HOOVER, THE FOOD KING.

Waipawa Mail, Volume XXXVII, Issue 7917, 11 August 1917, Page 4 (Supplement)

HOOVER, THE FOOD KING.

THE MAN WHO CONTROLS THE WORLD’S SUPPLIES OF FOODSTUFFS.

A couple of years or so ago, of you had enquired about Mr. Herbert Hoover in Londpn or New York, not one person in ten thousand .would have recognised the name. If you had been fortunate enough to strike one who knew: him, you would probably have, been told, “Qh, Hoover—he’s a real good sort —a capital man of business, with a big heart and a clever head, but too retiring ever to make a splosh. Those who know him .well think a lot of him, but they are few.” And yet to-day this obscure American is the food king, not only of America, but of the world— the man on whom, almost more than on any other, the world’s destiny hangs. Without any official support, merely as a private citizen, he negotiated directly in the name of buffering humanity with the belligerent Governments, and built up with amazing skill and speed the greatest philanthropic organisation the world has even known. Ho marshalled an army of a hundred thousand helpers, engaged fleets of ships and barges, and as chairman of the Belgian Relief Committee, poured l food-sttuffs into tho empty lardefr of Belgium and France in tens of thousands of tons. He liad to encounter a thousand obstacles, many of them seemingly insuperable, but one by one they all vanished before his tact and his) indomitable will, and thus for more than two years he has kept life and hope in millions of the pitiful victims of war. VICTORY DEPENDS ON FOOD. Through it all—such is the man’s modesty—he kept himself so effectually in the background that his very name was unknown to ninety-nine out of .v hundred of the people to whom he was such Vi benevolent Providence. Such is the man who at forty-three has been chosen to play the most difficult role in the war—that of providing, conserving, and distributing the food on which victory and the world's peace depend. That he will be equal to this almost superhuman task no one who knows what lie has already done doubts. But it will tax even his wonderful skill and organising power to the utmost. Ho i; the last ma.n to underrate the difficulties in hi.-.' path, but he faces them with his unconquerable optimism, although he li.o humorously professed that he “ doesn’t quite see how it is to oo done.” NTVin ::::owx to be tired. When h? was asked lib opinion of the problem tbe other day, he answered, with u smile and a twinkle in his eyes, “After trying most experiments and studying all others, I have come to the conclusion that the only real solution is to be found in St. Matthew, chapter 15, which tells the story of the miraculous loaves’ and a few small fishes.”

This story is typical alike of Mr. Hoover’s sense of humour and bis incorrigible modesty, for although he can talk brilliantly cn most subjects, ho is a veritable Sphinx on himself and bis .work. For the rest, he has a strong personal magnetism, which infects his legion of helpers with his own enthusiasm, and such a boundless) energy that, however hard he works, he has never been known to flag or to confess that he is tired.