Evening public ledger. [volume] (Philadelphia [Pa.]) 1914-1942, 1919-07-19

ne packers may SrleNe OSJeHIdtlOuSlS
and declaim their innocence in print. The
! public is hard to convince. No one in his
| senses would attempt offhand to fix the
whole blame for intolerable food prices
! in a country that likes to boast of its
. ability to feed the world; yet the influence
Of the powerful Chicago group is regard
| ed with suspicion.
The public is bewidered The very
! fact that no one can tell why it must
submit either to exorbitant prices or to
| hunger is in itself an indictment of our
! system of governmental administration.
Commissions have been appointed in
America to investigate everything mag
Unable, from the cost of steel rails in
! Thibet to the effect of the boil weevil on
| Democratic majorities in Louisiana. But
no one at Washington or elsewhere has
yet tried to make any provision for
commission that might be qualified to
! explain why people who aren't wealthy
| often have to go undernourished in
country like ours.
Food is merely the fundamental neces-
sity of life. 1t is the first concern in
every family. Naturally, therefore, food
and food prices and distribution are
| things that the routineer politician never
thinks about. They are things that do
not enter into his philosophy. They are
realities. A politician hates realities.
They have a way of showing him up.
What is needed in this state and in
every other state is a powerfully organ
| oo,,,,,,iccipp with o,,tbprity tp
| investigate the whole question of food
/ production, distribution, manufacture and
marketing and to protect the public in
terest at every step Of the way.
What the people want is information.
Give them that and they will do the rest.
| Their dominating impression now is one
of losing battle with an invisible crowd
of food gamblers who threaten them with
actual hunger. And somewhere in the
background these gamblers persist and
flourish. They cannot be fought by curb
markets alone.
The usual Dairy and Food Commission
is undermanned and without the authority
which it should have in a crisis like the
present one. Its efforts are usually COM
fused by political corruptonists. SO the
man who feels himself harassed Ivy rising
living costs may be assured that in a way
he is rcaping what he sowed at the polls.
He may carry his lunch to work and
| feel that he has won against the hurry-up
restaurants that charge as much for their
airy nothings as Sherry used to charge
for fair sort Of lunch A vast number
of people would be far better off if they
| ,,ooo~o;1o l,op,Co1,-a- tn 1,,,,ol, hC<
and substitute a bit of honest food from
the home kitchen for tea-and- jazz or
namcless fantasies of eat-and- get out
restaurants The declining arts of house
keeping may be revived if the lunch kings
| keep on turning the screw on their
patrons.
1t appears that food will cost as much
in America as Americans will pay. There
seems no limit but that of the national
patience. The gouge is being plainly felt
everywhere. But no one knows whom to
blame for it or where to strike or how
to make a complaint.
Food gambling on large scale began
with the introduction of cold storage. 1t
has grown and expanded throughout the
country with cold storage facilities. Ar
tifcial refrigeration, which made it pos
sible to preserve food supplies in large
quantities at central distributing points
has been of vast general benefit. II
prevented waste, equalzed market prices
and made the work of producers and dis.
| tributorS easier.
That was in the beginning. 1t was
when the means of meat distribution anc
storage were gradually concentrated
under the control Of narrowly organized
groups that the trouble began. Vas
speculation and limitless juggery will
almost all perishable food staples have
been made possible by the cold-storag'
system And the latest report of tn
Federal Trade Commission charged tina
when rising costs of meat, eggs, poultr,
and the like turned the people to les
extensive substitutes movement wa
started by interests controlling meat sup
plies for control of these substitutes.
If the packers group in Chicago con
: tinues to follow its present habits o
thought there is no reason why it ma
| not within few years exercise contrc
| over the food supplies of the countr
5 from the place of production to the cor
= sumer's table The retail handling G
;. food is still left largely in the hands of ir
Y dividuals who have no direct associatio
= with the packers, But there is nothin
= to prove that this condition will be pei
manent. 1t is easy to conceive of a
v expansion of the food-control system
d which the Chicago group would folio
S the example set some years ago by tn
a brewers, who, after wringing all possib
a profit out of the business at the top, WEI
d systematically after the retail profits {
a well.
d The important thing to remember
s the present instance is that there is I
s visible means to prevent such tigh
ening of food monopoly. Anti-tru
3 laws can be always avoided. The on