The Waterbury Democrat., 1942-12-16

the technique of rationing Is in a far way of being worked out. But in between production and ration ing, foods have to pass through all the bott!eneckS of harvesting and transportation to market, slaughter ing. canning, dehydrating, freezing or otherwise processing, allocation to armed services, Lend-Lease, oc- cupied countries and American home consumption. That is the problem of food distribution and that is where Roy Hendrickson, the boy from St. Ansgar, Iowa, had bet- ter be good as Secretary Wickard' $ assistant.
 TROUBLES KEEP
 ROLLING ALONG
 The mere fact that full responsi- bility and control over the nations food program has been placed in the hands of Secretary of Agricul- ture Claude R. Wickard doesn't mean that by Jan. l, sooner or later, all your food troubles will vanish. This is just beginning. Secretary Dickard says he never has believed in having 8 fod "czar" such as there was in the last war He has believed in having someone in the Depart ment of Agriculture setup in charge of the food program. That's just what he got but when he says he doesn't yet know the answers, he is telling the truth.
 There is supposed to have been somewhat of Washington tussle eetween the Department of Agricul- ture and the War Production Board over who should control the food program. WIPE Chairman Donald M. Nelson wrote letter to the White House some weeks ago, say ing that food control should reside in his department, but when the Presidents executive order gave control to Wickard, Nelson is sup posed to have been vastly relieved. He had asked for control over food only because his advisers and brain- l trusters thought that would be the best setup, with all authority in one lap.
 WIPE will still have indirect con- trol over food production through its control over the metals going into farm machinery. food processing machinery, chemicals in fertilizers. tin for cans. and so on. But all the headaches of food control now pass to the Department of Agricul- ture. And the biggest of Its head aches will be these problems of food distribution in MT. Hendrickson's new department.
 NO. l PROBLEM
 First job, perhaps, will be to win over the food proceSsors and distrib- utors, the packers and canners who have been almost solidly against putting control over their industry in the Department of Agriculture. It was their idea that a man from the industry should be put in charge. Hendrickson plans to have various industry advisory commit tees and deal with the processors through these committees.
 The food products on which com pletely new distribution systems will have to be worked out are meats, canned goods and dairy products. Allocating the available supply, dividing 1t equitably between the civilian and military demands, then seeing that within the civilian al- lotment every community has its share in proportion to It's population and still further down the line that no one store will have more food stocks than 1t has customers-there you have a problem to tax the in oan,iitv of the gods
 Hendrickson has been handling food problems directly for only l5 months. Since February he has been head of the Agricultural Market. ing Administration, which has bought over $2 billion worth of food for various government accounts.