Evening star., 1917-06-03

Copyright, 1917, by Frank C. Carpenter.)
CHALMETTE, La.
- HAVE come here to give you peep
into Uncle Sans sugar bowl. 1t Is
full enough now, though the prices
q are kissing the skies. 1t will be
different if the war is prolonged, and
we may yet have our sweetening doled
out by the nation at so much per head.
Sugar is vitality connected with all
work that requires great endurance.
Germany thought otherwise During
the first year of the war she cut down
her beet acreage to give more room for
cereals and potatoes, but the need for
sugar was shown to be such that she
changed her. policy at the next plant
ing time. 1t has been found that the
soldiers in the trenches require much
more sugar than they do at home, and
from this standpoint the American
army viii consume more per capita than
any other body of soldiers on earth.
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The largest sugar refinery in the
world is located here at Chalmette. 1t
stands the Mississippi river, near
New Orleans, and almost on the site
where Gen. Andrew Jackson and his
troop of backw oodsmen from Tennessee
and Kentucky defeated three times as
many British, under Cen Pakenham, in
the war .of 1912. I saw three great
steamers filled with raw sugar from
Porto Rico and Cuba at anchor on al
most the ;very spot where the British
gunboats were stationed during that
engagement. and from the roof of the
@ hnr T1c no. 4
thrown Up his breastworks, behind
which his soldiers lay and slaughtered
the enemy.
The refinery is mighty sweetmeat
castle. made of brick, stone and steel,
more impressive than any castle on the
Rhine or the Danube. This castle rises
to height of fourteen stories above
the muddy waters of the Mississippi.
II Is larger than any of the flour mills
OF minneapolis, and its smokestacks
are two-thirds as high the Wash
1ngton Monument 1t has thirty acres
of floor space. and these are filled with
machinery that is now turning out
enough sugar a year to give ten pounds
70 every man. woman and child in the
united States and leave some to spare
The factory belongs to the American
Sugar Refining Company. and it is one
OF hVe operated by that institution
The others are located at BROOKLYN.
Jersey City. Boston and Philadelphia
They have altogether an outnut of
something like 10000 carloads Of sugar
ana sirup per annum, and. placed end
70 ehd. their product would form
solid TRAIN OF sugar filling railroad
track from New York to Cleveland
That train would contain almost one
States
But before We go through the refinery
let me give you Il few facts about
Uncle Sans big sugar industry and
its importance to us in this critical
stage of our history. of all the sweet
teeth IN human Jaws Uncle Sam has the
sweetest We are now annually con-
suming more than eighty-six pounds of
sugar per head. more than 43O pounds
Tor every family in the United States,
OF more than pound a day the whole
year through. In this we are surpassed
only by England and Denmark, which
countries use a vast deal of sugar in
manufactures of one kind or another
we consume more than twice as much
sugar per capita as the French or the
Austrians We eat eight times as
much as the BeIeians and more than
-FOUR times as much as either the Span
1ards or Turks. Last year our total
consumption was about 1000. 900 tons
SO much. that if it We're loaded upon
two.horse wagons the train of teams
needed to haul it would reach around
the world. IT was more than one-ffth
or all the sugar produced during that
year.
over three-Iourths OF that great mass
OF sugar came from countries outside
the United States. and the bulk of it
was from Gaze grown in Hawaii and
the Philippines, and on the islands of
Cuba and Porto Rico. which sources
may be cut off by the war. If this is
SO. 1T is hard to say how high the price
OF sugar will go. AS write this ii
is cents a pound. and at that it costs
every household in our country on the
average upward of cents a day, year
In and year out. The actual cost is
about $50 a family per year
outside Of the necessity of sugar for
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