ARE WE IN FOR MORE RATIONING
Sheridan, Mary
Are We In For More Rationing? By MARY SHERIDAN PUBLIC reaction to the threat of coffee rationing was perfect subject material for one of those "they'll do it every time" cartoons. Radio scooped...
...I happen to love coffee, and good strong coffee at that, and I wanted some of those three-pound jars too...
...If you buy your coffee for immediate consumption, it's hard to find a better coffee for the same price than the A & P's Bokar...
...Instead of looking for the early end of rationing," Montgomery warns, "we should be planning now to put it back on lard, salad oils, and all meats...
...7, but if there are going to be food shortages and panic buying, rationing is the only sensible answer...
...I've covered the gamut from a confirmed fan of Hill's to Folger's to Simon Brothers, but compared to them on the basis of prree, Bokar is the best buy, and good coffee too...
...Donald Montgomery, consumer counsel of the United Automobile Workers and former consumer expert with the Department of Agriculture, thinks that we won't "have too much food in the next 12 months...
...That is necessary to assure fair distribution here at home, regardless of what Europe's needs may turn out to be...
...Next Year's Food Picture Coffee is not the only thing which may be rationed again...
...If more of us bought only what we need, there might be more to go around for everyone...
...I've got a theory, though, that it's just that kind of panic buying and hoarding that speeds up the possibility of rationing and higher prices...
...Butter will be "a collector's item...
...Montgomery blames this discrepancy on the food industry men who staff the War Food Administration...
...So I suspect that there will be some quiet coffee hoarding from now on by those who can afford to stock up, with the result that rationing may come sooner than necessary with normal buying...
...Montgomery is not an alarmist, and he doesn't step out on the fateful limb that Louis Bromfield dangled on, but he predicts that within the next year there will be less lard, eggs, poultry, potatoes, salad oils, and fats...
...We may have too little of some foods...
...Brazil To The Rescue Drew Pearson, in his "Washington-Merry-Go-Round" column, has predicted that the current coffee situation is only temporary and that coffee will go up in price or be rationed "sometime this Winter...
...According to Pearson, Brazil's Good Neighbor-liness is responsible for coffee being off the ration list at the moment...
...Radio scooped the press on the rumors that coffee would soon be rationed or go up drastically in price, and I met people in the grocery store the day the rumor started (many of them didn't know what the rumor was but had heard from a friend who had heard some kind of an announcement over the air) buying as much coffee in three-pound jars as their con- sciences or purses would permit...
...Prospective food shortages don't jibe with food surpluses, overstocked Government warehouses, and non-rationed canned goods...
...With their commercial interests at heart, they have pushed, according to Montgomery, the policy of getting rid of food supplies and knocking off ration points...
...You might as well buy it as long as we've got it," said the sales-smart clerk to coffee customers...
...I asked myself, "Why not...
...Pork supplies, for one thing, are low...
...Virtue isn't part of that theory, but I hope common sense is...
...No, virtue isn't part of this idea, but maybe there's some malice: I can't feel any sympathy for the woman whose 50 pounds of hoarded butter turned rancid...
...We shall have less than we have had during the past year...
...Brazil's promise to send the United States at least 1,000,000 bags (Americans drink more than that amount each month) from September through December, despite the ire of South American coffee interests who are demanding higher prices and turning down some of our orders, has delayed another coffee rationing period...
...Well, why shouldn't people stock up on coffee as long as it's for sale on grocery shelves...
...Incidentally, one of the interesting trivia of civilian wartime is the quirk that drives some people who never ate Hershey bars or bananas in peacetime to buy them now, whenever they're for sale...
...The issue will no doubt be avoided until after Nov...
Vol. 8 • October 1944 • No. 43
