---
title: 'Americans: Short Wheat Crop Needs Careful Distribution'
url: https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/americans-short-wheat-crop-hoover-letter-1918/
description: A framed typeset letter, bordered with wheat sheaves and a shield of stripes and stars, is signed by Herbert Hoover as United States Food Administrator.
section: Collection
---

1. [Home](https://propagandaarchive.org/)
2. [Collection](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/)
3. Americans: Short Wheat Crop Needs Careful Distribution

[![Americans: Short Wheat Crop Needs Careful Distribution, 1918 US poster: A framed typeset letter, bordered with wheat sheaves](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/images/americans-short-wheat-crop-hoover-letter-1918.jpg)](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/images/americans-short-wheat-crop-hoover-letter-1918.jpg)

# Americans: Short Wheat Crop Needs Careful Distribution

A framed typeset letter, bordered with wheat sheaves and a shield of stripes and stars, is signed by Herbert Hoover as United States Food Administrator. It gives wheat figures, asks the reader to help prevent hoarding and urges 'the marketing of wheat reserves'. The tell: statistics and an appeal to 'American ideals' share one sheet, and the signature of the Administrator lends official authority to the request.

## Propaganda techniques used in this poster

[Card stacking](https://propagandaarchive.org/techniques/card-stacking/) [Testimonial](https://propagandaarchive.org/techniques/testimonial/)

## Text on the object

Original (English) · read from the image, not independently checked

```
AMERICANS:
SHORT wheat crop needs careful distribution. Reserves were swept bare last July. Energetic milling and supervised distribution relieved that scarcity in September and since. Moreover, Allied necessities have been fairly met month by month. A crop which on pre-war consumption promised only 10,000,000 bushels surplus for export, has furnished in nine months 100,000,000 bushels, after importing 22,000,000 bushels.

Americans, sinking their wheat flour preference and even paying higher prices for substitutes, did that. Patriotic consumers respond to national service call! So will the American farmer! So will the grain dealer and miller! Some trade papers say that grain dealers may not cultivate farmers' wheat marketings because larger profits offer in handling other grains. Is profit motive the only stimulant in free America?

Three months yet to feed our own people. Three months yet to continue the stream of wheat flour to valiant Britain-France-Italy. Our Allies use every possible substitute, and yet require some wheat flour to bind their cereal loaf.

These needs must be met. Farm retention of wheat hinders. A national need requires every American to make common cause. The American people will not tolerate preferential supplies or hoarding on the farm, or elsewhere.

21,000 grain dealers and 6,000 mills reach the grower. We enlist them in the national service. Explain what has been done and what yet remains to be done. Urge the marketing of wheat reserves. That is your assignment in Home Service.

Do it now and do it every day until every bushel within your influence answers-"Present and ready."

Yours, for American ideals,
[signature] Herbert Hoover
United States Food Administrator
```

Signature rendered as printed in facsimile.

[← Auch die Geduld hat ein Ende (Even Patience Has an End), German-language leaflet for German soldiers](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/allied-leaflet-auch-die-geduld-hat-ein-ende-1918/) [Are You Working with Schwab? →](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/are-you-working-with-schwab-1918/)

## More propaganda examples that use the same techniques

- [Fragments of the Abydos king list from Ramesses II's temple, in the British Museum: rows of royal cartouches](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/abydos-king-list-ramesses-ii-temple-british-museum/) (New Kingdom Egypt · 0000 · Card stacking, Transfer)
- [Behistun (Bisotun) rock relief and trilingual inscription of Darius I: the king, two attendants and the bound rebel leaders beneath the winged figure of Ahuramazda](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/behistun-relief-darius-and-rebels-521bce/) (Achaemenid Empire · 0000 · Card stacking, Name-calling, Testimonial). Content note: Shows bound captives before the king, and the inscription records the mutilation and public execution of rebel leaders, as the king's own account.
- [Tomb of Darius I at Naqsh-e Rustam: the king in relief beside his inscription DNa, c. 490 BCE](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/dna-inscription-darius-i-naqsh-e-rustam-490bce/) (Achaemenid Empire · 0000 · Testimonial, Card stacking)
- [Line drawing of the Great Kadesh battle relief on the walls of the Ramesseum, from Breasted's History of Egypt](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/kadesh-relief-ramesseum-breasted-drawing-1275bce/) (New Kingdom Egypt · 0000 · Card stacking, Transfer). Content note: A drawing of an Egyptian royal battle relief showing Hittite soldiers and horses killed and drowned, as the king's monument presented the battle; it is a one-sided image made by the winning side's own account.
- [Persepolis, Apadana staircase relief: a figure with an animal from a procession of delegations, early fifth century BCE](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/persepolis-apadana-delegate-relief-500bce/) (Achaemenid Empire · 0000 · Card stacking, Manufactured consensus)
- [Alabaster relief, Assyrian troops storming a citadel, from Nineveh (reign of Sennacherib)](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/relief-sennacherib-storming-citadel-nineveh-704bce/) (Neo Assyrian Empire · 0000 · Card stacking). Content note: An Assyrian palace relief of troops storming a fortified city, with a file of figures below; Assyrian royal reliefs and texts record killing, mutilation and deportation, shown as carved, with the historical context and scholarly dispute on the regime page.
- [Colour lithograph of the Latin text of the Res Gestae Divi Augusti on the wall of the temple of Roma and Augustus at Ancyra, with the heading in large letters (Perrot, Guillaume and Delbet, 1872)](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/lithograph-res-gestae-ancyra-heading-0014/) (Roman Empire · 0014 · Card stacking, Glittering generalities)
- [Silver denarius of Vespasian, reverse IVDAEA with a trophy of arms and a seated mourning woman](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/denarius-vespasian-judaea-capta-0070/) (Roman Empire · 0070 · Card stacking). Content note: A Roman victory coin showing a mourning female figure as the personification of the conquered province of Judaea after the Roman suppression of the Jewish revolt; shown as struck, with the historical context on the regime page.