THE PRESIDENCY: The Politics of Meat

Boston traditionally lives on beans and codfish. But the wails that Massachusetts Congressman John McCormack heard were not for the bean and the cod. Boston voters wanted red meat.

Majority Leader McCormack had loyally led the Administration’s fights for price control, but these pitiful cries were too much for him. Last week he demanded a 60-day suspension of meat price ceilings in order to get his people meat. Sixty days would give the Price Decontrol Board time to study the situation, he said. It would also carry the Democrats comfortably past the election on Nov. 5.

Other Democratic bosses also heard the voters’ voice. Chicago’s Ed Kelly, once thumpingly in favor of clamping on the price lid, put an ear to the ground. Even Chicago was out of meat, and some 40,000 unemployed packinghouse workers wanted to get back to work. Ed rushed to Washington, redder than a cop’s undershirt, to join National Chairman Bob Hannegan and members of the Democratic Party’s executive committee at a chicken lunch. What, they asked, could be done?

Meatless citizens would mean voteless candidates. Shamelessly they passed a resolution directing Hannegan to confer with the Decontrol Board—which is supposed to be free of politics. The resolution did not state flatly that they were for McCormack’s 60-day suspension, but that was the majority sentiment. They telephoned the White House and told a presidential aide about it.

“Wholly Wrong.” An hour later Harry Truman took his stand. To his press conference, he said calmly: “In July and August when there was no price control on meat, meat was abundant. Now there is price control and meat is short. It is natural, therefore, for the people to blame the shortage on price control. This line of reasoning is wholly wrong.”

The reason for the shortage, said the President, was the extraordinary slaughtering in OPA-less July and August to take advantage of zooming prices. “Many of these cattle would normally have been fed to heavier weights,” continued ex-cattle feeder Truman, “and come to market during September and October instead of August. Whether price control had been restored or not the glut of meat in summer was bound to mean a shortage in the fall.”

Confidently, Mr. Truman saw meat ahead. Grass-fed cattle (chased from high plateaus by cold weather) would soon begin to appear in the markets. Hog feeders, viewing a record corn crop (673,000,000 bushels in Iowa), saw the opportunity to make a profit from feeding to heavier weights, so hogs might be late. But they would be along. “The dire predictions of a meat famine are without basis,” said the President: “An increase in prices or the abandonment of price control on meat now would . . . add to rather than solve our difficulties.”

“Peace . . . & Progress.” In short, the President refused to play the Kelly-McCormack brand of politics. Perhaps he thought his way was better politics. Bob Hannegan gulped, threw away the resolution and announced that he and the executive committee stood “100% behind the President.” The armed forces promised to help some; instead of taking 25% of the available legitimate meat they would take only 10%. Ed Kelly and the other committeemen passed a statement of policy: “Peace, production and progress—these are the watchwords of the Democratic Party for 1946 . . . under the inspired leadership of Harry Truman.” Glumly they went home.

The best they could think of was to send word around the wards and back rooms: don’t give up hope. In spite of Harry Truman’s firm stand against decontrol, they hoped there would be some meat to nourish voters for that journey to the polls.