Volunteers who went to belgium to help. The Herbert Hoover president ial library and museum hosted this event. It is my very great pleasure to introduce the speakers today, who will present. Ive known them all for quite sometime. Now my age, quite sometime means some indefinite number of years between five and ten. I met each as they came to the Herbert Hoover library. Now, im thrilled to introduce them and give them a chance to share with everyone, with you. I sometimes lead tours in the galleries here. I led one this morning. When i get to the world war i era and talk about the crb, i speak of hoover feeding millions, hoover organizing, hoover, hoover, hoover, and it is the hoover president ial library. But even as im giving this speech, i realize im doing a disservice to the hundreds of americans and thousands that were the boots on the ground for the commission of relief for belgium. Each of those people have a story, thousands of stories. These four have made a study of that, and theyre going to share them be you today. Our first speaker brenden little came here as he was doing research. He was working files there. He found an early history of the crb. This lead to further research, further inquiry. He came out here a couple of times on Herbert Hoover grants. It covers 50 years of humanitarian relief. It explains what i call the creation story of the crb in the context of many competing agencies, the many difficulties of feeding people in world war i, and the pivotal role played by the crb in shaping later humanitarian efforts. Jeff miller, our second speaker, came to hoover sometime ago to discuss the possibility of donating his grandfathers books to the library. His grandfather, milton brown, was deeply involved in the crb. In addition to the books, kept a diary among others. One of the women that jeff will introduce you to kept diaries as well. Jeff said, id really like the one book project is now three. It is a damn fine read. It tells the story vividly. Its a grim tale, but it is told well. It is one of the best books of 2014. It is available in our gift shop. 16. 95, 17. 95. 16. 95 and jeff will autograph it if you ask him nicely. Tom westerman came to the Hoover Library on a Hoover Foundation grant while working on his phd at yukon. It laid the ground work for his article. Tom puts a human face on humanitarians. When i think of humanitarians, i think of larger than life, better than people humans. Tom talks about these people who are now across the water for the first time and in addition to doing their food relief work are just purist and engaging with the Belgian Community in different ways. He argues in this article and proves to me that the crb forged for these men a new identity. Hoover men. They were hoover men then and they were hoover men until the day they died. Bound by this common experience, they are always part of hoovers circle. Tom himself was a belgianamerican Education Foundation scholar. Spent a year in belgium studying his first doctorate. The baf fellows was created out of the remaining money when the crb disincorporated in 1920. It was hoovers idea at that time to set up an Exchange Program to bring American Scholars to belgium and belgian scholars to america. Our final speaker, tammy proctor, who again came to the Hoover Library sometime ago to do research on civilians in world war i. Tammy and my wifes paths kept crossing. My wife and i spoke at her college, whittenburg, on archives and the shaping of history, a grand tour topic we thoroughly enjoyed. We kept running into each other at conferences. Since weve met, tammy has written four books. She has written scouting for girls, a history of girl guides and scouts, and on my honor. I read her article, a recent article, on the destruction and the rebuilding of the lavon library in belgium. I thought i knew this topic well, and i came away with three new ideas. Hats off to teaching me something i did not know about a topic i knew very well. Our symposium is being held today in conjunction with our summer exhibit. Our speakers will offer these insights i often dont do on my tour about the crusaders this band of crusaders who worked to feed those in need. I hope youll come away with appreciation with the crbs most effective human angels. [ applause ] well, thank you, matt, and thank you, tom. Thank you for having me here today. It is an honor and a pleasure to speak with you. Frankly, i think it is one of the best archive cities in the world. Theyre unmatched. Theyre unparalleled. Thank you, matt, for making a historians job, which can be treacherous and full of drudgery, making it thoroughly enjoyable process. Have you ever wondered when the idea emerged that in the middle of a war or in the aftermath of a disaster that humanitarian aid would be overflowing . We expect such things today, but this was not always so, so when did this humanitarian awakening again . Over a decade ago while i was a graduate student, i became interested in these questions in part by stumbling across humanitarian aid as an idea and as a project and looking specifically at the way in which americans got involved in feeding belgium. It was a story i had never heard before, and i was captivated then and i remain captivated still. Now the individuals featured here on this slide are some of those very same individuals who helped feed a nation during a war, during an era prior to the internet, prior to the conveniences of cellular phones. I plan to tell a story now that reveals that when saving lives amidst a catastrophe became a driving force. Let us first consider some of the immediate catalysts for humanitarian intervention in the First World War. Including some of the processes that awakened humanitarian sympathies. First, reflexively, communities across the globe offered aid to soldiers, whom they understood would be harmed by the violence of war, but communities across the world also offered aid to civilians. The reason being is that total war in the First World War engulfed entire societies, so civilian populations became a source of humanitarian concern perhaps in ways they had not been nearly as prominent before. A second catalyst for humanitarian intervention was the refugee. In the First World War, there were over 15 Million People displaced from their home. They all had this vast flood. Americans constituted a minor stream, but that one stream proved extremely powerful in awakening the United States government and American Society to a reality of a world at war. The United States in the very first weeks of the war would dispatch a relief commission. The warship here is the flagship of that, the uss tennessee. It was sent to facilitate the exodus of 125 americans who had been stranded at wars outbreak. This awakened American Society to the reality of not only this refugee crisis, but the broader humanitarian dimensions of this enlarging conflict. It was hard not to Pay Attention to the refugee crisis in the United States. It was predominantly an immigrant nation, perhaps more so than today. The third catalyst in the awakening of humanitarian interests and intervention was hunger and the crcb. He did so in 1914. This program was called, of course, the commission for relief in belgium, the crb, and the focus of this presentation today. The Central Point id like to make about this remarkable organization is that its successful nationfeeding operations encouraged imitators. In 1950, for example, the Rockefeller Foundation, a pioneering giant in the field of philanthropy and public health, seriously considered forming a commission for relief in poland based on the model hoover forged in belgium. You can see members of that Rockefeller Foundation engaging with german officials as they negotiated the formation or attempted formation of a crb. Now the crb also emboldened war weary populations and their loved ones in the United States to solicit american aid. People became habituated to start to ask americans for aid as a result of what hoover was demonstrating in belgium. Now, in truth feeding belgium was extraordinarily complicated and improbable. Its success was unlikely giving the unexpected challenges the war continued to present, but nevertheless hoover and his associated found a way to make it work. And because it was so successful, people understood it was at least possible that you could aid populations during a war. Not just after, but during a war. People started to expect it should be doable and it should be forthcoming. Not just could, but should be forthcoming. This was forever entrenched in international opinion. We live in a world thats been shaped powerfully by that expectation. Belgian relief also shaped and influenced u. S. War policy by positioning americans as defenders of embattled civilian population. This theme of intersession on behalf of victims of war resonated in president wilsons message to congress in 1917 in which he proclaimed the need to make the world safe for democracy and to protect the rights for small nations, which you could translate to stopping aggressors and helping the noble. Here on the left, we can see a poster. This is a u. S. Liberty poster that came about after the United States declared war on germany. It evokes the concept of remembering german atrocities in belgium. It depicts the flames of a belgian city and a german soldier carrying off a young belgian girl to commit a dastardly crime. Remember the alamo. Remember the maine. Remember belgium and fight to liberate belgians who are under the steeltoed boots of german oppression. On the far right, we see actually a u. S. Food administration poster. Now the Food Administration was actually formed during wartime by Herbert Hoover and his associates. Many of the crb personnel ended up helping to populate and organize the Food Administration that managed National Food production and consumption in a way that could satisfy the voracious appetites. Youve already been doing it. Just keep doing more of it. Now the end of the war well, actually, i back up for just a moment. Policemen and firemen of the world. What do i mean by that . Teddy roosevelt advanced a concept of americans becoming a world police force. In effect, americans should intervene wherever theres unrest around the world for the sake of instilling stability and peace. Guess what. During world war i, we can amplify this concept because of the humanitarian urgency of so many distressed people. The American Population addresses the idea they become the firemen of the world. Now the end of the war, which was signaled by an armistice in 1918, did not do much to stop the misery it had produced. No better illustration of the enduring humanitarian catastrophe can be found than the necessity to enlarge a humanitarian organization. This was called the American Relief administration or the ara. Now the ara was a bit like the crb but on steroid it was bigger and more powerful, and it was a hybrid u. S. Governmental, military, and private organization that fed tens of millions, tens of millions, of malnourished people in more than 20 wardevastated countries between 1919 and 1924. In the map and the poster in the foreground, feature ara Food Distribution channels in the early 1920s. Unsurprisingly, hoover and his associate from the crb formed the leadership of these organizations, the u. S. Food administration, and the American Relief administration because they already developed the expertise. There are other organizations that try to replicate what hoover and his associates were doing. One of these is the International Committee of the red cross in operations in postwar greece, and it failed miserably in its efforts to follow that recipe. One of the essential links to what i call the ongoing revolution in humanitarian affairs is the way in which emergency relief in the form of food and medical distribution necessitated larger economic reconstruction initiatives to deliver emergency supplies en masse. Today we call this nation building. Across the continent of europe, the ara rebuilt or improved National Railway and Telecommunication Systems to facilitate the distribution of emergency supplies in tremendous quantities, so combatting famine required two things. Finding an organization that could do the work. Second, developing an infrastructure that would permit the distribution of relief supplies, which meant that American Relief administrators worked so closely and were so enmeshed in european economics and politics that they understandably chafed local sensibilities wherever they were, even though they were working to save peoples lives. From the standpoint of american aid organizers, their efforts would be wasted, absolutely wasted, if stable foundations for peace were not ensured, laying the ground work for stable political and Economic Development that diminished the likelihood of a recurrence of war. So remaking European Society thoroughly infused all american humanitarians in this conflict. We could ask, well, whats the takeaway from the perspective of americans who do this relief Work Overseas mostly or facilitate it by supporting it in the United States . Certainly, some ambulance driver e drivers saw their fill of carnage and wrote stories about the futility of war that created lingers impressions that americans simply wanted to distance themselves from a perpetually warracked society. They did not feel their work was in vain. Photographs of belgian children eating food and smiling with the stars and stripes confirmed for americans the value of ingratiating foreign populations and developing a love for american thanks to american generosity. Now the memoirs of humanitarians associated with hoover, their letters to family and friends, their correspondence, their diaries, even their obituaries testify to their Firm Conviction that the most meaningful work they ever did was saving the lives of children like this, and we can find that type of everyday actually here at the hoover president ial library in its collection. How hoverovers deputies forged lifelong fraternity. They maintained Alumni Networks and kept in constant contact. Now hoover called these individuals who worked with him a band of crusaders. They called him their chief, and they remained devoutly loyal to him for the rest of their lives. The great depression, the most harmful effects on hoovers representation did little to dampen their enthusiasm for his leadership. His crusaders felt differently. They truly did. There was one observer of hoover in this era who recognized this contrast between two divergent views of hoover. His name was joseph willard. In his postwar diary, ambassador willard described hoover as possessing no personal magnetism, but willard acknowledged anyone who has ever worked for hoover has become devoted add mirrmimireradmirers. Not only did they remain devotees of his humanitarian stat statesmanship for the rest of their lives, but they became leaders in his agencies. The hoover men were not the only individuals involved in International Aid projects. They werent. But what distinguishes them from the constantly shifting leadership so many other relief societies is that the hooverians constituted a united front irrespective of u. S. Governmental, international, or private relief activities in which they are associated well into the middle 20th century. The hooverians acted in concert to advance a common agenda in accordance with their chiefs vision and principles relating to international security. Here on the far right we see an ara Association Annual dinner from when . March 1941. Not far before the United States had formally entered world war ii. Imagine that they will join together again when a Second World War breaks out. Geopolitically hoovers band and many senior officials in the United States government ascribe to what i call the contagion theory of international relations. The line of reasons of this contagion theory as i would frame it goes Something Like this. War, revolution, natural disaster, governmental misrule produces great distress and that distress breeds radicalism, leads to unrest, and potentially violent. Consequently hoover was concerned that world war i and other problems overseas would produce radicalism, produce violence, produce instability, and even encourage other populations to embrace commun m communism. Woodrow wilson would state hunger does not breed reform. It breeds madness. In order to arrest the spread of disaster, american aid needed to be injected. If we were to use a medical metaphor, an injection or inoculation to cure these ailments. In the shortterm, it might hurt, but in the long term there would be great effects. If you give a man bread, he wont turn red. It didnt turn out so well in soviet russia for hoover at least in the 1920s, but his confidence in this formula of american aid provides a baseline of stability so that prosperity can be achieved, that formula he remained unflinchingly convinced of for the rest of his life and his disciples did too. Hitlers armies went on the rampage. As soon as war