III. 



SOME ECONOMIC ASPECTS OF THE AMERICAN 

 FOOD SUPPLY. 



By J. RUSSELL SMITH, Ph.D. 

 (Read April 20, 19 18.) 



We are at last planning for a long war. Munitions that cannot 

 be ready until the spring of 1920 have been ordered. The food 

 supply and its control by government also need to be put on a per- 

 manent, a scientific, and a reorganized basis. 



The United States has great food possibilities as follows : 



1. We have enormous resources of unused land in villages, 

 towns, suburbs, cities, and on farms and in land yet unreclaimed. 



2. We have enormous resources of labor now represented by 

 leisure, by sport, and by industries which are dispensable if winning 

 the war is our prime object. These industries might therefore divert 

 labor to food production if we should become convinced that an 

 emergency exists. 



3. We have an enormously strong position in that at present our 

 agriculture has an animal base, namely, that most of the proceeds of 

 the American farms and fields go to feed beasts. Aluch of it can be 

 diverted to men if the need arises. 



We should not take too much comfort from these descriptions of 

 food resources. They may have the same significance for an army, 

 hungry to-day, that our twenty million young or youngish men have 

 for an army hard pressed to-day. Both require months or years to 

 become effective. The food resources call for energy and intelligence 

 if they meet the need. Unfortunately, the process of putting energy 

 and intelligence into the food question must face the troubles that 

 arise from democracy. In America everybody can howl. Every 

 man and some women can vote, every interest can lobby and hire 

 advertising. It can also have friends if not tools in authority. These 



PROC. A.MER. PHIL. SOC. , VOL. LVH. HH, SEPT. 24, I9I8. 



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