while the authorizing bill, the Lever bill, waddled feebly through Congress. Despite the urgency, the national legislature debated the measure for three months, while problems piled up and crises festered. During the debate, the solons were diverted into issues such as Prohibition, proposed as a device to save grain but considered by some a moral issue. Hoover testified before numerous congressional committees, impressing members with his knowledge of world food conditions. He usually spoke without notes or a prepared statement. When Senator Thomas Gore of Oklahoma questioned Hoover about the price of beans per bushel, Hoover replied that he had always bought them by the ton. As a food management expert he explained that his philosophy included a balancing of interests. Farmers and businessmen must be allowed profits or the incentive system would break down, yet he would prevent gouging to exploit the war emergency. He must supply the American and Allied soldiers, and civilians of all countries. He must protect the nation from inflation, he explained, which often accompanied wars. Inflation led to high prices, which in turn inspired demands for higher wages and led to disruptive strikes, which could jeopardize the war effort. Finally, on August 10, 1917, the bill was enacted.47
Hoover believed that if sacrifice was shared rather than concentrated on a single economic class, most Americans would accept it on patriotic grounds. He wanted to demonstrate the efficacy of the democratic system in wartime, to prove it could outproduce and outlast German autocracy. He had no desire to Prussianize America, either via onerous regulations or by creating a top-heavy bureaucracy. “It was a colossal educational project,” Wilbur, his closest lieutenant, explained, “where a whole people had to be convinced and stimulated to act at each meal as to help with the war.” Exhortation became one of the Food Administration’s chief weapons, as deadly as artillery to the Germans.
Hoover also wanted to instill practical lessons about the type of government that worked with people, not against them. If he could infuse Americans with self-discipline and a sense of unity as well as the willingness to sacrifice in a common cause, the purpose for fighting the war would be realized. He had witnessed regimented systems requiring an army of enforcers flounder in Britain, France, and Germany, where the temperature of enthusiasm on the home front dipped to arctic levels. Instead, he would make persuasion and minimal regulation the lynchpin of his administrative style. His premise was that most Americans were patriotic and would react more enthusiastically if they were led rather than driven. Altruistic motives were intertwined with realistic and self-serving ones in the Food Administration’s promotional literature. Winning the war quickly would prevent America’s allies from being engulfed and prevent the flames of conflict from leaping the Atlantic.48
Following Hoover’s example, the infrastructure of the Food Administration was comprised largely of volunteers, many of whom had worked with Hoover at Stanford, in the mining industry, or in the CRB. For the nucleus of the staff, he hired the sons of two presidents, Dr. Harry Garfield, president of Williams College, and Robert A. Taft, later a U.S. senator. Hoover also employed Lewis Strauss, who was later nominated to head the Atomic Energy Commission. A poor young man from a Jewish family, Strauss volunteered to work for Hoover after being rejected by the military. Beginning as an office boy, Strauss quickly became indispensable in the organization and was promoted to be Hoover’s personal secretary. The men bonded and became lifelong friends.
Hoover never openly chastised a subordinate, although he did so privately. In public, he took responsibility for errors and shunned credit, helping to develop ties of trust in both directions. The Food Administration leader wanted to tap the patriotism and generosity of spirit he found in these young men, just as he had found it in his cohorts within the CRB. Like their boss, those who could afford to do so worked without pay, allowing the organization to operate on slender appropriations. His assistants took their task seriously, and their morale was high. To further motivate his staff, he showed them a cablegram from Lord Rhondda, the British food controller, stating that “it now lies with America to decide whether or not the Allies in Europe shall have enough brea
d to hold out until the United States is able to throw its force into the field.” Time was the enemy. The Food Administration was confronted by a narrow window of opportunity for success.49
The Great War was America’s first modern war, the first to require the mobilization of the entire population, both civilian and military, and the first major war fought abroad. Some 100 million Americans would have to throw their weight behind the war effort with a more refined degree of organization than had ever been necessary. Although a sophisticated man, Hoover had sought throughout his life to make complicated tasks simple, to define objectives, and to pursue them in a straightforward manner. As the head of the Food Administration, he directed a streamlined organization. “My idea is that we must centralize ideas but decentralize execution,” he had told a Senate committee. He was democratic in philosophy but decisive in action. The Food Administration was a no-frills organization, which Hoover termed “the only war agency which wore no bells and costume jewelry.” Further, he wanted to provide every American on the home front the sense that they were making a meaningful contribution.50
As he had at the CRB, Hoover rarely held staff meetings, and he eschewed charts and graphs. His propensity for simplicity and a direct line of authority was based on his experience in Europe, where he had watched food czars come and go in quick succession in Germany, England, and France. He utilized the same approach that had worked well in Belgium, relying on a few simple rules for the public rather than bludgeoning them with regulations. He relied on able generalists, not specialists in areas related to food. He assigned an assistant a responsibility and let him alone to achieve the desired results. His management method maximized individual initiative without micromanagement. Most assistants appreciated his trust in them and rose to the occasion.51
The structure of the Food Administration was relatively simple. Hoover made major decisions and delegated implementation. A Conservation Division under Ray Lyman Wilbur and an Education Division under Ben S. Allen were also headquartered in Washington. Below the superstructure, the infrastructure included a state administrator appointed by the governor of each state, and county and municipal administrators. All of these public servants at the local level and most at the national level were unpaid volunteers. Some 750,000 volunteers served at the grass roots. The Food Administration employed women to a greater extent than any other federal agency in history and gave them a meaningful role in the battle for food, making “every housewife a warrior.” The major victories would be won in American kitchens, he advised; frugality could help feed Allied soldiers and civilians as well as America’s own military and its civilian population. “Ninety percent of American food production passes through the hands of our women,” he explained. “In no other field do small things, when multiplied by our 100 million people, count for so much.”52
Hoover converted conservation into a crusade to determine who could save the most. He challenged Americans as they had never before been challenged. “The question of who wins this war,” he said, “is the question of who can endure the longest, and the problem of endurance, in a large degree, is a problem of food and ships to carry it in.” The appeal to patriotism not only saved enormous quantities of food for export; it lifted morale on the home front. Hoover believed that by winning the war by minimizing coercion, he could vindicate the principle of democracy, although he conceded that the war required a greater intrusion into civilian society than normal conditions. His decision to focus on conservation, rather than rationing, was based on practical as well as idealistic grounds. Rationing would have been a bureaucratic nightmare that would create red tape, prove enormously expensive, and be cumbrous to phase out when the war ended. It would be ineffective because a large proportion of the American people lived on or near farms and could divert crops to their own use. Moreover, such a program would have multiplied black markets.53
The efforts of the Food Administration were launched amid severe handicaps. Droughts in 1916 and 1917 produced below-average harvests at the very time the Allies needed more. From a statistical perspective, the United States was left with nothing to export. Although it would be possible to compensate by increased production by 1918, in the short run, the only way to obtain a surplus to export was by conservation. To persuade Americans that conservation in small amounts by individuals would reach totals that could help the Allies outlast the Central Powers in a war of attrition, Wilbur, Allen, and Hoover himself launched nationwide speaking and publicity campaigns. Food Administration speakers, most conspicuously Wilbur, fanned out across the country, appearing even in small communities. Wilbur coined catchy slogans such as “Food Will Win the War,” “Fighting with Food,” and “Not Business as Usual, but Business Absolutely Unusual.” In some talks he reduced war contributions to simple mathematics, such as the number of slices of bread consumed. He dramatized the role individuals and families could play and was explicit about what each person could do: buy Liberty bonds, cease eating bacon and white flour, curtail consumption of sugar, raise home gardens, can fruits and vegetables, and avoid squandering morsels. Whether at home or at restaurants, Americans were instructed to eat one helping, clean their plates, and ask for no more. About 20 million Americans signed pledge cards to abide by the guidelines and were given a sticker for their window indicating their vow to conserve.54
The promotional campaign employed every form of media and technology, advertising via radio, newsreels, feature films, and celebrity endorsements. From May 1917 to April 1919 the Food Administration released 1,870 press releases. Films were shown in theaters and high schools, as well as to social and civic organizations. Articles were placed in newspapers, and the Education Division dealt with specialized publications such as women’s magazines, trade and labor journals, and farm weeklies. Campaigns to sign pledge cards were conducted by the Boy Scouts, the Girl Scouts, and the Camp Fire Girls. The agency even publicized the names of cheaters, seeking to shame them. Clergy were asked to deliver sermons emphasizing the serious nature of conservation efforts. Like Franklin D. Roosevelt’s later effort to launch the National Recovery Administration, the Food Administration employed every avenue in order to reach American citizens and inspire a bandwagon effect. Prominent artists painted Food Administration signs, billboards were plastered, and neon signs lit the night. Some 50,000 signs were placed on railroad coaches, plus another 120,000 in streetcars. Hundreds of thousands of pamphlets and tracts were distributed to public libraries. Poets joined the crusade by rewriting popular nursery rhymes for children to chant. One observer noted, “No other agency of the government touched the home as regularly.” Although the Food Administration was criticized by certain groups, especially farmers who wanted higher profits, the conservation campaign worked more efficiently than the rationing regulations of the European powers. Food alone did not win the war, but it helped.55
Lou Hoover played a major role in the conservation effort, delivering countless speeches to women’s groups and civic organizations. She used her position as a leader of the Girl Scouts to involve the Scouts in conservation, and she established a large residence hall that provided accommodations for single young women drawn to Washington for war work. Lou also made her own household a model of conservation, or “Hooverizing,” a word coined to describe her husband’s admonitions to conserve. The Hoovers went well beyond the letter of the rules, eating simple fare, which was also served to guests, including government officials. Meat, sugar, and fats were minimized or excluded entirely from every meal. White bread, cakes, and pastries were not served, and wheat was replaced by buckwheat or corn cakes and corn bread made from coarse yellow meal. Vegetable oils substituted for lard and butter. No sweets were served, and all members of the family meticulously cleaned their plates and asked for no more. When the family exhausted the winter’s coal supply, Lou refused to buy more. Instead, the entire family donned sweaters and light jackets and maintained a heatless home.56
The most essential ingredients of th
e diet of the Allied nations and their military men were fats, wheat, and sugar. Fats, which play an important role in human health and stamina, were obtained primarily from pork. The price of hogs, which fatten on corn, was driven by the price of corn. If selling corn directly to the public became more profitable than selling it to hog producers, shortages in pork would develop. To stabilize the markets and ensure a steady supply of both, the Food Administration negotiated agreements to establish a ratio between the price of corn and the price of hogs, which ensured reasonable profits to corn farmers and producers of pork. Hoover played no role in pegging the prices, which were determined by committees of experts, including farmers. The prices had to provide incentives yet be fair to all groups, including consumers. By a combination of price incentives and conservation, the Food Administration greatly increased the export of lard, bacon, and ham to the Allies.57
Hoover’s task of calibrating a nutritional regime to sustain troops and civilians was complicated by the differences in the diets of Americans and Europeans. While Americans consumed more meat, Europeans’ diets were comprised of a higher percentage of bread. More than half the French diet, and slightly less in Britain, consisted of wheat. Congress authorized the government to interject itself into the economy by fixing prices of essential commodities. Hoover preferred the normal law of supply and demand but considered price setting a lesser evil than shortages during wartime. Headed by Hoover’s friend Julius Barnes, the Grain Corporation, which operated as a separate arm of the Food Administration, guaranteed wheat farmers $2 per bushel for their 1918 crop in order to stimulate production. The Grain Corporation helped control prices in another, more intrusive manner: it was authorized to purchase the entire wheat crop and sell it to processors at a fixed price. Sugar, a similar essential commodity, obtained chiefly from Cuba, the West Indies, the Philippines, and the southern United States, was handled in a similar manner. The Sugar Equalization Board had a government-mandated monopoly to purchase the entire sugar crop for Americans and the Allies. Antitrust laws were temporarily suspended for the duration of the war. Hoover clamped down on food processors and limited the market of wholesalers for every product for which the Food Administration set a price, attempting to prevent exorbitant prices for consumers. Violators of Food Administration policies, which were loosely enforced by committees representing trade associations, were required to pay a fine in the form of a modest donation to the Red Cross. Egregious offenders could have their licenses revoked, putting them out of business, but this rarely occurred.
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