thing was going to pieces,
including the relief. It simply could not go on this way.

Finally, as a result of Hoover's insistence at Paris on the terrible
danger of delay both to the lives of the people and the budding
democracy of Europe, the Supreme Economic Council took the drastic
measure of temporarily taking over the control of the whole
transportation system of Southeastern Europe which was put into Hoover's
hands, leaving him to arrange by agreement, as best he could, according
to his own ideas and opportunities, the other matters of finance, coal,
the interchange of native commodities between adjacent countries and the
distribution of imported food.

Hoover became, in a word, general economic and life-saving manager for
the Eastern European countries. It is from my personal knowledge of his
achievements in this extraordinary position during the first eight
months after the Armistice that I have declared my belief earlier in
this account that it was owing more to Hoover and his work than to any
other single influence that utter anarchy and chaos and complete
Bolshevik domination in Eastern Europe (west of Russia) were averted. In
other words, Hoover not only saved lives, but nations and civilizations
by his superhuman efforts. The political results of his work were but
incidental to his life-saving activities, but from an historical and
international point of view they were even more important.

Before, however, referring to them more specifically, something of the
scope and special character of the general European relief and supply
work should be briefly explained.

Altogether, twenty countries received supplies of food and clothing
under Hoover's control acting as Director-General of Relief for the
Supreme Economic Council. The total amount of these supplies delivered
from December 1, 1918, to June 1, 1919, was about three and a quarter
million tons, comprising over six hundred shiploads, of a total
approximate value of eight hundred million dollars. There were, in
addition, on June 1, port stocks of over 100,000 tons ready for internal
delivery, and other supplies came later.

The twenty countries sharing in the supplies included Belgium and
Northern France (through the C. R. B.), the Baltic states of Finland,
Esthonia, Latvia, and Lithuania, a small part of Russia, Poland,
Czecho-Slovakia, Germany, German Austria, Hungary, Roumania, Bulgaria,
Greater Servia, Turkey, Armenia, Italy, and the neutrals, De