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Herbert Hoover Supports Food Relief for Finland During World War II
Herbert Hoover Supports Food Relief for Finland During World War II
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Description:

Hoover Herbert

Former President Herbert Hoover Supports Food Relief for Finland during Winter War

 

“There has been no more heroic defense of liberty since the American Revolution than is being shown by Finland today.”

 

HERBERT HOOVER, Typed Letter Signed, to Mrs. G. E. Rogers, March 11, 1940, New York, N.Y.  1 p., 8" x 10.5"  All text clear and dark. Some paper clip indentations and residue.

 

Complete Transcript

                                                                        March 11, 1940

Mrs. G. E. Rogers

4 Elycroft Terrace

Dover, New Jersey

My dear Mrs. Rogers:

            The assistance you are giving to the Finnish Relief Fund through your contribution of time and talent is appreciated by my colleagues and myself.

            The great service of this Fund is to help Finland by meeting the emergency needs of the Finnish people, which do not diminish as time goes on.

            There has been no more heroic defense of liberty since the American Revolution than is being shown by Finland today. It awakens every sympathy of the American people and this Fund enables us to translate our emotions into material help.

            We wish you and your associates every success in your work to help Finland.

                                                                        Yours faithfully,

                                                                        Herbert Hoover

 

Historical Background

On November 30, 1939, the Soviet Union invaded Finland, demanding that Finland cede border territories the Soviet Union deemed essential to its security, especially for the protection of Leningrad, which was only twenty miles from the Finnish border. The League of Nations ruled that the attack was illegal and expelled the Soviet Union.

 

In the resulting three-month Winter War, Finland repelled Soviet attacks and inflicted heavy losses on the Soviet invaders, as temperatures dropped as low as -45 °F. While Finnish forces lost nearly 26,000 dead or missing, the Soviets lost between 127,000 and 167,000 soldiers dead or missing. The conflict ended with the Moscow Peace Treaty signed on March 13, 1940 (two days after Hoover wrote this letter), in which Finland ceded 11 percent of its territory and 30 percent of its economy to the Soviet Union.

 

World opinion largely supported the Finnish cause, and heavy Soviet casualties and the poor performance of the Red Army led German Chancellor Adolf Hitler to believe that an attack on the Soviet Union could be successful.

 

Finns appealed to former American president Herbert Hoover because of his earlier success in providing food relief to Belgium. In December 1939, Hoover organized the Finnish Relief Fund as a humanitarian aid organization to support Finnish civilians during the Winter War. The campaign was advertised in 1,400 newspapers across the United States. Private donors, industrial companies, civic organizations, colleges and schools, religious organizations, and labor unions all contributed to the fund, which by March 1940 had raised $2.5 million. Organizers forwarded the income from the first screening of the movie Gone with the Wind in the state of Washington to the relief fund. For years afterward, Finns used “hoover” to mean “to help” as a result of Hoover’s efforts.


By the end of July, more than $3.5 million had been raised for the Finnish Relief Fund, and New Jersey contributed $146,602 to that total.

 

 

Herbert Hoover (1874-1964) was born in Iowa into a Quaker family, but both of his parents died before he was ten years old. After living with relatives in Iowa and Oregon, Hoover became one of the first students to attend newly established Stanford University, from which he graduated in 1895. Hoover worked as a mining engineer in California, Australia, and China. He became an independent mining consultant in 1908 and traveled the world until the outbreak of World War I, building his reputation and fortune. When the war began, he helped organize the return of 120,000 Americans from Europe and spearheaded humanitarian relief efforts in Belgium, from his administrative base in London. After the United States entered the war, President Woodrow Wilson appointed Hoover to head the U.S. Food Administration. He lobbied for the job and agreed to accept no salary. After the war, the U.S. Food Administration became the American Relief Administration, which, at its height, fed 10.5 million people daily. Elected President of the United States in 1928, Hoover took office less than eight months before the Wall Street Crash of 1929 plunged the nation into the Great Depression. Franklin D. Roosevelt defeated Hoover’s 1932 bid for reelection.

 

Ruth Worchester Rogers (1898-1985) was born in Connecticut. She married Gilbert Earle Rogers in 1921. He had served in World War I and was a mechanical engineer at the U.S. arsenal. In 1940, they lived in Rockaway, New Jersey, with their three children, ages 6 to 17.

 

 

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