The sun. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1833-1916, 1914-03-06
NEW YORK HAS FOOD
ENOUGH FOR IS DAYS
After That If Supplies Were Cut Off Million.
Here Would Starve. Says Chair.
man Miller

New York. IL cut OF from outside food
supplies. could live for fifteen days on
what It had. Then II would starve.
Long before that. In fact almost AZ soon
as II became known in the distributing
centres that inlmicai man or nature had
laid siege to the city. the prices Of food
stuffs would soar until the pinch Of
poverty would lead to bread riots.
This on the authority Of ex-Boroush
President Cyrus c. Miller OF Tho Bronx.
who 10 now chairman Of the Mayors food
commission and who has made first hand
studies OF New Yorks food supply for
three years. Mr.. Miller has completed.
and the proofs Of his report are now In the
hands Of the printer. a report which con-
tains opinions OF the big and little food
! experts Of the country In regard to the
problem Of supplying New York.
Mr.. Miller laughed when reporter for
THE Sun told him that he had been In
structed to And out In Just what condi-
ton New York would md itself should
II be shut of from the outside world.
Years Of InvestiGatioa.
u and my colleagues on tho Mayors
food commission have spent years OF In.
vestigntion and have examined many ex-
perts In an attempt to ind the answer
to that question. which was after all only
an incident to the greater problem OF
how to give New York a reasonable food
supply under normal conditions.
Two years ago the peril Of the city
under siege. either by nature or by man.
impressed us so that l wrote to Gov. Dix
asking him to request his military board
to work out a plan that might save the
city under such conditions. l had in mind
particularly tho terrible privations that
mas follow In the waKe OF a great storm.
Gov. Dix went out Of once before report
was had on this matter and I do not
know what was done.
when we learned" continued Mr.
Miller. ION the authority OF experts who
had no axes to grind. that the available
would not last more than fifteen days IL
seemed to our commission the best argu-
ment that could be brought for the estab-
lishment by the city Of great terminal
markets for each borough.
HigA Cost Of Living.
'-rhe reasons for these markets. which
We made public at the time OF our hear
Ing. have doubtless been forgotten In the
closed the cry Of the unemployed has
crown louder and the necessity for at
lacking the giant high cost Of living has
become more apparent
"One Of the reasons for our terminal
market system for each borough Is not
the economic distribution Of foodstuffs In
ordinary times but the collection and con-
eentration Of foodstuffs to provide for
extraordinary times. such A. New York
may see II bliasard, earthquake or war
should come.
THE lack OF such central storehouses
In times OF extraordinary stress means
that the supply Of food for our people
especially the pour. would rise TO such
cost as to be prohibitive almost nc once
should such unfortunate conditions occur
The value Of such = reserve food sup
ply or food reservoirs. a. I call them. may
be seen In the case Of Paris In 1870. dur
ing the Franco-Prussian war. Then the
Halles Centrales, the great central marke.
OF Paris. was able to prepare itself In