THE PRESIDENCY: Waste Less

Ever since his return from Rio, President Truman had tried to make up his mind whether or not he should call a special session of Congress. There was increasing pressure on him to call one. Without some stopgap, immediate help, some European nations might not be able to hold out. But there was no telling what

Congress might not do, once it was summoned. It might even want to reduce taxes. Last week Harry Truman thought he had found a way out: he would call in congressional leaders and let them help decide.

At his press conference, the President said he still hoped that no special session would be necessary. He had a plan of his own to meet at least part of the crisis. The solution, said the President, was conservation of food. He had appointed a 26-man Citizens Food Committee, headed by Lever Brothers’ high-powered President Charles Luckman (TIME, June 10, 1946) to recommend ways & means of doing the job. He had mobilized a new “working organization” to back up the committee recommendations. Meanwhile he urged everyone to cut down by “being more selective in foods we buy, particularly livestock products whose production requires large quantities of grain.”

This sounded like a slightly more politic parroting of Senator Bob Taft. Did the President, like Taft, mean “eat less”? asked one reporter. No, said the President firmly, he meant to waste less. One restaurant owner had informed him that one slice of bread less per person would solve the wheat shortage. If people would save the bread they now throw away, he said, 70 million bushels of wheat could be saved without depriving anyone.*

Harry Truman had strong proof of Europe’s need. A report of his Cabinet Food Committee spelled out the story in convincing detail: because of poor crops abroad, because of a sharp drop in U.S. corn production, Europe now faced a food shortage of 4.5 million tons in grain alone. If scarcity of U.S. corn meant that farmers would turn to wheat to feed their hogs and cattle, the gap would increase by another two million tons. The committee counted on other exporting nations to boost their quotas, on hungry Europeans to tighten up on their own food-collection systems.

But the President’s suggestion was far from a complete solution. Voluntary campaigns in the U.S. have a tendency to excite large numbers of people for a short time, but to produce few concrete results. Most Americans would probably neither eat less nor waste less until their pocketbooks forced them to do it.

This week the President again found a way to postpone the ticklish problem of a special session. After a 2½-hour conference with his Cabinet Food Committee and eleven congressional leaders (notable absentees: Senators Robert Taft and Alben Barkley, Speaker Joe Martin), he announced his decision. Unused UNRRA funds could carry Europe (principally Italy and France) to Dec. 1. Meanwhile he was asking the Appropriations and Foreign Relations committees of both Houses of Congress to come to Washington. To see Europe through the winter, the President estimated that the U.S. would have to dig up $580 million. How the U.S. did it, he would leave up to the committeemen.

* In Indianapolis last week Garbage Collector Noah Bowman reported one day’s take: one unopened 24-lb. sack of flour, one whole cantaloupe, half a chicken, an unopened loaf of bread, an 8-lb. slab of bacon. Worst offenders: childless couples, who cut two pieces out of a pie and discard the rest. Worst periods: after holidays.