The Washington times., 1917-02-24
FOOD INVESTIGATION AND
FOOD PROPAGANDA

Agitation Of various sorts over the
prevalent food prices is natural and
proper, so far as it is genuine and
not the product of plots and pre-
lenses engineered in the interest of
an unfriend1y nation. Nothing is
more obvious than that city, State
and Federal powers should under
take inquiry into the trouble. The
plan to expend hundreds of thousands
in an exhaustive Government inves-
tigation may lack practicality; it is
doubtless too long-winded to promise
any relief in the emergency, and too
political to promise any great con-
tribution to economic science; and
yet even it may do some mite of
good in soothing the majority of suf-
ferers with the notion that the Gov
eminent has the matter in hand.
Good in principle, the food inves-
LEGATIONS, like the unofficial forms of
food agitation to which New York
has lately been treated, run the risk
Of being turned into means of propa-
ganda for foreign powers anxious to
influence the economic policy of this
country. The domestic reign of dyna-
mite and incendiary terror in 1915,
the elaborate system of tampering
with the press, the activities in labor
circles, the pacifist propaganda timed
to avert a German defeat, the at
tempt to limit in Congress the Presi-
dents power of conducting foreign
affairs in a direction unfavorable to
Berlin, and the vast and complicated
pro-German activities in the Presi-
Dental campaign Of 1916 all warn US
that a German effort to warp the
food agitation in turn to the German
advantage must be expected in par
ticular.
That effort will be aimed in the
direction of spreading the opinion
that food is high because of its ex-
portation to the British and to other
entente allies; that many bushels and
tons of foodstuffs more than usual
have gone out from American ports
during the war, annually; that less
has been left for American consum-
ers, whence prices have gone up. All
of this is true, although not to the
extent that propaganda would make
it seem true. Thus, the greater ex-
portation Of food to England is part
ly Offset by smaller exports to in
accessible Germany, and further the
increase in food expectation forms
but a moderate percentage of long
established business which has al
ways been large.
The present height Of food prices
arises from a conjunction Of many
causes, of which the least obvious are
by no means always the least i'm
portant. The most obvious possibility,
that of a conspiracy among the little
known and greatly suspected middle
men, is likely to be eliminated. The
natural effort of German propaganda
will be to fix the angry attention of
the public on the second most obvious
point, that Of food expectation. Few
greater triumphs, outside the realm
Of actual battle, could fall to the
Kaiser today than to fool the United
States into cutting off further food
exports to the entente powers.
1t is to be hoped that minds, official
and other, will be prepared for an
effort in this direction. Sentiment
must not be stampeded across the
path Of common sense. Let the sub
ject of the wars effects on American
food prices be aired by all means, but
let the scrutiny be made calmly and
completely. 1t will be found that the
present dearness of food here is, in
deed, due in part to the belligerents,
and in a very great degree to the
Germans themselves.
For example, il. will be found that
German submarine activities have
sent to the bottom an enormous tor
mage in good American grain; ton
mage wasted to the impoverishment
of the American supply and the en-
hancement of the prices. To what
extent the submarines have affected
the American dinner plate by their
havoc is a suitable subject for in
quiry. Again, to come to the more
recent aggravation of the rise in
prices, we find it taking place in con-
junction with the recrudescence OF
the submarines, and apparently in
consequence thereof. SinkinGs at