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Show New Committee Controls ; Clamor for Food Stocks Directs Allocation of Limited Supplies; 7 jB Heavy Demands Made on Army to Feed jjf$jP Civilians in the Fighting Zones. HEKiq By BAUKHAGE Vhj Analyst and Commentator. WNU Service, Union Trust Building, Washington, D. C. The fight for food is on and a lot of people who "don't know there's a war going on" are going to learn about it at the breakfast table. The first shot was fired in the battle of the bureaus in Washington Washing-ton by Food Administrator Marvin Jones early this month. Since then the President was moved to express himself on the subject at a White House press and radio conference. When he casually tosses off some comment like that it means a lot of memoranda have been written on the subject. We will have to take at least one hitch in our belts. However, the situation is not quite as black as painted but unless it is painted as black as possible it will be blacker. I choose the word black advisedly for that is the color of the markets that arise to thwart the war effort everywhere. It was a realization of this fact that caused the quiet, modest, soft-spoken soft-spoken Marvin Jones to shout a loud-spoken loud-spoken "Halt" to this food-ordering spree, begun In the last months by the various agencies whose job It is to get food but not to grow it. America Amer-ica was doing pretty well, that Is the American farmer was doing pretty well making two and sometimes some-times four blades of this and that grow where only one grew before and by teaching the cows and the chickens how to multiply. We were feeding ourselves pretty well at home, we were turning out a G.I. ration the like of which fighting men never put their teeth into (in such quantity and quality) before Also considerable food though not nearly as much as was asked for was going out to countries in the immediate vicinity of the war zones and under the lend-lease arrangement. arrange-ment. UNRRA was making some shipments but not many. Jones Lochs Cupboard Door Food Administrator Jones knew about what could actually be shipped abroad and how much was needed at home and he was able, with the help of the sweating tillers of the soil, to conjure it out of terra flrma. Then all of a sudden things began to happen, and the demands on Uncle Un-cle Sam's larder began to swell in such proportions that Jones said it would be bare as Mother Hubbard's cupboard if all the hungry folk got there before he locked the door. "There just isn't that much food In the world," one of Jones' lieutenants lieu-tenants told the newsmen. There is something about the business busi-ness of sowing and reaping, of breeding breed-ing and feeding, of plowing, harrowing harrow-ing and thrashing that just can't be hurried. Jones knows that. The President knows Jones knows it and so he listened to Jones. The edict went out, no more food shipped to anybody anywhere, except ex-cept for the army and navy and the already-agreed-upon lend-lease shipments, ship-ments, until it is approved by a committee com-mittee composed of the agencies who take the food and the one which produces it. This committee is presided pre-sided over by Leo Crowley, the President's Pres-ident's No. 1 trouble shooter. The army, the navy, the shipping administration admin-istration and the food administrator are members of that committee. Besides feeding its own mouths the army has to feed the people in the battle areas in which it lives. You have to maintain the economy of those areas if you live and fight In them. The Germans had to do it and that is why when they departed depart-ed (taking everything movable with them) the liberated areas were worse off as far as eating went than they were before. As our army moves forward more and more areas must be fed. Also as they move ahead and lose interest in the economy of the areas farther back, or as countries become be-come completely liberated as France, Belgium, and most of the Balkans have been, food is essential essen-tial to keep the peace. There is nothing so conducive to revolution and civil strife generally as an empty stomach. The function of alleviating the distress in these countries falls to UNRRA which so far has not been able to do much. One reason for this, which applies also to countries which don't need borrowed food, but can buy it, is the lack of ships. Ships have to be used to carry war supplies. Until January such supplies as UNRRA could send had to be sandwiched sand-wiched in in "broken lots" between guns and shells and what have you. In January two full shipments went over. And they got a hurry call to distribute food to some of the "left behind" areas which the army had been taking care of. These are the things which swelled the flood of demands on Marvin Jones' boys. These and many others oth-ers like them. Europe's Distribution System Collapses . There are two potential factors which will bring even heavier demands de-mands from the hungry world. One is the gradual restoration of transportation trans-portation media within the devastated devas-tated areas and the other is the eventual release of more shipping. The latter cannot be expected soon for even when the organized resistance re-sistance in Europe ends as it might before these lines reach you many ships must be diverted for use in transporting men and supplies from Europe to the Pacific. Of course such empty bottoms as move from America to Europe can carry food but many will be in service between Europe and Asiatic waters. At present the transportation system sys-tem in France and the occupied areas of France is one of the greatest deterrents to shipping food to Europe which exist. There is no use of having food pile up in ports waiting to be transshipped to the interior. One American who flew from London Lon-don to Paris said that he did not see one single bridge on the way. Of course there are some left or the army could not be supplied, but thanks to one side or the other no bridges remain in the pathway of a retiring army if it can be helped. We have seen what happened at Remagen when the Germans failed to smash the Ludendorf span before the Yanks could grab it and use it. A vivid example of how this destruction de-struction of transportation nas affected af-fected France is revealed in the story sto-ry of the potato lamps. Normandy is a rich farming country and there is enough grain and potatoes to help feed the impoverished French cities of the interior if they could get it. But there is no fuel or light in Normandy. Nor-mandy. The Norman peasants can afford to hollow out potatoes, fill them with melted butter and attach a wick to them. That is their only means of light. Yet if the transportation transpor-tation lines were going they could get some oil from other places and they could ship their butter and potatoes po-tatoes to people who sorely need them. At present food demands are heavy and until now the allocation of supplies has not been coordinated. coordinat-ed. Government agencies which didn't have to produce the food, ordered or-dered it. And their orders frequently frequent-ly overlapped. Now all demands will be screened through Crowley's committee and the food administration administra-tion will not be asked the impossible. Purposely the same man is never given the job of making up quotas of desired war supplies and also of actually producing them. It has been found this is dangerous. There would be too much temptation to cut the quota to fit the available supplies. Now a certain amount of rivalry exists ex-ists which forces each party to try to get a little more than he thinks he can. But there has to be someone some-one to act as final arbiter to bring reach and grasp together with as little spillage as possible. s The number of civilians employed in the United States declined to 50,-120,000 50,-120,000 in January, or to the lowest figure since the record high peak of 54,750,000 was reached in July, 1943, according to the Alexander Hamilton Hamil-ton institute. Nevertheless, practical- ; ly the largest possible percentage of the total labor force was em- ! ployed in January. The decline in employment was ! thus not due to a lack of jobs but to a reduction in the available supply of labor. The reduction in the labor la-bor supply was caused partly by persons withdrawing themselves from the labor force and partly by persons entering the armed forces. No alleviation of the labor shortage is in prospect until after the war. |