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Show FAO Draws Up Plans for 'Family of Nations' Buying Food and Agriculture Organization Aims at Expanded Production, Increased Trade Within Countries Involved. By BAUKHAGE News Analyst and Commentator. If f:J ..4, I & I ,ia.n,l WNtI Service, Union Trust Building, Washington, D. C. I When the President introduced his second bill of rights into his State t of the Union message to congress and skillfully linked the past and future with it, he set up old argu- I ments among the elite of Washing ton's cracker-barrel set. When "Old Dr. New Deal" was set aside as the guardian of American Amer-ican welfare, some folks hereabouts insisted that he had plans for considerably con-siderably extending his practice later lat-er that his friend, Franklin D., was planning on a "World New Deal." Like all smoke, it signalizes a fire somewhere. i There is no doubt that even though I the realistic Mr. Churchill and the realistic Mr. Stalin didn't see eye to eye on everything as they looked at each other across the green table at Teheran, we have reason to believe that both are pretty well sold on what they each think can be done in the way of a little international "welfare work" which would raise the decibels which measure the hum of business in their respective countries. coun-tries. The President presented to congress con-gress the various human "rights" he visualized, as you recall, and ! there will be more specific data con cerning them which he will submit ! to the legislators later, either just that a business man would use on it. Believe it or not, the men who are figuring out free lunches and the production programs to make them unnecessary hereafter are doing it scientifically, and even if you don't like the word, on a "businesslike" basis. Little has been said of this permanent per-manent food organization of the United Nations. You hear about UNRRA, which is supposed to take care of what might be called "strategic "stra-tegic feeding" that is, taking care of the peoples in countries the Allies reoccupy (hungry men and women are no help to anyone). The motive is less altruistic than military. But you may not have heard of the work of the FAO that's an entirely en-tirely unofficial abbreviation of the Food and Agriculture organization which Gove Hambidge of the agriculture agri-culture administration of the department de-partment of agriculture made up himself. He was appointed one of the secretaries of the commission appointed at the conference in Hot Springs last May. Wor 'Going Well' Hambidge says the work of this FAO is going well. It has drawn up the plans for this job of permanent feeding. Not "free" feeding permanently, perma-nently, but a plan for "family buying" buy-ing" family of nations buying. Naturally Nat-urally there is plenty of chance for TEtEFACT UNITED NATIONS PLAN RELIEF MEALS FOR EUROPE lOAHY CAIORIC CONTENT) 400-800 CALORIES PRESENT EUROPEAN RATION j CI aZZZDIaZD 2.000 CALORIES , UNITED NATIONS' RELIEF MEALS AVERAGE AMERICAN DIET 3-500 Cl0RIEi to keep his hand in in case he contemplates, as the cracker-barrel-ers suggest, further personal activ-! activ-! ity later, or merely wants to keep ! Americans thinking about all these things, come the ides of November. About Relief ' No matter how you look at it (unless (un-less you are a 100 per cent "stew-in-their-own-juicer") you have a sort of vague feeling that we ought to do what we can to help out people who are starving or freezing no matter where they are. I say that ad- i visably and for proof turn to the t record. One of the earliest memories of my childhood is tagging up Main Street on my mother's hand and seeing see-ing a dishpan in front of the "Silver Dollar" (not the original) filled with dollar bills. My mother dropped in a quarter and hurried past the sinister sin-ister abode. Passersby tossed in their currency for the sufferers of some Chinese famine or Italian earthquake (perhaps Pompeii and Herculaneum, I don't recall). America is always willing to go down deep in its pockets for "relief." But it doesn't seem to like it if government gov-ernment runs the show. Nobody on Main Street knew how much of the dishpan's contents reached the quaking quak-ing Italians or what-have-you and how much never got past the "Silver Dollar's" back room, but nobody cared. On the other hand, even when the j money is triple-checked by the gov- i ernment and investigated by the j opposition, if it is taken out of the general kitty, Americans don't like it. That's playing Santa Claus. When they can shell out individually, it's all right which may be perfectly logical from a psychological view- point. j However this may be, your gov ernment is going right ahead and preparing a program for taking out the wrinkles and concealing the ribs of a starving world just the same it is also doing something more, helping the starvers raise more of their own food. They are trying to organize the job with the same business acumen differences of opinion but Hambidge puts it this way: "Pa wants a certain kind of engine. en-gine. May has her eye on the upholstery. up-holstery. Sis prefers a certain body color. Junior he's thinking about the gadgets on the instrument panel. But the main thing is they all want a car. They end up by getting one that isn't quite what anybody expected ex-pected but one that's durable, and a good buy, and gets them where they want to go. "In other words, they compromise. Each one gives up his own pet ideas to get a car that will be serviceable for the whole family. "And that's what will happen," says Hambidge, "with the Food and Agriculture organization. The Interim In-terim commission has been working out a constitution a broad plan of operation," showing what the organization organ-ization will do and how it will do it, and a general budget, so we'll know what the work will cost. Along about March, probably, they will have these plans ready to submit formally to the 40-odd governments. If there's quick approval the organization should be set up and ready to go not too long after that." Two things FAO is aiming at: expanded ex-panded production within the countries coun-tries involved, and increased trade between the countries involved. Some countries, for instance, just can't produce enough of the right kinds of foods to feed their people properly; others can produce certain cer-tain foods like wheat, for instance only at very great cost. The FAO, its members say, aims to get away from the old isolationist idea that prevailed almost everywhere every-where before the war with every country trying to meet all its own needs which ended up with a smashing smash-ing big depression and a whopping big war. What the FAO can do to prevent such world catastrophes, according to Hambidge, remains to be seen. That is what this very silent committee, com-mittee, or commission or whatever you want to call it, is doing making an attempt at prophylaxis an attempt at-tempt to cure the disease instead of the symptoms. I |
