4 Notes for WWI research: Louis Sheehan
CHAPTER I
THE WHEAT SITUATION
Wheat is as much a war necessity as ammunition—wheat is a war weapon. To produce it and distribute it where it is needed and in sufficient quantities is the most serious food problem of the Allied world. The continent of Europe, with her devastated fields, can raise but a small fraction of the wheat she needs, and ships are so few that she cannot import it from many of the usual sources.
Not one of the warring European countries has escaped serious suffering, and the neutral countries have suffered with them.
THE WORLD'S SUPPLY OF WHEAT
France, always an agricultural nation, was the most nearly self-sustaining of the western Allies. Now one-third of her wheat-fields are barren. Thousands of her acres have been taken by the enemy, or are in No Man's Land. Much of the land that has been fought over these past four years is now hopeless for farming, and will be for years to come. Even the territory still under cultivation cannot be expected to yield large returns, for laborers, tools, and fertilizers are lacking.
The men who have left the fields to fight have been replaced [pg 2]chiefly by women, children, and old men, while furloughed soldiers at times help to bring in the crops. To get adequate return from the soil which has been tilled for centuries, tons of fertilizer are necessary. Fertilizers are an absolute necessity, and nitrates, one of the most important of them, can no longer be imported from Chile. The work-animals have been driven off by the enemy or slaughtered for want of food, and mechanics are lacking to repair and replace the worn-out farm-machinery. As a result of this, in 1917 France raised only enough wheat to supply 40 per cent of her need, instead of 90 per cent, as in pre-war years.
In England the situation is not much better. Unlike France, England has always imported far more wheat than she raised. But now through vigorous effort she alone of all the European countries has increased her cereal production so that it has actually been doubled. Being free from the devastation of war at home, she has been able to convert the great lawns of her parks and country estates into grain-fields. English women of all classes, an army of half a million, are working on the land. At the same time the consumption of wheat has been reduced. Even yet, however, the home-grown supply in England is only one-fourth of the wheat required.
In Belgium the devastation is so complete that the women, children, and old people left there would die of famine if food were not sent to them. Two and a half million Belgians daily stand in line waiting for food to be doled out to them. The United States must supply three-fourths of the wheat contained in their meagre bread ration. In Italy, too, the condition is serious, for she produces far less than she needs, despite every effort of her Government to stimulate production.
[pg 3]
WHEAT FIELDS OF THE WORLD
Germany and Austria-Hungary have not escaped universal suffering from lack of wheat. Germany before the war was a wheat-importing country, and Austria-Hungary was able to supply herself with wheat, but had none to export. Their war crops have been below normal, and even the wheat taken from conquered territory has not been sufficient to prevent severe shortage, resulting in bread riots in industrial centres.
The imports of wheat into both the Allied and enemy European countries to supplement the wheat of their own raising came in peace-times from seven countries—Russia, Roumania, Australia, the United States, Canada, Argentina, and India. Most of these have now failed as a source of supply.
Russia and Roumania were the great wheat-bins of Europe. They produced as much wheat as the United States, and sometimes more, and they were always able to make up or nearly make up the deficiencies of western Europe. Russia and Roumania are now themselves on the verge of famine. Even before their own situation became so desperate, they could get little wheat to the western Allies, because the enemy territory and the battle-lines made a great wall of separation.
Australia and India both continue to grow large crops of wheat, and have a surplus in storage, but it cannot be sent to Europe because of lack of ships. Australia has wheat stored from her last three crops. The Argentine had very poor crops in 1916 and 1917, and although the 1918 crop is good, it is scarcely more available to Europe than Australia's wheat.
So the wheat scarcity is not a question only of the amount of wheat in the world. It is a problem of getting it where it is needed—wheat plus ships. Not a single ship must go farther than is absolutely necessary. A glance at the map shows why wheat for Europe should come from North America rather than from Australia or India, or even the Argentine. The trip from Australia [pg 5]is three times as long as from North America, so it takes only one-third as many ships to carry food to Europe from the United States as from Australia. The Argentine is twice as far from Europe as the United States, and therefore twice as many ships are needed to carry an equal amount of Argentine food to Europe. If this continent could produce and save enough next year to provide the whole of the Allied food necessities, we could save 1,500,000 tons of world shipping to be used for other purposes. Every ship saved is a ship built to carry more men and more ammunition to France.
WHEAT IN THE UNITED STATES
The United States has never had a large wheat surplus to export, and the last few years it has had an unusually low supply to meet the extraordinary demand. The 1916 crop was small. The 1917 crop was only four-fifths of normal, little more than we ordinarily consume ourselves. We entered the last harvest with our stocks of wheat and other cereals practically exhausted. Hence to feed the Allies until the 1918 harvest, we had to send wheat which we should ordinarily have eaten. All that we could send under normal conditions from July, 1917, to July, 1918, has usually been estimated at about 20,000,000 bushels, but in the first eleven months of this time we actually did send 120,000,000 bushels, six times as much as we could have shipped without conservation. One-half of the total output of our flour-mills in the month of May, 1918, went abroad.
This achievement in feeding the Allies has been made possible and will continue to be possible, through the measures of economy and substitution established by the Food Administration, and the constant and continued personal sacrifice of each one of us.
[pg 6]
Even the 1918 wheat crop, successful as it promises to be, will not mean freedom from saving. Throughout the war there can be no relaxation. We must build up a great national reserve in years of good harvest for the greater and greater demands of Europe. Never again must we let ourselves and the world face the danger that was before us in the spring of 1918.
MEETING THE WHEAT SHORTAGE
To keep wheat constantly going over to our Allies and sufficient stores in the United States at the same time, is one of the big problems of the Food Administration. Production has had to be increased and consumption decreased. The price has had to be kept down, for in a time of shortage prices always tend to go up. It is true that high prices furnish one method of decreasing the consumption of food, but it is a method that means enforced conservation by the poor and no conservation by the rich. The burden thus falls on those least able to bear it.
To meet this situation the Food Administration has gone into the wheat business itself. Practically entire control of the buying and selling of wheat is in the hands of the great United States Food Administration Grain Corporation. Through this organization all wheat sales are made to the Army and Navy, to our allies, and to the neutrals. The price which it pays for these huge quantities sets the price for the entire country. The Food Administration also makes the movement of wheat from the farmer to the miller and to the wholesaler as simple and direct as possible. It prevents hoarding and speculation. "I am convinced," said Mr. Hoover, in April, 1918, "that at no time in the last three years has there been as little speculation in the nation's food as there is to-day."
[pg 7]
As a result of this business management of wheat, the consumer pays less for flour, although the farmer gets more for his wheat. In May, 1917, the difference between the price of the farmer's wheat and of the flour made from it was $5.86 per barrel of 196 pounds. Fifteen months later the difference was 64 cents. In February, 1917, before the United States went into the war, flour sold at wholesale for $8.75 a barrel. In May, 1917, the war, with no food control, had driven the price up to $17. But in February, 1918, after six months of the Food Administration, it had gone down to $10.50 wholesale, and this in spite of unprecedented demand for our very short supply. Without control, flour would undoubtedly be selling for $50 a barrel. During the Civil War, with no world wheat shortage, but without food control, the price of wheat increased 130 per cent over the price in 1861.
The milling and sale of flour, the baking of bread, and the purchases of the individual are all regulated to a greater extent than would have scarcely been thought possible before the war.
Every effort has been made to produce a great 1918 wheat-crop. Congress, at the time the Food Control Bill was passed, fixed the price of the 1918 wheat at a minimum of $2 per bushel, and the President later fixed the price at $2.20. This has been high enough to encourage the farmer to increase his crop and not too high to be fair to the consumer. The Department of Agriculture, during the winter of 1917-18, had for its slogan, "a billion-bushel crop for 1918." It has worked intensively to help the farmer in selecting and testing seed and in fighting destructive insects and plant-diseases, and in every way to help him grow more wheat.
Constant reliance has been placed on the individual's intelligence and patriotism in wheat-saving. One of the unusual [pg 9]aspects of the Food Administration is its confidence in the co-operation of the country and the response which this confidence has met. Wheatless meals are now a commonplace occurrence. Wheatless days are being observed in many hotels and homes. People all over the country have pledged themselves to do entirely without wheat until the 1918 harvest is available. About 100,000 barrels of flour were returned by individuals and companies during the spring of 1918, to be shipped to the Allies and the Army and Navy. The individual all over the country, consumer, dealer, miller, or farmer, has risen to the occasion to do his share toward the fulfilment of the Government's promise to Europe.
[pg 10]CHAPTER II
THE WAR-TIME IMPORTANCE OF WHEAT AND OTHER CEREALS
When the United States was called on to supply the Allies with much of its wheat and flour, we fortunately found at hand a plentiful supply of a great variety of other cereals. The use of corn was, of course, not an experiment—generations of Southerners have flourished on it. But we also had oats, rice, barley, rye, buckwheat, and such local products as the grain sorghums, which are grown in the South and West. All of them are cereals and all can be used interchangeably with wheat in our diet.
To understand clearly the value of cereals in the diet to-day, it is well to review the part played by food in general. Europe to-day is eating to live. She therefore thinks of food not in terms of menus but as a means of keeping up bodily functions, as sources of protein, carbohydrate and fat—terms seldom heard outside of the university a few years ago.
THE SIGNIFICANCE OF DIFFERENT KINDS OF FOOD
We need food first of all to burn as fuel for all the activities of the body, just as any other machine needs fuel. The fuel value of food, or its energy, is measured in calories. A calorie measures the amount of heat or energy given off when anything burns, whether it is coal in a stove or food in the body.
Practically all foods give this fuel or energy, but some give [pg 11]much more than others. Fats give more fuel than an equal weight of any other food. Sugar and foods rich in starch like flour and corn meal are fuel foods. This is one of the reasons why they are chosen to be shipped abroad. The cereals always supply an important part of the fuel of the diet. Watery foods, like many vegetables and fruits, normally give less fuel. A person could not live on lettuce any better than a house could be heated with tissue paper.
If the food does not supply enough energy, a person will burn up part of his own body for fuel and will grow emaciated. Far too often we find children of the very poor who are undernourished because of lack of food fuel. Sometimes even well-to-do young people half starve themselves because they get "notions" about food. One of the terrible tragedies abroad is the hundreds and thousands of men and women and children who are worn and thin and sick for lack of food.
We need food, too, to keep the organs of the body running smoothly. Abroad, people are suffering not only because they have not enough food, but because they have not the right kinds of food. Milk and vegetables and fruits are especially useful. They are the chief sources of the much-needed mineral salts and the two vitamines. The vitamines are substances of great importance about which has centred much discussion lately and which scientists do not yet fully understand, though they realize that they are essential for the growth of children and for health in adults.
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