"Only America. . . ."

Before a microphone on two national radio hookups this week stood an eloquent keeper of the U. S. public conscience. He spoke to the nation on a great moral problem of World War II. Shall tens of millions of men, women and children be allowed to starve? Like Jiminy Cricket, Herbert Clark Hoover is patient, persevering, practical. And now, stubbornly pursuing a plan to answer the voice of conscience, he had progress to report.

Speaking in Chicago for his National Committee on Food for the Five Small Democracies, he announced that the British and German Governments had been asked to approve the experimental feeding in Belgium of 1,000,000 adults, 2,000,000 children, from soup kitchens where neutral supervisors could see for themselves who got the food. Mr. Hoover even hoped the Nazi Government might cooperate in furnishing some food from continental sources, in addition to agreeing, with Britain, that relief ships would not be sunk. If the scheme worked satisfactorily for all concerned, it could be spread to all inhabitants of conquered countries who face the probability of famine and pestilence.

For four years of World War I the U. S. fed 10,000,000 conquered people in occupied Belgium and northern France by agreement with Germans and British. "I have lived," said Herbert Hoover, "to see in Great Britain the applause of every Prime Minister of the time. They have eloquently recorded the fact that relief not only caused them no damage but that it established conditions in the ideals of their peoples and of the whole world."

As to today's living war victims: "I could debate with great emotion who is responsible for their plight. That is not the question. Its answer could not allay the immeasurable, stark tragedy to tens of millions of innocent men, women and children."

With terrible insistence the onetime President of the U. S. hammered home the point: "To those who say this cannot be done, the reply is simple--at least let us try, and if we fail, that ends our effort. . . . [The Germans] kept these agreements in the last war but if they do not do so again, then we have failed and we quit."

For his carefully conceived plan, his independent leadership in carrying it out, Humanitarian Hoover had stout support from two military men: General John J. Pershing and onetime CINCUS William V. Pratt (U. S. N. retired). Said General Pershing, in a telegram to Chicago: "I have every confidence that the salvation of these people can be worked out along the lines proposed by Mr. Hoover without military loss or benefit to either side." Said Sailorman Pratt (now back on active duty in the Navy), after approving the Hoover plan: "Only America can meet this emergency."

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