IIMV' '■»■■."' 1 '■' 



-3- 



in commodity prices upon which no ceilings are placed. 



Food for Defense - The Secretary of Agriculture stated that 

 the United States has recently shipped or bought for England about a 

 half billion dollars v;orth of food and indicated that within the next 

 year "we expect to ship or buy at least another billion dollars worth." 

 Purchases of agricultural products by the government for lease-lend 

 and for relief and other domestic uses have reached rather large pro- . 

 portions. Farmers have been urged to greatly increase the production 

 of a number of farm products, especially animal products. The lending 

 power of the CCC has made effective the Secretary of Agriculture's 

 promise to maintain the prices of such products at ^5 per cent of 

 parity. 



In addition to providing England \ilth these very highly 

 nutritive and valuable foodstuffs, American people are being warned 

 to pay a little more attention to their diets. On the basis of pre- 

 liminary reports of men examined for possible selective service, only 

 about 50 pe^ cent are physically or mentally qualified for general 

 railitsLry service. This is a severe indictment against a country so 

 iirealthy in natural resources as the United States. Defective teeth 

 accounted for 20.9 per cent of the rejections; eyes, I3.7 P^^ cent; 

 cardiovascular ailments (pertaining to the system of blood vessels 

 around the heart), 10,6 per cent; venereal diseases, 6.3 per cent. 

 Proper and adequate diets certainly would have prevented a large 

 fraction of these rejections. If some means could be v/orked out where- 

 by our people would all be adequately fed without the use of some scheme 

 which v7ould destroy their own initiative and willingness to help them- 

 selves, the nation would be much better off and farmers would find the 

 restrictions on production of farm products quite unnecessary. 



