The Washington herald., 1918-01-19
by WILTON BRONNER.

VIC AdNt " UP
in this country a basis of confidence
and understanding between the Food
Administration and millions of con-
sumers and producers.
We have been of MUTUAL service to
each other. 1 do not think that at
tacks made by that minority Of
profiteers. who have been baked in
their pretty schemes to sky-rocket
prices. will hurt US any.
'One OF the gratifying things about
this job is the hundreds upon hun
dredS of letters We receive from the
plain people in which they not Only
show that they understand what We
are trying 10 do. but also seek to
send along the encouraging word"
The speaker was Herbert c. Hoover.
United States Food Administrator.
who has been the object of an 'in-
vestigation'' by a committee headed
by Senator Jim Reed.
Reed is the man who nauseated the
country last summed by his repeated
and venomous attacks upon the man
who for three years fed and acted
as food controller for the 100OO,O 900
starving Belgian and French people
ground under the heel Of the brutal
German satraps.
Hoover now has a far harder
job-that of trying to save enough
to feed Great Britain, France and
Italy, to say nothing of neutrals
like Switzerland. which it is neces-
sary not to throw into the arms of
Germany.
Hoover, next to. President Wilson,
is about the hardest man in Wash
ington to interview. asked him
to toss his modesty into the dis,
card for once because it was i'm
pOrtant that he speak a word to
the readers of The Washington
Herald, lest they be confused by
the sound and fury of Claus Spreck-
els. the sugar king. attacking other
sugar kings, succeeded in getting
into the Record. under the benign
questioning of Reed.
VIII Not Discuss Reed.
Hoover refused TO be drawn into
any talk on Spreckels or Reed. He
felt the public should have all sides.
But he was perfectly willing to talk
glowingly of the way the American
people were helping him..
There is one thing that distin-
guishes the American people-it is
their positive desire to make some
sacrifice for their country. We. hear
it all the time. That is why they
have helped us so willingly to save
meat, wheat, fat and sugar. and have
come up smiling serenely asking what
more they can do. That is why so
many of the trades have voluntarily
reduced price and profits.
when we took hold We had one big
object in mind-we had to secure fair
prices to the American producers and
the American consumer with the mini
mum loss to the producer and the
consumer through the handling of
foodstuffs. We had some power
granted US by the Food Administra-
ton bill"
But not anything like as much as
Lord Rhondda has in England?" L
asked.
Hoover's serious face broke into a
smile.
THE English food controller can do
anything he wishes by mere stroke
of the peh," he replied. I'VE have
positive power through our ability to
license many of the wholesale dealers
and manufacturers of food. Further
than that we cannot CO."
I'm other words, most of the teeth
were extracted from the American
food law?" 1 asked.
Not necessarily; the food law must be
developed as necessity arises" Hoover
replied. Nevertheless. thanks to the
patriotism and the cooperation of
most of our American business men,
we have been able to do q good deal
in the matter of stabilizing food sup
plies.
"Of course, our outstanding pieces
of work have been the stabilizing of
the prices OF sugar and breadstuffs
and pork. In the case of sugar what
was done was achieved through
voluntary agreement.
with all the world outside of the
central powers grabbing for Cuban
sugar, we succeeded in getting an in
ternational committee representing
the buying needs of America, France,
England and Italy, which arranged.
for the purchase of all the Cuban
sugar crop.
This was to be financed by all the
refiners in this country in common,
and they were to get raw sugar in
proportion to their refining capacity.
The allied sugar was financed by their
governments. We had to secure
voluntary action of our refiners to do
the work done by governments
abroad
y ~