National Archives and Records Administration

Introduction Activity 1 Activity 2 Activity 3

The orderliness of the feeding of Belgium once the CRB supplies had started to arrive took cooperation of sizeable proportions. The Comitè Central coordinated and implemented relief efforts among the dozens of communes in Brussels which in turn had to establish local volunteer relief agencies in order to secure the needed subsidies. The local volunteer relief agencies then set up efficient distribution centers and offered uniform rations of seven ounces of bread and a pint of soup per day per individual.

• Divide your students into cooperative groups and have them diagram the chain of command for the distribution of CRB supplies within the city of Brussels.

            Comitè Central
            Commune Representatives for Brussels
            Local Volunteer agencies
            Distribution Centers
            Families

• Each cooperative group of students should compose a series of letters thanking the organizations for their support and help. For example: Letter #1 should be from a family thanking their distribution center. Letter #2 should be from a person working at the distribution center thanking the local volunteer agencies for their assistance, etc. Personalize each letter with as many details as possible so that it makes history come to life.
• The last letter should be written by Herbert Hoover and addressed to King Albert thanking the people of Belgium for trusting him, sharing in his confidence to accomplish this enormous task and giving him the hope to persevere when problems seemed insurmountable.

Herbert Hoover wrote an introduction to the book Women of Belgium published in 1917 by Mrs. Kellogg. Hoover's tribute stated: "To create a network of hundreds of cantines for expectant mothers, growing babies, for orphans and debilitated children; to provide the machinery for supplemental meals for the adolescent in the schools; to organize workrooms and to provide stations for the distribution of clothing to the poor; to see that all these reliefs cover the field, so that none fall by the wayside; to investigate and counsel each and every case that no waste or failure result; to search out and provide appropriate assistance to those who would rather die than confess poverty; to direct these stations, not from committee meetings after afternoon tea, but by actual executive labor from early morning till late at night-to go far beyond mere direction by giving themselves to the actual manual labor of serving the lowly and helpless; to do it with cheerfulness, sympathy and tenderness, not to hundreds but literally to millions…."

Hoover declared: "The men, also, had performed magnificently-buying, transporting, and distributing food supplies, creating the elaborate machinery of soup kitchens and canteens, supervising wheat processing and bread making, inspecting the apparatus of control, protecting precious food from the German army, and more. Out of all this labor had grown an army of 55,000 volunteers of a perfection and a patriotism without parallel in the existence of any country." (Pages 364-365 from Nash, George H., The Life of Herbert Hoover: The Humanitarian, 1914-1917. New York, London: W.W. Norton & Company, 1988.)

The commission's functions were far more complicated than its charter of responsibility indicated. Writing to his parents in early 1917, one of the principal CRB delegates, Joseph C. Green, explained what assuring "equitable distribution" of food "exclusively to the civil population" actually entailed:

Take the one item of bread for example. First the [CRB] Provincial Representative has to figure out periodically the exact population of his Province, and the exact quantities of native wheat and rye and of imported wheat and maize on hand. From this he calculates the quantity of imported grain necessary to cover a certain period. This he reports to Brussels, and Brussels to London. London supplies the ships. New York purchases and sees to the loading. Rotterdam transships into canal barges. In the meantime Brussels has decided upon the exact quantities to be shipped to each mill in the country, and Rotterdam ships accordingly. The provincial man must see to the unloading and the milling. The milling involves questions of percentages of bran and flour, of mixtures of native and foreign grains, of the disposal of byproducts and so on.

And this was just the start:

When the flour is finally milled, the real work of distribution begins. Sacks must be provided and kept in rotation. The exact quantity of flour required by a given Commune for a given period must be ascertained. Shipments by canal or rail or tram or wagon must be made to every Commune dependent upon the mill. Boats and cars and horses must be obtained and oil must be supplied for engines and fodder for horses. When the flour has reached the Local Committee it must be carefully distributed among the bakers in accordance with the needs of each. Baking involves yeast, and the maintenance of yeast factories, and the disposal of byproducts, and questions of hygiene and a dozen other minor matters. When the bread is baked it must be distributed to the population by any one of a dozen methods which guarantee an absolutely equitable distribution, each man, woman and child getting the varying ration to which he is entitled, paying for it if he can afford it, and getting it free if he can't. All this involves financial problems, and bookkeeping, and checking and inspection, all along the line; and the whole process to the tune of endless bickering with German authorities high and low, and endless discussions with a thousand Belgian committees.
Now, if you have digested that, you have some idea of what it means to supply a nation with bread. But that is only one item among many. Lard, rice, milk, clothing, etc., etc.: each involves its own special series of problems."

(Pages 362-363 from Nash, George H., The Life of Herbert Hoover: Humanitarian, 1914-1917. New York, London: W.W. Norton & Company, 1988.)

Letter
	Addressed to Herbert Hoover April 20, 1921 Written by King Albert of Belgium
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Letters
	Addressed to Herbert Hoover September 20, 1915 Written by President Woodrow Wilson
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	Addressed to Herbert Hoover [1915?] Written by President Woodrow Wilson
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	Three letters written to Hoover Written by Belgian children
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Newspaper Clipping
	"Gallant Belgium" Sunday Times December 13, 1914
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Type of document (check one)

_____newspaper	_____map	_____advertisement
_____letter	_____telegram	_____congressional record
_____patent	_____press release	_____census report
_____memorandum	_____report	_____other

Unique physical qualities of the document (check one or more)

_____interesting letterhead	_____notation
_____handwritten	_____"Received" stamp
_____typed	_____other
_____seals

Date of the document________________________________________________

Author of the document______________________________________________
Position (title)______________________________________________________

For what audience was the document written?___________________________
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Document Information

List three things the author said that you think are important.
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Why do you think this document was written? What evidence in the document helps you know why it was written?
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List two things the document tells you about life in the United States or the world at the time it was written.
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Write a question to the author that is left unanswered by the document.
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