Paris Peace Conf. 840.48/3b: Telegram
The Commission to Negotiate Peace to the Acting Secretary of State
127. For the Secretary of the Treasury from the President.
Extended investigation and consideration of the food situation in certain parts of Europe discloses that especially the urban populations in certain areas are not only faced with absolute starvation during the coming winter, but that many of these populations are unable to find immediate resources with which to purchase their food. These regions have been so subjected to destruction by war, not only of their foodstuffs but of their financial resources and their power of production and export, that they are utterly incapable of finding any resources that can be converted into international exchange for food purchases. While the Secretary of the Treasury can accept obligations of certain governments and through these measures their situations can be cared for temporarily, there are still other areas through Eastern and Southeastern Europe where such arrangements cannot be made. This applies more particularly to the liberated peoples of Austria, Turkey, Poland and Western Russia. In these countries freedom and government will slowly emerge from chaos and require our every assistance.
The total shipments of foodstuffs from the United States to all parts of Europe during the next 7 months will be likely to exceed 1½ billion dollars, and from our abundance we can surely afford to offer succor to these countries destitute of resources or credit. The minimum sum upon which this work can be carried on for the next 6 months in the countries above mentioned will amount to at least 100,000,000 dollars, for such services and supplies as we can render, and even this sum contemplates the finding of resources by so much of the populations as can do so and such assistance as can be given by the Allied Governments.
The high mission of the American people to find a remedy against starvation and absolute anarchy, renders it necessary that we should undertake the most liberal assistance to these destitute regions.
The situation is one of extreme urgency, for foodstuffs must be placed within certain localities within the next 15 to 30 days if human life and order is to be preserved. I, therefore, request that you should ask Congress to make available to me an immediate appropriation of $100,000,000 for the broad purpose of providing foodstuffs and other urgent supplies, for the transportation, distribution, and administration thereof to such populations in Europe, outside of Germany, as may be determined upon by me from time to time as necessary.
[Page 693]I wish to appeal to the great sense of charity and good will of the American people toward the suffering, and to place this act upon a primarily humanitarian basis of the first magnitude. While the sum of money is in itself large, it is so small compared to the expenditures we have undertaken in the hope of bettering the world, that it becomes a mere pittance compared to the results that will be obtained from it, and the lasting effect that will remain in the United States through an act of such broad humanity and statesmanlike influence.