3 wars. The President said he would see me the next
evening down at Col. House's office, as I remember it. The next
evening, however, the President had a headache and he did not come.
The following afternoon Col. House said to me that he had seen the
President and the President had said he had a one-track mind and was
occupied with Germany at present, and he could not think about Russia,
and that he had left the Russian matter all to him, Col. House.
Therefore I continued to deal with Col. House directly on it inasmuch
as he was the delegate of the President, and Lloyd George, in the
matter. I used to see Col. House every day, indeed two or three times
a day, on the subject, urging him to obtain action before April 10,
which, as you will recall, was the date when this proposal was to
expire.

NANSEN PLAN TO FEED RUSSIA

Meanwhile Mr. Hoover and Mr. Auchincloss had the idea of approaching
peace with Russia by a feeding proposition, and they had approached
Mr. Fridjof Nansen, the Arctic explorer, and got him to write and send
the following letter to the President. You doubtless have seen his
letter to the President.

PARIS, April 3, 1919.

MY DEAR MR. PRESIDENT: The present food situation in Russia,
where hundreds of thousands of people are dying monthly from
sheer starvation and disease, is one of the problems now
uppermost in all men's minds. As it appears that no solution
of this food and disease question has so far been reached in
any direction, I would like to make a suggestion from a
neutral point of view for the alleviation of this gigantic
misery on purely humanitarian grounds.

It would appear to me possible to organize a purely
humanitarian commission for the provisioning of Russia, the
foodstuffs and medical supplies to be paid for, perhaps, to
some considerable extent by Russia itself, the justice of
distribution to be guaranteed by such a commission, the
membership of the commission to be comprised of Norwegian,
Swedish, and possibly Dutch, Danish, and Swiss
nationalities. It does not appear that the existing
authorities in Russia would refuse the intervention of such
a commission of wholly nonpolitical order, devoted solely to
the humanitarian purpose of saving life. If thus organized
upon the lines of the Belgian Relief Commission, it would
raise no question of political recognition or