Daily Kennebec journal. [microfilm reel] (Augusta, Me.) 1870-1975, 1917-05-22
food ControI-the Real Thing"

FOOC SOHFOt-tuC nCaI
An emergency food commission
charged with the responsibility for
overseeing and regulating the produc-
ton, distribution and price OF foods
and foodstuffs would be one step
toward solving the present greatest
difficulty Of the American people. The
next step would be up to the commits
sion itself. II Congress will give the
President the needed authority at
once, there is some prospect that the
country will have plenty Of food at
fair prices by next fall.
1t has been discovered that the high
prices OF many food products are
purely artificial-that is, boosted by
skilled manipulators who used the war
as an excuse to add to their own rich
es. But to prove a man or a group
guilty under the antitrust act is diff
cult, and nothing Of the kind has been
or can be accomplished The only hope
Of thwarting the price manipulators is
that the government by new measures
will remove them from the scene Of
operations.
After six weeks of idle talk and still
more idle threats, the administration
begins TO understand the point. 1t is
beginning to be sensed at Washington
that the country cannot go to war on
a peace basis. The discovery is shock
( ing. but It is wholesome.
Had Washington begun in the right
place, food control would have been it's
first care, and the army would have
come afterward AS it is, the army
came first because it seemed every
bodys idea that country with an
army was stronger The fact as we
know 1t now. Is that the welfare and
comfort Of the people and the orderly
existence Of the peoples industries and
business must be assured before there
can be any successful military move
ment
II all the people felt that they were
to he provided for first. they would go
about the business Of war much more
cheerfuly and efficiently 1t isn't es-
pecially eXhilarating to think of sac
rifice on the field while affairs at home
are mismanaPed. And when the home
difficulty Is star walton Of the poor, the
glory of fighting is nil.
Americas army Of democracy. So
called. isn't to be called together until
next September. In the meantime. the
government will do well to rush its
regulation Of the food markets. It
wouldn't be bad plan, indeed to
have the new system in sight by June
s, army registration day.-Boston
Journal
The President asks Of Congress-
Authority is asked also to estab-
liat1 nntena-knk - -
the profits o. the farmers, but only to
guarantee to them when necessary
minimum p~ice which will insure them
profit whom they are asked to at
tempt new crops, and to secure the
consumers against extortion by break
ing up corners and attempts at spec
porariIy a reasonable price at which
middlemen must SELL"
At last the administration has acted
precisely along the lines we have. ad-
located for weeks. and we are content
If Congress responds. We have been
convinced that the administration was
horse. We believed that preparation
for feeding the country and our allies
was Of earlier importance than rails
ing an army. We believed that the
first effort toward increasing food
products lay in instant suppression Of
the food gamble: that the next step
should be food control and the next
such guarantee to the crop producers
OF the country as would assure them
that the result Of their Iabors and pri-
vations was going for the benefit of
the government and the consumers,
and not into the pockets of
the few who are determined to enrich
themselves. regardless Of their country.
The President also says:
1.-THE proposed food administration is
intended, Of course, only to meet a
manifest emergency and to continue
only while the war lasts. Since il will
% composed for the most part Of vol.
untssrs, there need be no fear of the
oosibiiity Of . permanent bureaucracy
arising out Of il. All control Of con-
sumption will disappear whom the
emergency has passed"
We believe the authority should be
conferred. and the responsibility fixed
on the President and Mr.. Hoover, the
food administrator. and NOT scattered
through a commission. Let us wage