to the list of honorary
chairmen. And, a little later, there were added the names of Mr. Gerard,
the American Ambassador at Berlin, Mr. Sharp, our Ambassador at Paris,
and Jongkeer de Weede, the Dutch Minister to the Belgian Government at
Le Havre where it had taken refuge. At the same time the name of the
Commission was modified by dropping from it the word "American" in
deference to the official connection of the Spanish diplomats with it.
The new organization thus became styled "The Commission for Relief in
Belgium," which remained its official title through its existence. This
name was promptly reduced, in practical use by its members, with
characteristic American brevity, to "C. R. B.," which, pronounced
"tsay-er-bay," was also soon the one most widely used in Belgium and
Occupied France by Belgian, French, and Germans alike.

I have given this account of the organization and status of the
Commission in so much detail because it reveals its imposing official
appearance which was of inestimable value to it in carrying on its
running diplomatic difficulties all through the war. The official
patronage of the three neutral governments, American, Spanish and Dutch,
gave us great strength in facing the repeated assaults on our existence
and the constant interference with our work by German officials and
officers. I have earlier used the phrase "satisfactory conclusion of
diplomatic arrangements." There never was, in the whole history of the
Commission, any satisfactory conclusion of such arrangements; there were
sufficiently satisfactory conditions to enable the work to go on
effectively but there was always serious diplomatic difficulty.
Ministers Whitlock and Villalobar, our "protecting Ministers" in
Brussels, had to bear much of the brunt of the difficulties, but the
Commission itself grew to have almost the diplomatic standing of an
independent nation, its chairman and the successive resident directors
in Brussels acting constantly as unofficial but accepted intermediaries
between the Allies and the Germans.

The "C. R. B." was organized. It had its imposing list of diplomatic
personages. It had a chairman and secretary and treasurer and all the
rest. But to feed the clamoring Belgians it had to have food. To have
food it had to have money, much money, and with this money food in large
quantity had to be obtained in a world already being ransacked by the
purchasing agents of France and England seeking the stocks th