The Brookings register. [volume] (Brookings, Brookings County, S.D.) 1903-1971, 1919-11-06

sions and food commissions and had
refused all other Office. He had no
more technical standing than you or l.
ooh, non of us did it, because we
are diplomats. Now, Hoover is a pas.
sionate man. That is the secret of
his success. But a diplomat cannon
afford to be passionate. God help him
if he is" There" said one man
present. That is why the peace n
ference has failed. 1t is because no.
body felt passion about anything"
Now Hoover will be in America by
the time this letter reaches there.
Hoover will be there-passion and Ill.
1t remains to be seen what America
will do with him. If he is not seized
by the scruff of the neck and made
into a servant of the nation, a great
human asset will be lost. But wheth,
er he is so seized or not, the fact re-
mains that he is. the only American
to return from this sink of intrigue
with no smudges on his record. This
is true because whenever a big issue
arose Hoover boiled over and wen,
to bat" just as he did in the matter
of the Archduke. OF all the horde of
the great and the near great who same
here to either win the war or make
the peace, Hoover did all and more
than he set out to dc. And of all that
same horde, he, almost alone, appar-
emily, has lost none of the big, warm,
human ideal which brought the United
States into the struggle. Others have
become cynical. Others have found
their pretty convictions and theories
swept away by the contrary drift on
the continent. Others have come
primed with poetic principles which
somehow would not square up With
eJonomics-and the principles have
gone under. But Hoover, his ideals,
his theories, his principles, are as fresh
and as vigorous as the day he first
took a war job on his shoulders. And
he has shown a capacity for finishing
what he starts. Starving babies-the
thought of them brought him in. 1t
is significant now that he has resigned
all his war and post war jobs that he
has left still standing the machinery
for feeding 1000, 900 hungry babies.
That alone of his gigantic relief ad-
ministration remains. Why? Because
though the rest of the world has been
holding human life at no price at al,
fnr Hun unorc n ic cti11 nc nr0nin,tc m
Hoover as ever A hungry kiddie is
still a hungry kiddie to this man. To
the rest of us a hungry kiddie has be
come, it is to be feared, something we
don't worry much about unless it is
our own family. And Hoover's worry
about the hungry kiddie is no vain
sentimentalism. His achievement in
moving governments, armies, revolu-
ton and Heaven and earth besides 10
get the food into the kiddies' insides
settles all doubts On that score. We
all know Hoover's ability. The whole
conference, practically the whole of
Europe. had been acclaiming that for
months. We knew that with only a
small personnel of officers and men
borrowed" from the army and navy
he was doing impossible things in dis
tributing food. We knew that he had
been sending trains where trains
were sending him news that no one
else could get. We knew that his
tenuous and widely scattered corps
was really the source of most of the
American peace delegations European
information. We knew that commits.
sions of generals sent out at various
points to investigate international di
plomatic wrangles were being beat
en- both as to details, speed, accuracy
and comprehensiveness by Hoover's
young ~lieutenants and captains every
day. We knew that for some time
past it had been the curious habit OF
one or another of the older heads OF
the peace mission to launch suddenly
into econiums of Hoover, without prov
ocation, as if they could bottle up their
enthusiasm no longer. 1t was a curl
Gus fact that they never burst into
praise of any one else. 1t was obvious
that Hoover was to the cold-blooded
diplomatic crowd something unique
something that they did not quite un-
derstand but something that they ad-
mired tremendously. Then came a day
of bad news for the conference. 1t
was o inconsistent with events that
it was Hoover's direct wire from Buda,
pest that brought the news. 1t was
a most sensational Jews beat, many
hours ahead of any other intelligence
service. The Rumanians had entered
Budapest in defiance of conference
| orders and had delivered to the Hun
garians an ultimatum sitter than the
Austrian ultimatum to Serbia, which
/ started the war. Hoover in Paris had
had in his hands, had distributed to
the correspondents, had sent to Wash
ington and the American press, the
complete text of this ferocious ultima
tum before the British and French
knew that it existed. We had gone to
the French foreign Office and to repre-
%sentatives of the British mission, with
copies of that ~ultimatum in u peck
cts, while they had no inkling OF its
existence. And hat fact, in the face