American public opinion was informed primarily by newspaper articles about the Jewish first-party accounts of mistreatment and atrocities committed against them in Eastern Europe during local conflicts such as the Polish-Ukrainian and Polish-Soviet wars which erupted in the aftermath of the World War I. In June 1919, Herbert Hoover, then head of the American Relief Administration (ARA), after discussions with Polish Prime Minister Ignacy Jan Paderewski, wrote to U.S. President Woodrow Wilson warning that the reports of atrocities were damaging the reputation of Poland, a nascent ally being cultivated by the U.S. to counter Soviet Russia. Hoover, whose ARA oversaw relief efforts in Europe, secured the support of Padrewski through blunt warnings that the reports of atrocities against Jews "could develop into a most serious embarrassment to all of us in connection with the relief of Poland." Such pressure for government action reached the point where President Woodrow Wilson sent an official commission to investigate the matter. The Morgenthau commission was dispatched by the United States to verify those reports.