on the necessary information as to the
requirements of these agencies. Grains and grain products were not
included in this scheme of buying for the Allies, as this buying was
done through the Food Administration Grain Corporation.

The Allied purchasing was therefore completely controlled. The license
to export was not issued by the War Trade Board until the application
for the same had been approved by the Food Administration, and this
approval would not be given if the rules of its Division of Cooerdination
of Purchase had not been followed. It should be noted that the Food
Administration did not actually complete the transaction of purchase and
sale for any of the commodities. Its function was completed when buyer
and seller had been brought together and the terms of sale agreed upon
and approved by it. The total volume of purchases of all supplies made
under the cooerdination of the various agencies set up by the Food
Administration aggregated over seven and a quarter billion dollars
during the course of its existence.

CHAPTER XI

AMERICAN FOOD ADMINISTRATION; GENERAL REGULATION, CONTROL OF WHEAT AND
PORK; ORGANIZATION IN THE STATES

In attacking the problem of food control by enforced regulation Hoover
frankly repeatedly described his position as that of one who was
choosing the lesser of two evils; the other and greater one was that of
having no regulation at all. Political economists and others called his
attention constantly to the fact that the old reliable law of supply and
demand would take care of his troubles if he would but let it. If,
because of the great demand, high food prices prevailed, their
prevalence would automatically solve the problem of food shortage. They
would stimulate production and curtail consumption; our people would buy
less and there would be more of a surplus to send to the Allies.

Hoover's answer was that unrestricted sky-rocketing of prices would
certainly curtail consumption, but it would be the consumption by the
poor, the hosts of wage-earners and the small-salaried. It would not cut
down consumption by the rich, and it would promptly lead to sharp class
feeling, widespread popular dissatisfaction and resentment, even revolt.
War time was no time to force any such situation as this.

The remedy offered by supply and demand was one which would only bring
on another and worse illness. But Hoover realized and declared over and
over again that even a necessary interfe