You Can't Eat Headlines

The U.S. was not the best fed nation in the world last week. For lack of red meat (or so they said), 1,750 Kentucky and West Virginia coal miners refused to work. In Philadelphia, hospitals and war plant cafeterias could find meat for only one meal a week. In the Texas Panhandle, where the ranges were overstocked with fat, grazing herds, it was hard to find even a hunk of stewing beef.

Large cities felt the meat shortage as never before. New York City seemed to have the largest problem, and as usual made the loudest noise. Hundreds of its butcher shops closed. Hundreds of thousands of New Yorkers still ate well--in restaurants. But many more did not. Mayor Fiorello H. LaGuardia screamed at Washington: "You can't feed headlines to children!" He proposed that restaurant eaters be made to give up red ration points for meat served to them. Said the OPA of the Mayor's scheme: "Too late."

War Mobilizer Fred M. Vinson tried to move more beef and pork to markets by broadening and upping (by an estimated $100 million) the $560 million annual Government subsidy to packers and cattle feeders. To the U.S. public, which would eventually pay the bill in taxes, he offered assurance of 1) no higher retail meat prices and 2) more meat in six months. Everybody hoped he was right.

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