HUSBANDRY: Beef & Birthday

Beef & Birthday

The Army & Navy unexpectedly found themselves involved in the farm problem last week when complaints reached President Hoover that these services were contributing to the general agricultural depression by purchasing from foreign producers food for soldiers & sailors stationed outside the U. S. The President promptly ordered an investigation by a joint Army, Navy and Agricultural Committee headed by Nils A. Olsen, Chief of the Bureau of Agricultural Economics.

Chief complainant was Republican Senator Samuel Morgan Shortridge of California. Stirred to action by loud protests from the California Cattlemen’s Association, he charged that the Army & Navy were buying their beef from Australia and New Zealand to supply outposts in the Philippines, Hawaii, the Canal Zone. It was claimed that a city of 100,000 could subsist on these foreign meat purchases, which exceeded 6,500,000 Ib. per year. Other provender which the Army & Navy have been buying in part abroad included beans, cereals, dairy products. The Cal-ifornia Cattlemen’s Association pointed out that Hawaiian beef was being dumped on the Pacific coast, adding to the surplus and depressing prices, because the Army & Navy insisted upon importing their meat for troops in Hawaii from British possessions in the South Pacific twice as far from Hawaii as the U. S.

Explanations. Alarmed at the sudden outcry, Army & Navy officials hastened to explain that they were compelled to buy foreign food products for their outposts because U. S. law requires them to pur-chase from the lowest competitive bidders.

Rear Admiral Joseph Johnston Cheatham, Paymaster General of the Navy and Chief of the Bureau of Supplies & Accounts, insisted that his agents at Cavite and Pearl Harbor bought meat from Australia and New Zealand only because the U. S. product was either not available or more costly. Naval supply officers last year bought 20,000,000 Ib. of meat, of which only 10% came from abroad.

Quartermaster General John Lesesne De Witt explained that the Army’s meat purchases are in the hands of depot quar-termasters in the corps areas. In the Philippines the Army & Navy club together to buy meat on one contract to get a lower price. Both Admiral Cheatham and General De Witt said they would be “delighted” to buy beef from U. S. packers if it could be shipped to foreign stations to meet the foreign price. Declared Acting Secretary of War Davison:

“The average cost of foreign beef delivered in the Hawaiian Islands is 2¢ to 4¢ per Ib. cheaper than the U. S. product delivered in the U. S. Any change in the law to require the American product would, of course, require a considerable increase in the appropriation for the sub-sistence of the Army.”

Senator Shortridge, skeptical of these explanations, said he would move at the next session of Congress to change the law, to require all U S. soldiers and sailors to be fed U. S. food.

Board Troubles. Cheerless last week was the Federal Farm Board’s first birthday. During the year Chicago wheat had tumbled from $1.20 per bu to 86¢. The Board had sunk $75,000,000 in the purchase of 60,000,000 bu. of 1929 wheat on which it stood to lose $35,000,000. Farm prices were at their lowest level in eight years.

Last week’s Farm Board developments:

¶ President Hoover supported its refusal to buy 1930 wheat to up the price.

¶ Secretary of Agriculture Hyde returned to Washington from his trip through the wheat belt to tell the President that farmers did not like the Board’s wheat acreage reduction program (TIME, July 21).

¶ Senator Arthur Capper of Kansas, asked about the political effect of the wheat glut in the coming elections, declared: “If conditions don’t improve materially some of us [Republicans] will not be returned in November.” Democrats, seeking political capital, assailed the Farm Board as a failure, dared President Hoover to call a special session of Congress to deal anew with the problem.