We use Optical Character Recognition (OCR) during our scanning and processing workflow to make the content of each page searchable. You can view the automatically generated text below as well as copy and paste individual pieces of text to quote in your own work.
Text recognition is never 100% accurate. Many parts of the scanned page may not be reflected in the OCR text output, including: images, page layout, certain fonts or handwriting.
4
June, 1945
Massachusetts and Hal Holmes of Washington.
Their first hearing took place in Chicago, the center of the meat' packing industry. Subsequent hearings were held in Cleveland, Washing' ton, Boston, Providence and New York City. They plan numerous others in the months to come, for investigating shortages of supplies other than meats — sugar, fats and oils, fluid milk, etc. (Might we suggest also: matches, nylons, and cleansing tissues? Or are these bitter truths self-evident?)
The Meat Situation Now
For 1945, our committee finds, the production of meat is projected at more than 22 billion pounds. That's a lot of meat — a rather satisfactory supply for civilian tables. But here's a startling fact: There is at this time an estimated purchasing power to develop an average annual consumption of 170 pounds of meat per per' son. Yet with this purchasing power, there is now only enough meat for a per'person average of 115 pounds. That means a 170'pound demand — against a 115'pound supply.
Sure, we wonder why, the same as you do!
Reasons for Current Shortage
Here are some of the answers given by the special committee for the House of Representatives: The mili' tary and war services are taking —
Sixty per cent of the good, choice, and commercial beef;
Eighty per cent of cutter, utility, and canner grades;
Fifty per cent (at least) of the pork.
Now this is not quite as much meat as it may seem, since these set'asides are taken from the output of federally
inspected plants only. And these ,
plants process about two'thirds of all ,
domestic meat. (What happens with \
the other small plants, not federally ,
inspected, we shall see later). Even ]
so, that indicates a set-aside of at least j
50 per cent of two-thirds of the (
country's total meat supply. Reason (
enough, then, for the civilian skimp. j
The Army uses this quantity for feed j
ing less than fifteen million people. .
That leaves about 130,000,000 civil j
ians to be fed from what's left. Are , you beginning to see the light? j j
Well, then, let's look at some more 1 of the House committee's findings: ° Answer number two to the shortage f of civilian meat supplies lies chiefly P in the expectation of an early European victory during the fall of 1944. What happened was this: the Army made smaller purchases than usual; the civilian allotment went up by j. more than one billion pounds. At the j, same time, pork began to glut the market. Civilians raised their meat purchases enormously, and the War Food Administration urged farmers to produce fewer hogs. On the hog mar i ket farmers lost confidence in support ' prices — and pig production dropped by 30 per cent of the 1943 crop. Result : short pork supply today — the Army must take its meat allocation [i