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both Houses to raise the new army by voluntary enlistments.

There was a popular demand for sending former President Roosevelt to
France as head of a volunteer force of four infantry divisions, and
the Senate adopted an amendment authorizing the project. The House had
rejected the proposal. When the bill reached the Conference Committee,
the Senate amendment authorizing the Roosevelt expedition was deleted.
But upon the bill's return the House reversed itself by refusing to
accept it, and sent it back to the Conference Committee with the
instruction to restore the section permitting Colonel Roosevelt to
organize a volunteer force for service in Europe. The bill went to the
President for signature with this provision restored; but the
President declined, in his discretion, to avail himself of the
authority to permit the dispatch of the Roosevelt division, and it
never went.

The Food Control Bill which conferred large powers on the Government
for safeguarding the food supplies of the country for war purposes
proved as difficult to pass as the War Revenue Bill, but succeeded in
reaching the President. Its presentation to Congress was heralded by a
public statement from the President, who sought to impress upon the
country the immediate need of legislation to conserve and stimulate
the country's food production. He sought authority to appoint a food
administrator, and named Herbert C. Hoover, who had creditably
directed the feeding of the Belgians as head of the Relief Committee,
for the post. The President drew a sharp line of distinction between
the work of the Government as conducted by the Department of
Agriculture in its ordinary supervision of food production and the
emergencies produced by the war.

"All measures intended directly to extend the normal activities of the
Department of Agriculture," he said, "in reference to the production,
conservation, and the marketing of farm crops will be administered, as
in normal times, through that department, and the powers asked for
over distribution and consumption, over exports, imports, prices,
purchase, and requisition of commodities, storing, and the like which
may require regulation during the war, will be placed in the hands of
a commissioner of food administration, appointed by the President and
directly responsible to him.

"The objects sought to be served by the legislation asked for are:
Full inquiry into the existing available stocks of foodstuffs and into