LYCOS RETRIEVER 
Herbert Hoover: Central Europe
built 278 days ago
The ARA focused its efforts on famine-stricken Central Europe; and Hoover rapidly mobilized his peace army to aid Poland. Millions of Americans made personal sacrifices; and surplus food was shipped overseas. An orphan himself, he was sensitive to the suffering of children. By 1920 two million children were fed from ten thousand kitchens. A Quaker who valued people from all religious persuasions and ethnicities, Hoover set up 1500 feeding centers for Jewish children, aided by the Jewish Joint Distribution Committee. A talented facilitator, he connected services and resources of American Poles, the American Red Cross, and the American Friends Service Committee (AFSC) to the afflicted peoples of Poland, Finland, Czechoslovakia, Romania, Austria, and Serbia.
Source:
After the Armistice, Hoover, a member of the Supreme Economic Council and head of the American Relief Administration, organized shipments of food for starving millions in Central Europe. He extended aid to famine-stricken Bolshevist Russia in 1921. When a critic inquired if he was not ... helping Bolshevism, Hoover retorted, "Twenty million people are starving. Whatever their politics, they shall be fed!"
Source:
During the 1920s Hoover set forth the basic philosophy that would guide him throughout his career. His central tenet was individualism, by which he meant equality of opportunity for each man to make the fullest possible use of his abilities. But he insisted that individualism be tempered by a sense of social responsibility and voluntary cooperation for the general good; he rejected old-fashioned free competition as wasteful. He believed that the government's function was to conserve natural resources, protect equality of opportunity, encourage business efficiency, promote scientific research, and build major public works.
Source:
Over the next 15 years, Hoover worked on engineering projects in Europe, India, South Africa, and Egypt. By 1914 he was manager of a number of mining companies throughout the world and consultant to many others. Although not yet 40 years old, Hoover was already wealthy enough to retire.
Source:
The Versailles Peace Conference, particularly its representatives from France, urged Hoover to withhold food to discourage the advance of bolshevism in eastern and central Europe. Whether Hoover consistently did so is still a matter of controversy. Hoover's most blatant use of food for political purposes was against a coup d'état by the reactionary Hapsburg monarchy in Hungary. For Hungary, under the leadership of the Bolshevik Béla Kun, Hoover allowed food that had already been purchased to be taken into the country, although the practice ceased after he received explicit directions from Paris not to allow it. By mid-1919, after Kun had ordered hundreds of political executions, Hoover's concern for feeding Hungary had ceased, and he welcomed the government's overthrow by radical trade unions. To him anything was preferable to an Allied invasion of these troubled lands. Hoover's insistence on feeding starving Germans received sharp criticism from the Allies.
Source:
His experiences in Belgium and postwar Europe confirmed Hoover's belief in the generosity and idealism of his fellow Americans. "If you tell them what is needed they will give you anything and everything," he once said. "The winter I ran the National Clothing Collection Drives, I put new tailcoats and tuxedos on every waiter in Europe."
Source:
MORE ABOUT
Central Europe