"Woefully Weak"

A posse of cattlemen whooped into Washington last week to take justice into their own hands. They aimed to hang price controls on a sour apple tree. If that meant higher meat prices, they had a quick answer. Meat Packer Chris Finkbeiner of Little Rock, Ark. advised housewives: "If the money runs low, then just eat lower on the hog."

Though meat controls were the cattlemen's main target, the Administration feared that the meatmen were linked up with the potent cotton bloc to blast the entire price control program, now up for renewal by Congress. One cattleman admitted that "our aim is to kill all price controls."

As usual, most of the fire was directed at Price Boss Michael V. Di Salle, whose 18% rollbacks of livestock prices start going into effect next week. On short notice, Di Salle was hauled before the House Agriculture Committee to defend his order. Who, asked Cattle Congressman W. R. Poage of Waco, Texas, will bear the brunt of the rollbacks? Won't it be the ranchers? And what immediate relief, asked another representative, can consumers expect? For hours Mike Di Salle took it on the chin, supplied generalities rather than facts & figures. Finally, he stepped wearily down with the comment: "I'm bleeding." Snapped Committee Chairman Harold Cooley of North Carolina: "He made out a woefully weak case."

"I Raise Cattle." But the show put on by the cattlemen that night was even worse. In the banquet hall of the National Press Club, they threw a "more meat" dinner for 300 lawmakers and newsmen. After dinner, a panel of "experts," appointed by 19 meat-industry associations, faced the guests. Were there any questions from the floor? There were plenty.

One reporter asked for figures showing just how the various segments of the meat industry would be hurt by Di Salle's rollbacks. Admitted Loren C. Bamert, president of the American National Cattlemen's Association: "I raise cattle, and I don't think these regulations will hurt me. Maybe some of the other gentlemen can tell you how they will be hurt." They couldn't. With beef at 152% of parity, asked one newsman, how could the meatmen complain about the rollback ordered by Di Salle? President Allan Kline of the American Farm Bureau Federation answered the question with a ten-minute dissertation on the American way of life. Cried Agriculture Committeeman Cooley, one of the guests: "You gentlemen have failed to answer a single question put to you by the press." Added he on the floor of the House next day: "They were . . . woefully weak."

Trouble in the West. While the fight raged in Washington, more troubles were piling up for Mike Di Salle in the West. Feeders, who bring the cattle from the range and fatten them for slaughter, were threatening to stop feeding entirely. Furthermore, the severest drought in 30 years had forced Texas ranchers to hurry their cattle out of the state for pasturing much earlier than usual. With good pasture land filled up, many an animal will have to be slaughtered before it is properly fattened.

In Illinois' De Kalb County, deep in the heart of the corn belt, and in Kansas City, feeders were hurriedly unloading "unfinished" (i.e., underweight) cattle, to beat the rollback order. Said Feeder Chauncey B. Watson, who handles upwards of 2,000 head a year: "What Di Salle forgets [in his rollback order] is that we feeders bought these cattle at 152% of parity." Watson, like many another feeder, would not buy any more animals before October, when the 18% rollback is completed.

If feeders carry through on their threat not to buy this summer, U.S. meat eaters can expect a sharp drop in the beef supply by winter. Those who remembered the final days of OPA knew that too much price tampering from Washington might well upset the process of increasing the supply of meat on the legitimate market. In the past year, it was the prospect of continued high prices that encouraged cattlemen to boost their herds from 80 million to 82.4 million, close to the wartime peak of 1945. The answer to high meat prices is bigger production. If production is checked by price ceilings--and demand continues to grow--then the U.S. will not have rationing by price, as in the past. It will have to start rationing by coupon.

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