 Earning the appellation of "food czar", Hoover recruited a volunteer force of hundreds of thousands of women and deployed propaganda in movie theaters, schools, and churches.He carefully selected men to assist in the agency leadership—Alonzo Taylor (technical abilities), Robert Taft (political associations), Gifford Pinchot (agricultural influence), and Julius Barnes (business acumen).World War I had created a global food crisis that dramatically increased food prices and caused food riots and starvation in the countries at war.