Norman Hapgood to Colonel House

McPherson, Assistant Secretary of War, said to me: Send us all the 200 pound flying machine engines you can. Never mind the machines themselves.Hoover said: “Make loans that will bring exchange to par.” By the way, lots of people, English and American, think Hoover the ablest man the war has turned up.General Nivelle and Minister of War Painleve last week told Hoover the following and Hoover urged me to do something about it.
France has lost 1,200,000 killed. Over 2,000,000 permanently disabled. Of these 600,000 have tuberculosis.
An American army will never do her any good, probably. Certainly not this year. It could not hold any part of the line in a long, long time. Its separate staffs, communications, bases etc. would make no end of trouble. Young men, raw material, from America for the French army. “It would be our salvation”, Nivelle said, if they would go, in small numbers whenever there was room on ships, aggregating from 50,000 up during the summer.Kitchener said to an acquaintance of mine that the French could not keep up their armies after next fall.Extracts from letter of Norman Hapgood.