re asked to use other flours than wheat
whenever possible, to be sparing of sugar and meat, to utilize
substitutes, and rigidly to avoid waste. On every billboard and in all
the newspapers were to be seen appeals to save food. Housewives were
enrolled as "members of the Food Administration" and were given placards
to post in their windows announcing their membership and the willingness
of the family to abide by its requests. Certain days of the week were
designated as "wheatless" or "meatless" when voluntary demi-fasts were to
be observed, the nonobservance of which spelled social ostracism. To
"Hooverize" became a national habit, and children were denied a spoonful
of sugar on their cereal, "because Mr. Hoover would not like it." Hoover,
with his broad forehead, round face, compelling eyes, and underhung jaw,
became the benevolent bogey of the nation. It was a movement of general
renunciation such as no country had undergone except at the pinch of
biting necessity.[7] In the meantime prices were prevented from rapid
increase by a system of licenses, which tended to prevent hoarding or
speculation. Attempts to capitalize the need of the world for private
gain, or in common parlance, to "profiteer," were comparatively rare and
were adequately punished by revocation of license or by forced sale of
hoardings.

[Footnote 7: Restaurants and hotels cooeperated; during a period of only
two months they were reported as having saved nine thousand tons of meat,
four thousand tons of flour, and a thousand tons of sugar. City garbage
plants announced a decrease in the amount of garbage collected ranging
from ten to thirteen per cent.]

As a result of the organization of food supply, the stimulation of
production, and the prevention of waste, America was able to save the
Entente nations, and, later, much of central and southeastern Europe from
starvation, without herself enduring anything worse than discomfort. The
Government was able at the same time to provide the troops in France with
food which, to the _poilus_ at least, seemed luxurious. When the United
States entered the war the country was prepared to export 20,000,000
bushels of wheat; instead it sent over 141,000,000. In four months, in
the summer of 1918, the American people saved out of their regular
consumption and sent abroad half a million tons of sugar. The autumn of
1918 saw an increase of nearly a million tons of pork products over what
was available the previous y