Were the average American at the time even care about if the government provides relief aid to starving Russians.
I know that there is a common notion that in the 1920's Americans didn't care about the rest of the world but at least in this case the evidence is overwhelmingly to the contrary:
"The popular American response to the Russian famine was immediate and impassioned. According to most newspapers, magazines, and individuals, the only issue was human suffering and the only response was immediate and total generosity. Once again, as they had done after the February Revolution, Americans adopted emotional, not political, reasoning and looked to the people, not the government, of Russia. The
Washington Herald went so for as to rebuke Hoover for interjecting the political question of American prisoners. In the words of its editorial: "The American conscience, the American sense of right and humanity, rebels" against such a condition for relief. "It is the heart of America that goes out to the starving of Russia to save the children, who are guilty of nothing, not even of their parentage, surely not of an imposed government" The daily press from coast to coast echoed this sentiment, Religious journals unanimously favored relief, some of them with the hope that it might also bring spiritual sustenance to the Russian masses. Even Senator King, not yet converted by the NEP from bitter antagonism to the Soviets, proposed an appropriation of $5 million for the noble work of the ARA in Russia."
There were a few dissenters--Elihu Root opposed the idea because he was sure the supplies would really go to the Moscow regime, not the starving peasants--but "Amid the popular emotional response to the famine" they could "sustain their position only with difficulty." For example the bitterly anti-Bolshevik
Chicago Tribune insisted on July 29 that until Lenin called a constituent assembly and gave up ideas of world revolution "those starving millions must continue to die." "Four days later it warmly advocated aid to "the Russian people" despite their despicable government."
"Toward the end of 1921, this commitment to altruism was tested when Hoover asked Congress to provide $20 million, out of unspent profits by the United States Grain Corporation, for expansion of the Russian relief mission. The House of Representatives, the stage for bellicose anti-Bolshevism during the preceding five years, greeted the request with notably restrained debate. Only one congressman, Democrat John Box of Texas, objected that aid would bolster or sanction the Soviets. All other opponents cited the need for fiscal caution, the questionable constitutionality of using the Grain Corporation profits, or the advantages of private over governmental charily. After only a few hours of discussion, the bill passed by a large margin of 181 to 71. It was a highly partisan vote, Republicans forming most of the majority with Democrats predominating in the minority. As in the case of Hiram Johnson's resolution against intervention (1919), the vote focused on political parties, not on the Bolsheviks. The Senate responded to Hoover's bill with similar amiability. The debate paralleled the one in the Home. Again only one dissenter referred to the Soviet regime: Senator Borah argued that, if the United States could feed the Russian populace, it could also recognize the Russian government. Meanwhile, so conservative a Republican as Reed Smoot of Utah was urging his colleagues to support the appropriation, even though it might be unconstitutional, because it would save millions of lives. The Senate swiftly passed the bill, dispensing with a roll-call vote."
Peter G. Filene,
Americans and the Soviet Experiment, 1917-1933 (Harvard UP 1967), pp. 78-81. That book is also my source for this contemporary cartoon: