SHORTAGES: Sugar, Lemons, Turkeys

Compared with other nations, the U.S. was still a land flowing with milk & honey. But the list of uncomfortable shortages was lengthening.

One shortage that threatened to be serious was cotton textiles, in spite of a surplus of raw cotton (see below). Shopwindows might display eye-catching assortments of merchandise until window-shoppers got snub-nosed: the price tags, for most people, said “touch me not.” Consumers in the low-income brackets found only inadequate stocks of shabby merchandise at prices they could afford. OPA ceiling prices on cheap goods were set so low that manufacturers could not earn a profit. Thus manufacturers simply stopped making low-priced textiles, or fell back on skimping quality. Underwear production for civilians dropped to 60% to 65% of prewar output; towels to 30% of prewar volume. Headline writers missed a chance: men’s shorts were short.

Although the U.S. had a bigger supply of raw wool than ever before, retail inventories of woolen goods ran low. Civilians hoped for a warm winter. With 10% fewer mill workers than last year, woolen production for the first quarter of 1945 may not exceed 90,000,000 yards, of which 60,000,000 yards are needed to fill Army, UNRRA and other Government orders.

Other shortages:

¶ Housewives had trouble getting sugar. The October hurricane that battered Cuba and Florida disrupted raw sugar shipments. Some U.S. sugar refiners were eight weeks behind in their orders.

¶ The same hurricane leveled many a Florida citrus grove. Shipments of Florida oranges will be cut 20%, grapefruit, 43%. There were few lemons in the Eastern U.S. food markets.

¶ Butcher shops had little pork, prime beef, lamb or turkeys to sell. Farmers sold most of their hogs last spring, have few to market now. Nearly 40% of the four better grades of beef was set aside for the armed forces. The nation’s 36,000,000 turkeys were held off the market until the Government placed its orders for 80,000,000 pounds. By last week the Army had nearly filled its needs and turkeys may again be sold to civilians (see U.S. AT WAR). But there will not be enough birds for Thanksgiving and Christmas too.

¶ In 21 U.S. cities the weekend demand for hotel rooms was 10% to 40% greater than the space available.

¶ Ribbons and gift wrapping paper for Christmas packages were scarce and high-priced.

¶ A perfume manufacturer predicted a shortage of perfume — but not until late in 1945.