The Hungry Are Fed

In Ottawa's Chateau Laurier, the only living ex-President of the U.S. sat down to a butterless, breadless, sugarless, cream-less, potatoless, meatless dinner. (He ate cold salmon, vegetables, fruit.) Then he rose before a microphone to talk about food. At President Truman's request, Herbert Hoover had travelled 50,000 miles through 38 countries. Few men except the starving themselves knew so much about food--and famine.

When the world food shortage became acutely apparent four months ago, said he, there was an eleven-million-ton gap between the amount of food available for hungry nations and the amount needed to keep them alive. That gap, said Herbert Hoover, has now been closed.

The Combined Food Board arranged for the food. But, said Mr. Hoover, the people of the U.S., Canada, Australia and Argentina were the ones who deserved the credit; they sent the food, 10,000,000 tons of it, overseas in four months. Canada alone sent one-fifth.

But the victory is not yet complete. "There are somewhere from 20,000,000 to 30,000,000 physically subnormal children on the continent of Europe. There are other millions in Asia. [And] civilization marches forward upon the feet of healthy children." So, in countries that have food, self-sacrifice must go on. Supplies must continue to flow overseas in an uninterrupted stream for months to come.

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