New-York tribune. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1866-1924, 1917-12-09
Food Regulation With a Club

Il is encouraging TO hear our scholarly
Markets Commissioner, Dr.. Henry Mos
kowitz. talk about regulating food prof.
teering with club. That is the only kind
Of regulation which a profteer can under
stand.
Under the provisions Of the Federal
food control bill the government holds a
club over the big profteers. 1t licenses
the wholesalers and the retail distributors
who do a business Of over 100000 year.
II can put the big operators out of bust
ness if it finds that they are charging arti-
fetal prices. But 1t has no such hold on
the mass Of retailers. 1t can only
threaten to cut them off eventually from
their sources Of supply. 1t has confined
itself so far 10 exerting a merely moral
pressure on the retailers. That Is, for
the most part, effort wasted, since IN
a business in which even the rudimentary
economic laws have long been suspended
there must remain few moral or social
scruples to which an appeal on behalf Of
fairness or patriotism could be made.
For several months past the public has
been invited to contemplate daily a fato
ptorgana of falling food prices. The
promise was made that the speculative
price boosters would be eliminated and that
the wholesale distributors would be held
to a natural profit. 1t may be admitted
that wholesale prices do now show down
ward tendency. But retail prices are as
high as ever and are more ineXplicable
than ever in their relation to wholesale
prices. Retailers in this city still laugh at
price regulation. The comedy Of Thanks
giving turkey prices was put through
triumphantly, with the Food Commission
rates placarded in the meat shops figuring
As the browning bit Of humor. The hoary
fresh egg" farce is again on. The big
dealers in Chicago have testified that
there is no shortage Of meats. Yet retail
meat prices still soar. And since people
have taken the Food Administrators ad-
vice and bought fish as a substitute for
meat fish have risen in price even above
earlier absurd levels.
Il is idle to think that the retailers are
going to be moved by mere argument to
cooperate in rationalizing food prices
They are casc-hardened. They have done
business so long on a false economic basis
hat any other basis strikes them as alb
normal and oppressive They will have to
be dubbed into reasonableness. That is
lust where the pertinency and sanity Of
Or. Moskowitz's observations come in.
The consumers must have a square deal
n the matter of food conservation. They
IRE doing wonders in the way Of saving.
they are denying themselves in order to
,elp to win the war Their good will and
patriotism deserve recognition on the part
{ the government. If they don't get it
he whole scheme of food conservation
yil fall through. DR.. Moskowitz puts
his problem also in a nutshell when he
ays: 1T is important that we should
ry to eliminate waste and conserve food;
ut a policy Of conservation that does not
hand in hand with policy Of reducing
rices will fail"
1t will fail; it ought to fail. The first
uly of the food administration to-day is
get after profteers with a big stick.
nd one Of the most promising fields in
hich to brandish that big stick is the
stail food trade in this city.