Against Starvation

For two weeks, amidst the plenty and the plush of Atlantic City's Traymore Hotel, worried UNRRA delegates from 48 nations dealt with gloom. The world food crisis was worse; famine threatened one-fourth of the earth's population--some 500,000,000 people. The U.S. had fallen behind on its promised food deliveries. Thirty of the 120 days in which the immediate emergency was to be met had slipped by, and the problem had deepened daily.

Then, at their closing session, UNRRA delegates got a shot of hope & vigor from their new Director General--bumptious, bell-bottomed Fiorello H. LaGuardia.

"No Diplomat." Waving his arms, "Butch" LaGuardia warned the foreign delegates of something they might not know: that he is "no diplomat." Cried he: "Protocol is off. ... I want plows, not typewriters. . . . Ticker tape ain't spaghetti. ... I want fast-moving ships."

Then, with the observation that "wheat has no political complexion," he sent greetings to Argentina's President Juan Peron. "Here," said LaGuardia, "is an opportunity for Argentina to show its desire to cooperate with the rest of the world." But Buenos Aires promptly reported that Argentina's exportable surpluses of wheat were already committed by sale or donation; that was the reason Argentina had declined to join UNRRA.

No Rationing. But Butch LaGuardia, as well as UNRRA, skipped gingerly over the point which retiring UNRRA Director Herbert Lehman had insisted was not only a moral obligation of the U.S. but one sure way to prevent world famine: reinstate U.S. food rationing. LaGuardia was on safe ground; both President Truman and ex-President Hoover, now touring Europe investigating food shortages, were against going back to rationing now.

From France, French North Africa and Italy, Investigator Hoover had reported: "Conditions difficult but not intolerable, provided present rations can be maintained." But last week, in Warsaw, he found Poland's food situation "heartbreakingly bad"--the worst he had seen. He found "over 2,600,000 children terribly subnormal from undernourishment... two cities, Cracow and Lodz, have already been without bread for three weeks at a time."

No Loadings. One answer to Europe's and Asia's emergency lay with U.S. grain farmers, who have about 365,000,000 bushels of wheat stored in their bins. Last week, as a rumor spread through the Midwest grain bowl that ceiling prices might be pushed higher, farmers took a firmer grip on their supplies instead of hauling them to market. Receipts of grains at Midwest terminals were down to a trickle. Great Lakes steamers, making their first 1946 runs to Duluth, Superior and Port Arthur, found scant cargoes at the cavernous elevators.

The U.S. people seemed to be in no mood for sacrificing. They kicked about beer shortages, grumbled slightly over the one roll per customer they found on some restaurant tables. It was still too early to tell how well housewives were responding to Government and private appeals to save breadstuffs and fats. Apparently it would take something stronger than the strongest appeals of Hoover and LaGuardia to stop the march of starvation.

This file is automatically generated by a robot program, so reader's discretion is required.