Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1945-07-15
New Food Chief SET
On Fair Meat Rutions
Observer Explains Black Market
Effect on Shortage
By oaoen L. Scott.


By Oioen L. Scott.
Facts and figures disclose that small
amount of official firmness can go far
to end the apparent meat famine that
complexities the lives of people in cities.
An awareness of these facts and figures
accounted for the assurance of Presi-
dent Truman that Clinton Anderson,
new war food administrator, will get
more meat for the average person.
Mr.. Anderson should be able to deliver
on that promise within the next few
months. To deliver he needs only to
insist upon an element of fairness in
the distribution of available meat sup
plies. He can help to divert an esti-
mated $500, 0000 900 pounds of meat from
the black market, or one-quarter of
supplies that should be available to
people who obtain meat through ration
books, and can close other vast leaks in
the ration system.
+ Official figures indicate that there
should be 125 pounds of meat per person
in the United States during 1915. That
is after military demands and exports
are taken out. The amount is reduced
to 108 pounds when the meat is pre-
pared for retail distribution. Farm and
industrial use, above average per capita
supplies, reduces the amount to about
100 pounds. II meat were distributed
fairly, the average person should get
about 8.3 pounds per month. Actually
he gets nothing like that amount Of
meat unless a patron of black markets
of one kind or another. Millions of
people who do violate the rules, how
ever, are eating far more than 83
pounds of meat each month and are
eating the best cuts of that meat.
Rationing officials recognize that there
are immense holes in their system of
distribution. They give this recognition
by basing their rations on an average of
so pounds of meat per year, or pounds
per month for each individual, in place
of the 100 pounds, or 8.3 pounds, that
could be provided with fair distribution.
Yet even this 60 pounds of meat is not
obtainable because meat stores are not
able to honor all demands for meat of
persons entitled by ration books to have
| meat. Each ration book holder has so
red points to spend each month. If II
are spent for butter and for other fats
and oils that leaves 80 for meat. An
average cut of meat costs 6 points
counting in the very cheapest.
| AS result, the householder who eats
at home and who honestly abides by rs-
tioning rules gets only about 60 per cent
| of the meat to which he is entitled, if he
| can find the meat. Right now, with
| shortages If stores, the average person
is obtaining only about so pounds, or
half that to which he would be entitled
under any system of fair distribution
Distribution, however, is not fair and
in the past there has been little effort
| to make it fair.
The Government, under its rules,
starts out by allotting meat to hotels
and restaurants on basis that permits
| them to obtain is per cent more meat
per meal per customer than is allotted, in
| theory, to the person who eats at home.
The outside eating places, in addition,
are permitted to pay higher prices for
their meat than the. ceiling prices paid
by stores, so that the better grades OF
meat tend to go to hotels and restau-
rants.
Black markets of many kinds thrive to
complicate further the problem of the
| honest householder.
Thousands of small slaughterers have
| sprung up to provide meat outside the
| rationing system to stores, to hotels and
restaurants and TO individual customers.
When the Government recently moved
to require these slaughterers to register
and to prove that they we're abiding by
rules, 1000 of them disappeared over
| night. The effect of this action, which
Mr.. Andersen forced, should be felt by
people generally within a few months.
| More meat will be directed back into
| legitimate channels
- "a
| One other very large leak has devel-
| oped in the smaller communities of the
| Nation. Persons who own farms or who
have friends who own or operate farms
are able to buy meat often without
| points and to store that meat in deep
| freeze lockers for later use. This meat,
| plus that obtainable on points, often
| gives these people more meat than they
ever have had before in their lives. An
| effort now is being made to deal with
this problem, but it is difficult to deal
with.
Then there often is evasion of rules all
along the line by persons dealing in
meat. Meat may leave packing house
through legitimate channels and end up
in the black market at any one of several
points. The black market can range all
the way from one in which points are
charged but prices are above ceiling to
one in which no points are charged and
prices are far above ceilings.
The net effect, measurable by the Of
fetal figures on ration points, is to give
some people far more meat than that to
which they are fairly entitled, while
other people get far less than that to
which they are entitled. Small families,
in particular, are Disseminated against
unless they can eat most of their meals
in hotels or restaurants.
Clinton Anderson, as war food admin
lStratOr, insists That an effort Will be
made to bring about more fairness in
the system of meat distribution. He has
plenty of leeway in which to operate and
by few simple moves should be able to
force enough meat back into stores to
honor the red points to which people are
legitimately entitled He has no power
however, to prevent counterfeiting of
1 -