Vol. XXXII, No. 3 



WASHINGTON 



September, 1917 



THE FOOD ARMIES OF LIBERTY 



By Herbert Hoover 



That the great world war will be won at last on the battlefield of food be- 

 comes increasingly evident as the months go by. And that is a battlefield where 

 the highest and the lowest, the youngest and the oldest, the weakest and the strong- 

 est, may do equally valiant service in the cause of our country. Herbert Hoover, 

 the man who saved Belgium from starvation, is now, as National Food Adminis- 

 trator, the g en eral-in- chief of the food armies of Liberty. In two momentous 

 addresses recently delivered, he has strikingly pointed out -how we may be soldiers 

 in the American food army, how we zvill help the cause of Liberty by enlisting, 

 and the dark consequences that may ensue unless we do enlist. They constitute 

 a new drum-beat to duty ; they sound a new note on the great subject of individual 

 responsibility. The National Geographic Magazine;, seeking to send the mes- 

 sage to the uttermost reaches of the country, publishes these addresses in full in 

 this and the succeeding article. It hopes every member of the Society will join 

 the movement to make the food army of America 100,000,000 strong. 



1HAVE been asked to review the rea- 

 sons why we are pleading with the 

 American people for stimulation of 

 our food production, for care, thought, 

 and economy in consumption, and elimi- 

 nation of waste. Further, I wish to re- 

 view the methods by which these things 

 may be accomplished. 



Briefly, the reasons are simple. Our 

 Allies are dependent upon us for food, 

 and for quantities larger than we have 

 ever before exported. They are the first 

 line of our defense ; and our money, and 

 ships, and life blood, and, not least, our 

 food supply, must be of a common stock. 



If we cannot maintain our Allies in 

 their necessities, we cannot expect them 

 to remain constant in war. If their food 

 fails, we shall be left alone in the fight, 

 and the western line will move to the At- 

 lantic seaboard. 



It is thus a matter of our own safety 



and self-interest. It is more than this, 

 it is a matter of humanity, that we give of 

 our abundance that we relieve suffering. 

 It is not difficult to demonstrate their 

 needs, the volume of our obligation, and 

 the necessity of great effort on our part. 

 In normal pre-war times, England, Ire- 

 land, France, Italy, and Belgium were to 

 a large degree dependent upon imports 

 for their food supplies. They yearly im- 

 ported over 750,000,000 bushels of grain, 

 together with vast quantities of animal 

 and fat products. Belligerent lines have 

 cut off their supplies from Russia, Bul- 

 garia, and Roumania, and the demands of 

 Germany on surrounding neutrals have 

 reduced the supplies from those quarters. 



distant granaries made inaccessible) 



Of more importance, however, is that 

 the submarine destruction of shipping has 

 necessitated that the farthest distant mar- 



