Omaha daily bee., 1909-08-07
MEAT AMONG THE LUXURIES
Supply and Demand Drifting Apart
Boosts Prices.
BREAKFAST FOOD GIVEN As CAUSE
More Profitable 60 Cultivate Cereals
Than Beef-Farner Routs
Cavalry on
plains,

Is the time approaching when the Amen-
can wage earners will have to give up
meat? James ]. Hin thinks so. II so. is
It because OF the high price OF meat7
There is a great deal Of talk just now
about the increased cost Of living. Is 1t
driving the working man into a corner. or
are his own wsstefulness and top-lofty
ideas OF living driving him there7
This last question is not an Idle one
Everybody who pays a butchers bill is
dead sure that the answer to the first
question Ia in the affirmative, and that
there IL nothing more to the question, but
the meat experts are disposed to say-in
a low voice 90 that he cannot hear-that
the fault Is his own.
Now is a good time to begin practicing
economy" says Mr.. Hill. This will strike
the poorer classes as sarcasm, since they
are already economiz!ng down to the limit,
as far az they understand how to econo-
mice. But the food experts will tell them
that they never have economical, and that
in their different way they are Just as
wasteful as the rich.
In Demand when High.
AS TO Mr.. HiTs meat theory, a certain
subsistence In the demand for meat is no.
trouble and II Is attributable, easily
enough, to the high cost Of living. But
the men who deal in meat will tell you
that meat IL never 30 much I'm demand as
when It IL high, though this sounds like
the widest OF psradUxes. They will tell
you, and prove 1t by their books, that II
meat drops in price the retailers lose In
terest In It and won't buy II, but that the
moment It goes up they struggle to get It..
And this for q population that regards
slrloin as the cheapest cut, and II It can't
get sirloin viii 20 without.
It would be TOO much to say that the
high price Of meat is not responsible for
It's decrease, its failure to advance, or Its
extraordinarily slow increase-for author
tiles differ sharply as to which of these
conditions Is the real situation In the meat
market. But that there are other causes
10 affirmed solemnly. not only by the meat
men, but by their rivals. What are some
of the other causes1
First, the practical wiplng out of meat
as a breakfast food. A few years ago Mr..
Doolsy paid some high tributes to a
breakfast edible which he entitled al
most Food" The question arises whether
the extraordinary popularity of matted
corn and wheat in the last ten years is
not affecting seriously the demand for
meat. In other words, is almost Food
driving out foodp
Farmer selling Grain.
You who have stopped eating lamb chops
for breakfast, but still get your regular
Sinner supply at the butchers, may laugh.
But the action Of the demand for break
East foods on the meat question Is not only
direct, hut indir' ct. For farmers, finding
that they can get n quick market for their
corn, are selling 1t instead Of feeding their
cattle with 1t, and that results In a dimin-
ution in the cattle supply and a consequent
meat shortage. which has its effect on the
supply and price.
Putting 1t concretely. the farmer is Fir
ing" his old four-footed companion 10 form
a partnership with what that animal eats
and Is getting rich at It.
And there Is another cause.-the dlsap-
pearance Of the cowboy When you pay
a price for your steak that makes your
eyes open It never OCCURS to you that
there ia any connection between your din
ner table and the lonR-haired hero in
Chaps that you read about afterward
over your cigar. But the ranges are being
cut up into farms, and the great cattle
supplies are diminishing, and instead OF
depending on the great herds OF the past
you are slowly coming under the thumt
OF the farmer. who keeps just as little OF
stock as he pleases. and makes II W
companies.
ton, to the high place formerly occupied
used to feed to his cattle he now SELL