The daily Alaskan., 1917-12-26
COMMUNICATION
 FROM HOOVER
Juneau, Alaska, Dec. IT, 1917. F. !. Vandewall Skagway. Alaska. !

Juneau, Alaska, Dec. IT, 1917
 F. !. Vandewall
 1 Skagway. Alaska.
 Dear Sir: The following tele' gram, received yesterday from Her,
 bert Hoover, U. S. Food Admins
 tratcr, is sent you that same may be lgiYen the widest publicity in your section. The statement was re leased by MT. Hoover to the press In Wilmington, D. C., December It:
 Anything I have to say to MT Spreckles statements wall be said in duo time to the Committee. It Ioday requires no proof from Eae to establish that MT. Spreckles, a leading sugar refiner, Is sore at the food administration and would like To see it destroyed. I realize that Mir. Spreckles' balance sheet will no lock ass good next year as last, for refiners profitings have been regulated. Furthermore, his bal auce sheet would have looked bet ter this year if the price of last August had not been reduced and held fast in the face of 8 partial shortage that promised a fair op- Uortunity for thirty cent sugar and much increased profits. MT. Spreck- les therefore has reason to feel badly. There are other citizens who feel the same way and no doubt can entertain the public by assaulting the food administration. While many may feel badly still the vast majority of men and women Of our business community and of our farmerss are sacrificing the faiH profits daily to the nations neces- stiles without complaint, for many are sacrificing more than their mon ey, their sons. We have had two monthss of partial sugar shortage, October and November and will also have December before re- lief from the new crop. The Am erlcan people have had 5OO,000 tons of sugar :n these two months. This Is 70 percent of their normal sup plies in each month and If cars are available they will have seventy per cent in December. Owing to car shortage the shortage has been most acute in the northeast and about 200 cars are today blocked from that region. This 70 per cent is twice the French Ration. h tho meantime we have given France a good part of the thirty percent and are proud of 1t. This supply given to Frauce was given deliberately and the American peo- pie were told of it at the time. We have also agreed to draw 1O,- 900 tons for our friends in Canada. I have yet to meet an American citizen who would have 1t otherwise. As to the food administration stop ping the sources of supplies the fact that all available supplies have been brought there that ships could bring and that 1t has already been eaten is sufficient answer. MT. Spreckles knows the bitterness or the ten-year fights between produc- CTS and refiners and between refin- CTS an,i if ha looks back over the last three months he will observe a desire of many of these elements to use the food administration as a club to settle their long-standing bitterness. If MT. spreckles will tell us where there is any sugar today that ships can be obtained to carry or cars can be obtained to deliver 1t will be delivered at once with the same resolution that we have requisitioned or distributed over G0,OO0,OOO pounds of embar- bargoed sugar since october 1st' Tn the meantime the 9OO,OOO tons Of sugar fin Java is as remote as cheese out of the moon unless we wish to take bread ships from our own soldiers and the allies to pro vide ourselves with candy"