Ashland tidings. [volume] (Ashland, Or.) 1876-1919, 1918-07-01

marine had left little tonnage for
long hauls. And, apparently, it |
couldn't go from America, for we had
no surplus. Wheat and sugar, beef
and bacon, had already fallen far be-
low normal stocks, and were at fam |
inc prices at home. What to do
about it? Just one thing, according
to the president-send that food
from America somehow. If we were
short of the ration staples" we could
eat less of them, or something else,
or, if need be, nothing at all. 1t
would be our first opportunity, and
very small one, to swap our leg. And
with the Allies fighting and starving,
too, he had a feeling that VIE were
the kind of 1O0,OOO,O0O people who
we're only waiting to be given the
chance. In the food control act of
August, 1917, and in the various
rules and directions which followed
it. he told one Herbert Hoover to go
ahead and show us how.
There were 10000 wholesalers
alone-importers and commission
merchants, brokers, cold-storage
men, packers and millers. Of retail
ers-bakers and grocers and restaur-
ant men-there were more than 400,-
900. The local boards, that is, their
fellow townsmen, must deal with
them. AS for going into the 20,OO0,-
600 private pantires of the country,
which would count most of all, it sim
ply couldn't be done If we didn't
want to swap our leg, we needn't.
Never were 00,000,O00 people given
G palmer try out. Would we rise to
It? 1t can be said now that the AL
lies, goaded by their own want, ex-
pressed their doubt and fears
From the first, there were those
who didn't rise to it. Some form pure
inability to believe that the Govern
ment really meant it; that it, who
didn't rise to it because they saw a
chance to make money, make it with
both hands, by being low down. And
whether they sinned by inadvertence
or intention, there was no time for
distinctions. BY the beginning of the
year the central board at Washing
ton was ready, and it sent out the
word to get them all.
Administrative secrecy keeps us
from telling all. But little can be
told. Where we thought that at most
we could spare only 100000 900 BUSH
els of wheat we have sent 100000
GOO Where we believed we were do
ing much when we sent about 15,-
100000 pounds week of meat prod
rcts, we have been sending more than
75,000,0 900. Where we thought we
had no sugar, we had been sending
1t hy the ship load and where beans
appeared to have vanished from the
land, we have been sending them
by the hundred thousand tons. We
sent 100,000,O00 pounds of rice.
Where has it all some from? 1t
came from what we gave back and
went without. Down in Texas old
Grimes county rose up as one, and
II it couldn't say with Samuel, Here
ar I, Lord, send me-" it did say,
"Send our wheat flour. Till the next
harvest, and maybe not then, there
III be no more of 1t eaten in these
parts"
At that time Arkansas was hear
ing the call, and Ohio-to the ex-
tent of 100000 pounds from three
counties alone-and Kansas, and
Minnesota and Missouri. While this
story is being written, months later,
it is still coming in, whole train
loads at a time, and from Florida
to Oregon. Likewise, every big club
and hotel that is worth the name
has signed the no-wheat pledge.
That unguessed surplus came also
, from those sheduled wheatless and
meatless days which put us all upon
our honor. No one could stand over
the 2O,O00,OOO dinner tables of this
country to spy out what was on them.
But we are beginning to learn what
wasn't. There was no one to make
100000 Mrs. Joneses and Mrs.
Smiths use corn meal in their bread,
or serve their households potato cakes
instead of muffins. But the evidence
still grows that the Mrs. Joneses and
the Mrs. Smiths were good sports
and did it.
But that part of the story can be
left out. werWne't working for
that. We we're trying to swap that
leg. And we have our reward in
this. Where a few months ago Eng