sons among them, but one of these lieutenants was so long in the
work, so effective, so devoted, so regardless of personal sacrifice of
means and career and health, that we can mention his name without
hesitation as the one to whom, next to the Chief, the men of the C. R.
B. and the people of Belgium and France turned, and never in vain, for
the inspiration that never let hope die. This is William Babcock Poland,
like his chief an engineer of world-wide experience, who served first as
assistant director in Belgium, then as director there, and, finally,
after Hoover came to America to be its food administrator, director,
with headquarters in London, for all the work in Europe.

In April, 1917, America entered the war, and Minister Whitlock came out
of Belgium with his shepherded flock of American consuls and relief
workers, although a small group of C. R. B. men, with the director,
Prentis Gray, remained inside for several weeks longer. In the same
month Herbert Hoover heard his next call to war service. For almost
immediately after our entrance into the war President Wilson asked him
to come to Washington to consult about the food situation. This
consultation was the beginning of American food administration. It did
not end Belgian relief for Hoover, for the work had still to go on and
did go on through all the rest of the war and even for several months of
the Armistice period, with the C. R. B. and its Chief still in charge,
although Dutch and Spanish neutrals replaced the Americans inside the
occupied territory. But the new call was to place a new duty and
responsibility on Hoover's broad shoulders. Responding to it, he arrived
in New York on the morning of May 3, 1917, and reached Washington the
evening of the same day. On the following day he talked with the
President and began planning for the administration of American food.

CHAPTER X

AMERICAN FOOD ADMINISTRATION: PRINCIPLES, CONSERVATION, CONTROL OF
EXPORTS

Put yourself in Hoover's place when the President called him back from
the Belgian relief work to be the Food Administrator of the United
States. Here were a hundred million people unaccustomed to government
interference with their personal affairs, above all of their affairs of
stomach and pocketbook, their affairs of personal habit and private
business. What would you think of your chance to last long as a new kind
of government official, set up in defiance of all American precedent and
tradi