The Republican. [volume] (Oakland, Md.) 1877-current, 1917-06-07
Controlling the Nation food
. BY Frederick J. Haskin

w IL ", may mat
all the people in Europe, neutral and
belligerent, are lean from short rations;
that all the belligerents except England
are producing less than before the war;
that the United States must sustain
itself, its ten allies and the neutrals
through five-y year struggle, and liter
ally fatten the world back to normal
after it is over-these are the premises
of the new and drastic system of food
control now before congress; these are
the facts and suppositions upon which
the authors of the measure proceeded.
America is the rich, the fat nation of
the earth. Her resources are not only
enormous, but they are developed and
developing, they are in the hands of
people who do things. The countries
of Europe were not fat before the war.
The poor ate meat but once a week
and bought bundles of twigs for fuel.
Everyone practiced an economy that
would be considered stinginess in this
country.
Europe could not increase it's pro-
duction after the war began, because
it's men were at the front and its agri-
culture was already at high point of
efficiency. Imports were reduced by
the U-boats. Hence Europe is now
lean like wolf after hard winter.
And lean Europe is now fastened upon
the fat body of America like hungry
leech. There was talk before the
declaration of war of stopping food eX-
ports. Now the word is that we must
feed our allies at any cost. And our
allies are starved. They must not only
be sustained, they must be fattened.
DR.. A. E. Taylor of the University of
Pennsylvania was the informant of the
Committee of Agriculture on this point.
He spent long time in Germany and
other parts of Europe studying the
methods of food control and distribution.
Practically speaking. the entire
population of Europe may be regarded
as underfed," DR.. Taylor told the con,
gressmen. These people are now be-
low their desires.
at is going to take two years to re-
pair the deficiencies of their body
tissues, their live stock and their stores.
The conditions in Holland and Switzer-
land ore almost as bad as those in Ger
many. 1t is practically impossible
for them to produce cattle, and the
cattle they have are emaciated to the
last degree. The entire popula-
ton is emaciated. They have no
future stocks of food. There is no food
in Europe except the grain hid in the
distant granaries of Russia. 1t will
take two bumper crops in this country,
added to all they could produce this
year and the next year to place
them where they were before the war
broke out
So America needs to realize that it
has taken in great crowd of starving
boarders, There are hundreds of mil
lions of people in Europe, whose bodies
are wasted, who must replace their
burned out tissues by means of food
produced in America. And America
has been wasting food. Food has been
rotting on the ground in this country
for lack of transportation; it has been
lost and ruined on the farm and on the
road, and thrown into the garbage can
uneaten in millions of homes. Much of
this wastage must be saved. The
looseness in our system of producing
and distributing food must be taken up
like the slack in a hungry mans belt.
Secretary Houston says we have wasted
500, 600, 900 worth of food every year.
The greater part of that loss must be
eliminated if we are to fatten half a
billion lean people and have anything
left for OURSELVES. That is the philos-
ophy of food control
DR.. Taylor brought out the fact that
despite tremendous efforts to increase
their planting areas, none of the belli-
gerent countries have equalled their
peace time production, except England:
England is now actually increasing her
production of foodstuffs by breaking up
her game preserves and parks-her
heather-grown grouse moores and the
uplands where the red deer are hunted
and planting them with grain and
potatoes. In the other countries there
are no such surplus lands to be planted.
DR.. Taylor brought word that Germany
is really producing less than formerly,
that she has fed her population only by
saving large part of the thirty per
cent of her food which she found that
she had been wasting.
The agricultural classes and the
wealthy are fairly well fed in Germany,
according to DR.. Taylor, but the 90
900, 900 people of the industrial classes
are emaciated and suffering from
anaemia and malnutrition. This is in
teresting to America, not only because
we are irving to starye GERMANY now