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	So, how did it all start? How did Herbert C. Hoover, a "self-made" mining engineer and wealthy entrepreneur, become involved in international relief work? Hoover was living in London, England, when on August 4, 1914, the Great War exploded in Europe. Because of the war as well as the English banking holiday, thousands of an estimated 125,000 Americans eventually fleeing the conflict, were stranded in England. They had little, if any, money, and consequently no food, no shelter and little hope of sailing home since there were no ships to sail. These American refugees descended on the embassy in London and demanded help. The embassy was overwhelmed. Probably because he knew the American consul general, Robert Skinner; perhaps because he was a relatively young man of forty who needed a new challenge; perhaps because of his Quaker-based altruism, Herbert Hoover helped organize and systematize the relief efforts for these American refugees. Fronting some of his own money, Hoover also persuaded other wealthy people to join him in a refugee loan foundation that he administered. This committee lent people money for room and board until the English banks could reopen and honor the refugees' letters of credit or until the U.S. government could help arrange transportation home. From August to October, 1914, Hoover and his committee along with his wife, Lou Henry Hoover, and her cadre of volunteers assisted approximately 42,000 of the Americans fleeing WWI ( This is a very brief summary of an extraordinarily frustrating, poignant, sometimes amazing and occasionally funny story. Read Hoover's memoirs and Nash's biography of Hoover for more details. Sources are listed in the bibliography section of this project.) President Woodrow Wilson learned of Hoover's efficiency. When it became apparent that 8,000,000 Belgian people, who depended largely on imported food and on whose fields the Germans waged war, were starving, Hoover was approved to coordinate the non-combatant countries' relief efforts for Belgium. Hoover faced incredible philosophical and practical obstacles in providing this relief. For example, England, at war with Germany, was more than concerned that if Germany did not have to feed, however minimally, the Belgian people, Germany would have that many more resources for war. Also, there was the worry that Germany would get a hold of the thousands and thousands of the empty flour sacks from the relief effort. These sacks happened to be made of cotton -- a major component at that time for making munitions and one that Germany was desperate to acquire. Then, of course, there were the problems of where the food would come from, who would finance the food and how it would be shipped? How and when would the foodstuffs be distributed to the Belgian citizens without the Germans commandeering it? And this is where the students' unit begins.
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