Red Lodge daily news combined with Carbon County news., 1933-10-04
PIGS AND CATFISH
Hush little porker, don't you squeal,
You may be a catfish, in the new deal

iou idy NC a. CdtllSu, III bue new ucdi
According to a recent Associated Press dispatch under
a Kansas City date line, a large part of the pigs slaught-
cred at st. Joseph, Mo, and East st. Louis, ILL.,, under
the governments pork reduction program, has been
thrown into the Mississippi and Missouri rivers, while
those purchased at Kansas City are being converted into
edible pork and fertilizer. It was estimated also by Frank
Hunter, Sr, representative of the American Institute of
Meat Packers, that about 1892, 900 of the $4,000 paid by
the government at East st. Louis, in the premium hog
market, was expended on meat which was thrown away.
A major part of the pigs killed at st. Joseph, it is said,
has been thrown into the Missouri river.
Now the catfish in the Missouri and Mississippi rivers
are famed In song and story for their delicacy and racy
flavor. Just how they will grow, and wax even fatter on
a diet of Secretary Wallace's premium pork remains to
be seen, but the prospects ought to be favorable, and we
expect to hear even more eloquent stories than usual this
season about the size and eating qualities of the catfish.
along the banks of the two historic rivers.
But this isn't all. According to a United Press dis
patch from Chicago, "when breezes blow west or south,
residents of three Chicago suburbs have pungent remind
ers OF Uncle Sans plan for Strengthening thousands of
pigs to increase hog prices. Complaints on file here told,
of 'indescribably revolving odors waited by winds which
blow over carcasses of animals dumped in the Markham
yards of the Illinois Central Railroad.
PACKERS, " continued the United Press, ssaid the an
imals had been deodorized before they were dumped.
Compliments disagreed. No one knew what would bel
done with the millions of pounds of pigs already dumped,
but officials promised that hereafter carcasses would bel
taken at least 200 miles from Chicago"
So the governments ~hog-price raising program seems|
to be continuing. 1t will doubtless be popular with the|
horned fish slipping sinuously through the muddy watersl
OF the Mississippi and Missouri, even if it is in bad odorl
in Chicago.
A great many people decry what they term this ruth |
less wastage of good food. But it seems that the farmers
responded more enthusiastically than expected to thei
proposal of the government to buy their pigs at twice the
market price-which by the way is just about what the
government usually pays for what it buys. AS a result
more little pigs came to market than could be converted
into human food and the fish-feeding and production OIL
bad odors was a necessary complement to the plan.
Ii a big surplus of pork products is built up by govern
ment purchases, a great many people are wonderingI!
whether 1T will hang as a depressing cloud over the hocl
market just as the mountain of government wheat pur-
chased by the late lamented Farm Board acted as a dragl
on the wheat market for so many long months.
10 turn the pork products over to the Red Cross TO feedl
the hungry during the coming winter would seem like all
sensible and humane thing to do. But this would defeatIt
the purpose of the administration in buying the pigs,
winch is to increase hog prices for the farmer. For thel
pork turned over to the Red Cross would displace theI
supply which that organization would have to buv any,
now, so that the same old surplus would still be with us.
30 once started on It's program of getting the littleI
pigs to market there seems nothing for the government
to do but to feed the catfish and furnish an official, if un-
desirable, odor for the Century Of Progress.
Lit will be noted that while d~isposing of their pigs toll
uncle Sam, the farmers are not awaiting themselves of
the administrations invitation to sell their brood sows toll
the government, too. There is sound reasoning in this. I'll
the governments pig dumping program temporarlvl
raises the price of hogs, the farmers, with their brood
sows on the job, will be ready to raise another bumper
crop OF pigs next spring-another crop to sell to the gov
eminent at premium prices. And SO on through the years.
All of which should remind us of the old saying that il
takes a pretty hefty man to lift himself over the fence bv
his own bootstraps.
David Lloyd George says that the World War sbould