Show mi shaton I 1 mar deist wheat price minor factor I 1 in present pre sent C cost 0 st of bread improved merchandising manufacturing t methods boost bakers bills raw material cost relatively slight by Hy BAUKHAGE news netus analyst and commentator service 1343 11 street NW N W washington D C the recent debate in congress over the stabilization of prices and wages goes as deep into the home and the farm and the factory as any national issue ever has I 1 received a typical letter donahe on the subject a query about the relative cost of wheat and bread what the f farmer armer gets and what the baker charges in tr trying y ing to answer it I 1 found a mountain of statistics and a wide variance of opinion but it was a childhood memory which gave me the most convincing part of the answer first the letter from my listener to in bismarck N D 1113 before you put too much blame on farm products for the rise in the cost of living please explain soon goon to in one of your radio talks why during world war 1 I when wheat was s sell 11 ing tor for to per bushel that bread was selling for ten cents a loaf while now posted local prices at this point are 92 cents for wheat and bread retails at 13 to 15 cents a loaf now the memory it was a clear summer morning school was just out and there thare was a treat in store for me I 1 got up long before the family was awake slipped into the summer kitchen and poured myself a glass of mills milk and put a couple of cookies in my pocket As I 1 went quietly out the front door I 1 tiptoed across the stoop where the empty pan with a red milk ma ticket lay beside it I 1 walked down locust street to arthur barnes house just to in time to climb into the bread wagon beside him and his father we crunched down the driveway and through the empty streets to the new york contral central station before we got into the freight yards the train from buffalo buffa 10 was rolling in by the time mr barnes had backed the wagon up to the freight station platform the bread crates were waiting fast delivery we stood beside the crate mr barnes was to in the delivery wagon I 1 nearly as adept as arthur of course for he had much more practice to in extricating and tossing the loaves and he often had to wait a second or two while he toyed with the unwrapped loaf before I 1 had managed to toss mine to mr barnes w who ho deftly caught it and put it in place in in the layers that rose from the wagons floor this lack of dexterity on my part made me a little nervous and one loaf went wild mr barnes reached out nobly but it hit the side of the wagon and caromed chromed over into the cinders mr jr barnes was a man of dee deeds ds not words he leapt out of the wagon wafon and recovered the treasure I 1 looked sheepishly at art there was halt half my pay gone surely but nol no mr barnes was frowning he looked around whipped out his knife and with a few expert incisions removed the cinders gave the crust an affectionate stroke with his bare wrist and leapt back into the wagon with it the loading continued in silence for a moment then art leaned over and said in a reproving whisper dont say bothin about that it was that concern over a possible 6 aroused public opinion over a lapse in our sanitary ds discipline which shadowed foreshadowed fore one of the developments that has increased the cost of bread the incident I 1 have described describe a took place about 1898 and it reveals revealer sr some of the primitive methods of the baking industry which sanitary laws popular taste cost of labor make impossible today take the most obvious packaging con can you imagine bread being 6 shipped hipped in crates and massaged by human hands bands today yet even as late as the time of which my correspondent writes 1814 2911 wrapping bread was unknown in many communities muni ties this one sanitary measure Is only one of many which have made mad a the cost of bread higher the conditions with the bakery have changed even more radically of course labor is the most important factor in 1914 men m n worked much longer hours for much les money americas bombing planes are the lethal successors ol of the weaponless planes which were used exclusively for or observation purposes in world war I 1 says the aviation news committee the rockefeller foundation is providing yellow fever vaccine free to the tha government lor for the use of the armed forces cost of ingredients and when we come to 0 the content of the bread of which wheat the commodity which most concerns ray my listener is the most important we find it almost negligible in figuring the coltof cost bt the finished product experts studying the question state that there are lew few food commodities in which the chief raw material provides so small a fraction of the final cost as in bread according to current statistics it would take an increase of 60 cents a bushel in wheat to cause an increase of one cent in a lost loaf f of bread compare this with potatoes tor for instance when a housewife buys potatoes she pays only for the spuds themselves plus the cost of handling now all of these factors are mentioned merely to justify an increase in the price of bread since 1914 officials concerned with food costs were careful to warn me that they do not all justify the amount of the increase there is not co complete agreement on that subject by any means some members in the department part ment of agriculture say that bread could be sold much cheaper and still yield a profit to the baker probably one of the most madr important ta rit factors in the price of bread Is th the e fact that the public just prefers to pay more for it than to bake it I 1 themselves As one official said to me in the last war when I 1 lived on a kansas farm the women in the small towns in the vicinity as well as the farmers wives baked their own bread today see the bakery wagon making deliveries right out in the country perhaps it if the women who still bake their own bread charged tor for their own time they would find and it cheaper to go to the bakery meanwhile it is another case of charging what the traffic will bear and in this case most of the traffic is willing to bear it there is one comforting thought for the farmer when price administrator henderson puts into effect the measures to stabilize all prices he will still have to let wheat go up quite a ways before it hits its own ce ceiling ailing parity but bread tor for all its yeast wont be allowed to rise much more aviation accidents show marked decrease the number of crashes of military planes in this country reported recently in the newspapers has served to disturb some people officials in washington have received many letters on the subject one which I 1 received recently from an 0 obviously intelligent woman may be typical in it sh she e meticulously listed the number of accidents reports of which had been published all of which involved fatalities to military personnel there were 77 deaths within a comparatively ively short period the writer was shocked and asked it if the cause might not be an organized campaign of sabotage because I 1 felt that there should be some official comment on the r subject I 1 talked at length w with iab an officer in the air force the rate of accidents in balag y in a this country today he be told me Is 68 per cent lower than it was la in 1930 I 1 think the adjective remarkable is justified when youl you think of the number of planes that are in the air now as compared with the number 12 years ago we are not allowed to reveal the number of planes now flying but general marshall recently stated that the goal of the air force was two million men and onti one hundred eighty five thousand planes by the end of this year we know that we are well on our way toward that goal with these facts in mind the number of accidents seems incredibly low one reason tor for the reduction in the number of accidents is the air force safety program this program Is in charge of a colonel who has the authority to give orders to a three star general if he violates any of the safety regulations the air force goes on the principle that it is just as important to prevent the loss of planes and men from accidents as it is to prevent their loss at the hands of the enemy BRIEFS B R I 1 E F S by baukhage A berlin correspondent off of aa a swedish newspaper has stated that the total number of foreign workers in germany is now including prisoners ot of war economists estimate that we will have about 3 per cent more rows cows in the dairy herds of the country this year than we had last and about 3 per cent more cows next year |