ssador Page
received a reply from Washington in which it was stated that the
American Government had taken the matter up with Berlin on October 8.

After an exchange of telegrams between Brussels, London, Washington, and
Berlin, Ambassador Page was informed on October 18 by Ambassador Gerard,
then American Ambassador in Berlin, that the German Government agreed to
the arrangement, and the following day confirmation of this was received
from Washington.

Sometime during the course of these negotiations Ambassador Page and the
Belgian authorities formally asked Hoover to take on the task of
organizing the relief work, if the diplomatic arrangements came to a
satisfactory conclusion. His sympathetic and successful work in looking
after the stranded Americans, all done under the appreciative eyes of
the American Ambassador, had recommended him as the logical head of the
new and larger humanitarian effort. Hoover had agreed, and his first
formal step, taken on October 10, in organizing the work, was to enlist
the existing American Relief Committee, whose work was then practically
over, in the new undertaking. He amalgamated its principal membership
with the Americans in Brussels, and on October 13, issued in the name of
this committee an appeal to the American people to consolidate all
Belgian relief funds and place them in the hands of the committee for
disposal. At the same time Minister Whitlock cabled an appeal to
President Wilson to call on America for aid in the relief of Belgium.

Between October 10 and 16 it was determined by Ambassador Page and Mr.
Hoover that it was desirable to set up a wholly new neutral
organization. Hoover enlisted the support of Messrs. John B. White,
Millard Hunsiker, Edgar Rickard, J. F. Lucey, and Clarence Graff, all
American engineers and business men then in London, and these men,
together with Messrs. Shaler and Hugh Gibson, thereupon organized, and
on October 22 formally launched, "The American Commission for Relief in
Belgium," with Hoover as its active head, with the title of chairman,
Ambassador Page and Ministers Van Dyke and Whitlock, in The Hague and
Brussels, respectively, were the organization's honorary chairmen. A few
days afterward, at the suggestion of Minister Whitlock, Senor Don Merry
del Val, the Spanish Ambassador in London, and Marques de Villalobar,
the Spanish Minister in Brussels, both of whom had been consulted in the
arrangements in Belgium and London, were added