The Birmingham age-herald., 1915-01-22
By Hop

ing. however. on the magnitude of what has been done, and on the splendid re spcnse of the American people to the ap| peal made to it's generosity, the chairman oe the relief commission pointed out tha the supply of food is still far from ade ouate and declared that from some of the richest portions of the United States mol assistance whatever has yet come.
 But we have done pretty well' Hoover added. Up to the present time we have sent about sS,00o,000 worth of food into Belgium mostly consisting of wheat rice and other cereals but also including a certain amount of medical supplies and also of clothing. We have now some 30 ships in commission. and are landing ship loads in Belgium at the rate of about four a week, and, by January 1, We lope to be landing five week. These ship loads range from 4000 or 5000 tons up to the biggest on record one of 5000 tons, which came. from the city of Boston The ships ccme to Rotterdam, from whence the car goes go by canal to big warehouses which we have chartered in various parts of Belgium, and from these the food is distributed, practically all this work be- Ing done, l may add, under the super vision of some 20-odd of the Rhodes schoI- ars at Oxford who are devoting their six weeks of vacation to this work, and, in many cases, paying their own expenses <'iOoe VI tiiChi, py tiic way, Ire enQeaN- orins to obtain an extension of their holi- days when the university term recom- mences
 I found the Belgians outwardly stoical,' Hoover went on, but inwardly full of hate. Probably few people re- alize, by the way. how completely the clock has stopped in Belgium. There are no telegraphs, telephones. railways or rostoffices except for military purposes. Traffic by rail is only possible in a few directions, and on the wonderful canal system no barges but our own are seen. All this adds, of course, to the difficult ties we encounter which do not include, however, any obstruction from the Ger man authorities. Not one loaf of bread or one spoonful of salt that we have introduced has been taken by them, so far as we can ascertain.
 Tt is difficult to say how many peo- pie we actually are feeding" he went oIi, but we have about million and one- quarter of them on our bread lines alone. Of a population of about 650,000 re- maining in the city of Brussels an aver age of 21S,0O0 were on the adult can teens and 31.000 babies on the baby can teents last week, more than one-third Of the total population. I can imagine nothing more pitiful than the long lines of mothers we saw, waiting their turn at these canteens. M
 
 went on ito reach some of the outlying districts, and I fear that the people in some of them will be eating the leaves off the trees when their present stock of potatoes and turnips runs out. We are working. of course, hand-in-hand with the communal governments, which still exist, and, after investigation oy these communal authorities. food tickets are issued indicating the number and amount of rations the holder is entitled to. and twice daily this ticket is presented by the holder to the food canteens, when the quota is given and the ticket punched they stamp it as a matter of strict fact. The ration consists of bread and soup with little coffee and salt. All those who can afford to pay are conn pelled to pay the communal authorities al the rate of cents portion Those who are destitute are given the tickets free'
 Meanwhile, not from Hoover nor from any member of the commission. but from u responsible American, who has just re- turned from Brussels. have heard the following exceedingly typica! story: The officials of the commission had photo, graphs taken of the bread lines" in Brussels and intended to publish these. but the German authorities objected. A few days later, however, these photo- graphs were reproduced in German con- trolled newspapers, the pictures having. in the interim. been 'faked so that they showed German soldiers handing out the food instead of the persons who actually did this