False Humanity?

In January Herbert Hoover submitted to the exiled Belgian Government in London a plan for the feeding of Belgium.

Under it 1,000,000 destitute adults and 2,000,000 children would be nourished by soup kitchens. Germany would supply 1,000,000 bushels of bread grains each month, and Mr. Hoover's National Committee on Food for the Small Democracies would supply 20,000 tons of fats, soup stocks and special children's foods. The latter would be carried through the British blockade only in ships not otherwise available to Britain.*

The Belgians promptly said yes. The Germans were approached; they said yes--and shipped 800,000 bushels of bread grains into Belgium, prepared to ship 3,200,000 bushels more. The British were approached. Last week they said, once and for all: NO.

His Majesty's Government's reasons, as outlined in a statement explaining the refusal, boiled down to this:

1) It is Germany's responsibility to feed the countries it has overrun.

2) No plan for relief, however ingenious, could avoid helping the Germans indirectly if not directly. Germans would continue to remove surpluses from conquered countries, particularly where aid was given. A blockade was not a blockade unless it blockaded.

3) Food shortages were not so acute in the conquered countries as represented.

The Germans would not starve people whom they have set to working for them.

4) If the British people were deliberately subjecting themselves to privations so that the war might end soon, could the British very well allow relaxations of the blockade which might prolong the war? 5) There are worse things than going hungry--i.e., slavery. The sooner the war is won--by the blockade and other means --the sooner the conquered will be free and fed. It would be "false humanity" to feed the occupied territories.

Herbert Hoover had heard all this before, and he demurred in detail: "1) No food goes directly or indirectly to the Germans.-- If the Germans furnish their part of the supplies, it will amount to more food values sent into Belgium than could possibly be taken out of Belgium or fed to their own Army. The effect is to reduce, not increase, German supplies.

"2) It would, in fact, increase their transportation burdens by the amount of imports.

"3) If the guarantees and contribution of food from the Germans are not carried out, then the whole operation would be at once withdrawn.

"4) It would not be furnishing food to persons working for the Germans, since it is limited to the destitute (and thus necessarily the unemployed) and to children.

"5) Our recent surveys show that the food situation in the occupied democracies is far worse than the British statement would seem to indicate. The Belgian ration is already down to 960 calories or less than half necessary to maintain life. Supplies to maintain even that will be exhausted this month. Reports show many children already so weak that they cannot attend school.

"6) General John J. Pershing said on Feb. 16: 'From my own war experience and some knowledge of problems involved, 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.' "The purpose of this Committee is to raise a voice for those millions of helpless among the little nations who have been our lifelong national friends. We believe it is a duty of the American people to interest itself in prevention of such catastrophes.

We have no hesitation in saying that such action will uphold democratic ideals in the world. It is no false humanity which saves the lives of countless children, and the Committee has every evidence that millions of Americans wish it to continue its efforts."

*Executive Committee: Henry P. Fletcher, Ferric C. Galpin, M. Preston Goodfellow, Herbert Hoover, Richard W. Lawrence, Chauncey Mc-Cormick, Dave Hennen Morris, Maurice Pate, Edgar Rickard, Lewis L. Strauss, W. Hallam Tuck, Allen Wardwell. -- Lars Moen, an American chemist who was caught in Belgium by the Blitzkrieg, reported in his recent book Under the Iron Heel (Lippincott; $2.75) that scores of Belgians told him "perhaps the major" share of food sent from the U. S. to Belgium during World War I was diverted to feed the Germans.

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