"
Altogether there were four thousand communal committees linked up in
larger groups under district and provincial committees, which in turn
came under the Belgian National Committee. Contributions were received
from all over the world, but the greater part from the British and
French governments.
When Mr. Hoover began his work he appealed to the people of the United
States, but the American response to the appeal was sadly disappointing.
During his stay in America, in the early part of 1917, Mr. Hoover
expressed himself on the subject of his own country's niggardliness,
pointing out at the same time that the chief profits made out of
providing food for Belgium had gone into American pockets. Out of the
two hundred and fifty millions of dollars spent by the commission at
that time, one hundred and fifty millions had been used in the United
States to purchase supplies and on these orders America had made a war
profit of at least thirty million dollars. Yet in those two years the
American people had contributed only nine million dollars!
Mr. Hoover declared: "Thousands of contributions have come to us from
devoted people all over the United States, but the truth is that, with
the exception of a few large gifts, American contributions have been
little rills of charity of the poor toward the poor.
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