the animals and material which the Rumanians were rushing out of Hungary in train-loads was not the sole property of Rumania, but that it was the property of all the Allies, and that the Supreme Council would apportion it among them in its own good time.  The Council pointed out, furthermore, that if the Rumanians succeeded in wrecking Hungary industrially, as they were evidently trying to do, it would be manifestly impossible for the Hungarians to pay any war indemnity whatsoever.  And finally, that a bankrupt and starving Hungary meant a Bolshevist Hungary and that there was already enough trouble of that sort in Eastern Europe without adding to it.  The Rumanians proving deaf to these arguments, the Supreme Council sent three messages, one after the other, to the Bucharest government, ordering the immediate withdrawal from Hungarian soil of the Rumanian troops.  Yet the Rumanian troops remained in Budapest and the looting of Hungary continued, the Rumanian government declaring that the messages had never been received.  Meanwhile every one in the kingdom, from Premier to peasant, was laughing in his sleeve at the helplessness of the Supreme Council.  But they laughed too soon.  For the Supreme Council wired to the Food Administrator, Herbert Hoover, who was in Vienna, informing him of the facts of the situation, whereupon Mr. Hoover, who has a blunt and uncomfortably direct way of achieving his ends, sent a curt message to the Rumanian government informing it that, if the orders of the Supreme Council were not immediately obeyed, he would shut off its supplies of food. That message produced action.  The troops were withdrawn.  I can recall no more striking example of the amazing changes brought about in Europe by the Great War than the picture of this boyish-faced Californian mining engineer coolly giving orders to a European government, and having those orders promptly obeyed, after the commands of the Great Powers had been met with refusal and derision.  To take a slight liberty with the lines of Mr. Kipling—­

    "The Kings must come down and the Emperors frown
    When Herbert Hoover says ‘Stop!’"

Up to that time the United States had been immensely popular in Rumania.  But Mr. Hoover’s action made us about as popular with the Rumanians as the smallpox.  He and we were charged with being actuated by the most despicable and sordid motives.  The King himself told me that he was convinced that Mr. Hoover was in league with certain great commercial interests which wished to take their revenge for their failure to obtain commercial concessions of great value in Rumania.  A cabinet minister, in discussing the incident with me, became so inarticulate with rage that he could scarcely talk at all.