Woodrow Wilson Papers
The Food Administrator ( Hoover ) to President Wilson
Dear Mr. President: Soon after the Armistice, you took one or two occasions to make clear that the maintenance of order in Germany by the German people was a prime requisite to food-stuffs and to peace, and that the necessity of feeding Germany arose not only out of humanity but out of its fundamental necessity to prevent anarchy.
It would seem that these warnings have a little worn off and I have a feeling that it would be desirable, if some joint and very pointed statement could be made by the four associated governments on the positive subject of Bolshevism in Germany.
As you are aware, there is incipient or practical Bolshevist control in many of the large centres; there is also a Separatist movement in progress amongst the German States, arising somewhat from fear of Bolshevism; there is also—apparently largely supported—a movement towards the election of a constitutional assembly of some kind.
Viewing the German Empire from a food point of view, there will be no hope of saving these people from starvation if Bolshevist activities extend over the Empire in a similar manner to Russia, with its sequent break-down in commercial distribution and in the control and distribution of existing food. The extremes to which such a situation [Page 681] can extend are well exemplified by the already practical depopulation of the cities of Moscow and Petrograd, and such a situation would not be confined to two cities as in Russia, but to thirty cities in Germany, and the saving of the German people would be absolutely hopeless if the normal commercial and distributive functions and food control should cease, as it certainly would under a Bolshevist regime.
Again, a political Separatist movement amongst the German States would produce the same situation that we have in the old Austrian Empire, where some sections of the Empire have a surplus of food and by practical embargoes are creating food debacles in other centres. We must maintain a liquidity of the existing food stocks in Germany over the whole Empire, or again the situation will become almost unsolvable.
In order to visualize to you somewhat the problem, if we say that the normal consumption of the German people, without restraint, is 100, the German Empire within its old boundaries must possess to-day somewhere about 60% of this quantity. If there is distribution and control, the population can probably go through without starvation on something like 80% of normal, and therefore the problem is to find 20% by way of imports. If there is an extension of the Bolshevist movement or extension of the Separatist movement, so far as food is concerned, we shall have some localities consuming 100 out of their local supplies and feeding any surplus to animals. The problem will be unsolvable by way of the available supplies in the world for import because the total consumption under such conditions would run a great deal more than 80% and all this aside from the almost impossible completion of dealing with distribution in the hands of such highly incompetent agencies as Bolshevist Committees.
It would appear to me therefore that some announcement with regard to the food policies in Germany is critically necessary, and at once. If that announcement could be made something on the line that the United States and Allies could only hope to solve the food difficulties in Germany until next harvest through the hands of a stable and experienced government based on an expressed popular will, and a hint be given that the Allies cannot anticipate furnishing the food assistance to Germany through the hands of Bolshevist elements, it would at once strengthen the whole situation in Germany and probably entirely eliminate the incipient Bolshevism in progress, and make possible the hope of saving their food situation. I realize that this is a suggestion of some delicacy but I feel that I should present it to you.
Yours faithfully,