The Republican. [volume] (Oakland, Md.) 1877-current, 1934-01-11
A LESSON IN BUTTER.

The latest attempt of the govern
ment to peg the price of great. COM
modify has gone the way of the efforts
to maintain the price of wheat and
cotton and has ended in failure, ac-
cording to many economists who study
the dairying industry of the country.
Uncle Sam now has the biggest sur
plus of butter on record. Prices have
dropped and it is said that they may
go even lower in the next few months
unless something is done about it.
What will or can be done remains to
be seen. Four million pigs We're
slaughtered by the government with
out increasing the price of hogs to the
farmer-the price is lower now than
when the pig program was put into eff
feet. Perhaps the Brain Trust will
have something new to offer in the
way of getting rid of the surplus but
ter. On December 1, there We're a
hundred million pounds more in the
country than on the same date in 1882
A great many dairy farmers now
lay the blame for the present condition
on the fact that the government went
into the butter business. Through a
Dairy Marketing commission at Wash
ington, the government supplied funds
to buy 100000 pounds of butter.
This was to be used later for furnish
ing butter during the winter to the
unemployed, and to take care of any
losses in the transaction, butter pro-
cessing tax was to be put into effect
early in 1884.
This was back in the early fall. The
effect was tremendous from the ply
Geological standpoint. Farmers, en-
couraged in the belief that the govern
ment would furnish them a high price
for their butterfat, commenced milk
ing every available COW and sending
every available pound of the product
to market. The manufacturers of
cheese and evaporated milk, suffering
from a canned milk and cheese sur
plus, got into the butter game. 1t
looked like an easy thing, with Uncle
Sam holding the bag.
Prices did remain firm for awhile
under the famous pegging system,
and then the bubble burst. So much
butter came on to the market from so
many different sources that the price
shrivelled. Down it went until by the
middle of December it had reached the
lowest figure in thirty-five years, so
far as the Chicago market was con-
cerned. A number of so-called
smart" spectators who bought but
ter early in the fall expecting to make
a killing, now suffered a loss along
with the farmers and butter-makers.
So much butter was manufactured
under the stimulus of government
price pegging that on December l, ac-
cording to official figures, stocks of
butter on hand were more than 1885,
100000 pounds, comparing with
stock of less than 38,OOO,OOO pounds on
December 1, 1882, gain of more than
100,000,000 pounds. And the price
had gone down more than so per cent.
Truly it is hard for anybody to beat
the law of supply and demand. Uncle
Sam cannot do it, even under the ex-
pert tutelage of the Brain Trust.
Buttermakers say that the unem-
ployed cannot possibly consume the
governments stock of butter, 6O,OOO,-
900 pounds, by the first of May, the
time when production will be on in full
blast again. But the government ex-
perts say that the unemployed can and
will do it. No doubt every effort will
be made to see that they do eat it. One
of the first big tasks of Professor
Tugwell and his band of warriors
would, therefore, seem to be to make
the unemployed of the country butter
conscious.
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