IN RELATION TO THE WAR. 507 



III. Increasing Production of Bread Stuff and Bread Substi- 

 tutes. — In the increasing of food production, the first year of the 

 democracy at war and apparently even the second year promise to 

 deiTionstrate democracy's weak point rather than its strong point. 

 If anything is plain it is that we need an increase of food supplies, 

 particularly bread. Yet that part of the democracy that can make 

 itself most felt in newspapers, in elections, in congressional lobbies, 

 is the city consumer, and one of the first acts of government with 

 regard to the bread supply was to interfere with the law of supply 

 and demand by guaranteeing increased home consumption and re- 

 duced home production. Despite innumerable reports that maxi- 

 mum price-fixing had been unsatisfactory in Europe, we tried it. 

 As one of the first big steps in the United States we reduced the 

 maximum price of wheat at a time when more wheat was needed. 

 We also fixed a minimum price for the 1918 crop lower by a dollar 

 than the price prevailing in the spring of 1917. The American 

 farmer quietly but effectively made his answer. The government, 

 through the Department of Agriculture, called for planting of 

 47,337,000 acres of winter wheat, and it got ii per cent, less than 

 this, or 42,170,000, almost exactly the amount sown in 19 14. 



Proba'bly the worst part of this wheat price fixing is that it re- 

 sulted in a destructive price ratio. The high prices of meat pushed 

 the price of corn to such a figure that in many parts of the country 

 it was cheaper to feed the pigs on wheat and rye than on corn, and 

 you may depend upon it many of these four-footed brethren got the 

 breadstufif. In some part of New York state wheat was 40 to 50 

 cents a bushel cheaper than corn. The production of such a condi- 

 tion by legislation as our Congress brought about, is not to be called 

 food conservation. It is food destruction. As an outraged citizen 

 I protest against legislation that makes me eat corn and makes the 

 pig eat wheat. If I were a pro-German I would secretly applaud it. 



What of the future? What steps has our government taken to 

 guarantee an abundant supply of bread and bread substitutes? We 

 are sitting with undue serenity behind the hope of a " normal aver- 

 age production." To quote the exact words of a spokesman of the 

 federal government, " What the world needs from the United States 

 in order to get through comfortably next year is 850,000,000 



