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Show WASHINGTON FROM OUR CONGRESSMAN j W. K. GRANGER i I The Food Situation The chief topic of conversation ! these days seems to be food. Perhaps Per-haps this is because we like to eat three times a day and we find that shortages of the kind 1 o- iood we pieier are becoming ! more frequent. These conditions .esult in fears because it is not generally understood that the end of the war in Europe has not reduced the demand on our food supplies. In; fact, the demands de-mands now are greater, while at the same time we have the greatest food supply of any nation na-tion in the world. But we must remember that while the peoples of Europe have suffered from hunger we have consumed a greater amount of food per capita cap-ita than in peacetime. One might easily assume that the farmer has failed to produce but a look at the facts will clarify clari-fy that situation. For in 1943 the American farmers produced 32 percent more food than this or any other nation ever produced before the war. In 1944 they exceeded ex-ceeded even this by 5 percent, making an all-time record increase in-crease of 38 percent above prewar pre-war prodction. This year they are planting an even greated acreage of food crops. This record has been made in spite of the handicaps of war, and the food produced has been far in excess of what was done in the first World War. The United States has produced 50 percent more food annually in this war than in World War I. With 10 percent fewer workers on farms and with the total national na-tional population 30 percent greater, our civilian population has had 10 percent more food per capita during this war than in the 1917-18 perioid." Yanks Captured in Philippines With the joy over the liberation libera-tion of all our prisoners in Europe Eu-rope comes the sad realization that only one out of every 12 American prisoners of war taken on Bataan and Corregidor have-been have-been liberated. More than 18,000 Americans were captured by the Japanese and only 1447 have been liberated liber-ated thus far. Most of the survivors sur-vivors are now in prison camps in Japan, China and Formosa. All hihg-ranking officers are believed be-lieved to be either in Japan or China, while enlisted men and the officers of junior rank, if able to work, are in labor battalions. bat-talions. Those who were sick or too weak to woiK were left in the Philippines. |