merican business man whose aid we anticipate and depend on
to remedy the evils developed by the war which he admits and
deplores as deeply as ourselves. But if there be those who expect
to exploit this hour of sacrifice, if there are men or
organizations scheming to increase the trials of this country, we
shall not hesitate to apply to the full the drastic, coercive
powers that Congress has conferred upon us in this instrument."

From the beginning of the war the food necessities of the Allies and
European neutrals had led them to make the most violent exertions to
meet their needs, and these exertions were intensified as the war went
on. Food was war material. It existed in America and was imperatively
demanded in Europe. By any means possible, without regard to price or
dangerous drainage away from us Europe meant to have it. Hoover early
saw the danger to America in this. Things had to be balanced. We were
ready to exert every effort to supply the Allies every pound of food we
could afford to let go out of the country, but there was a limit, a
danger-line. Hoover could not trust to appeal to the European countries
to regard this danger; they were in a state of panic. It required
recourse to legal regulation. There was necessary an effective control
of exports. Without such control the tremendous pressure of demand from
the European countries, with the sky-rocketing of prices incident to it
would have broken down the whole fabric of Hoover's measures for
guarding the food needs of our own people and of stabilizing prices and
preventing an actual food panic and consequent industrial break-down in
our country at a moment when we were calling on our industries and our
people as a whole for their greatest efforts.

The Food Law alone was not sufficient to give Hoover the strength he
needed for this control. But casting about for assistance he formed a
close working alliance between the Food Administration and the War Trade
and Shipping Boards to effect the needed regulation. The combination had
the power to establish an absolutely effective control of exports and
imports. Not a pound of food could be sent out of the country without
the consent of the Food Administration.

Growing out of this export control and really including it, was the
wider function of the centralization and cooerdination of purchases not
only for the Allies and Neutrals but in connection with the buying
agencies of our