IN February, after we had broken off diplomatic relations with Germany and before a state of war had been declared as existing, we paid higher prices for food than warring Europe, and had food riots that rivaled those of 'starving' Germany herself. It was our first real taste of war food-conditions. Potatoes sold at wholesale in New York City as high as ten dollars and a half for a barrel of 155 pounds, as against two dollars and a half before the war; and they retailed by the pound, the measure of the poor, for thirteen cents, two for a quarter, or about twenty dollars a barrel. Furious housewives upset venders' carts, drove their owners to shelter, and boycotted dealers and their supplies. They stormed the mayor's office for relief, held mass meetings, and paraded the streets in protest.

Government officials national, state, and municipal - were forced to take note of the situation, and as usual there resulted much talk of investigation and indictment. The war, the farmer, the railroads, and the middleman all came in for blame; nor were the waste and extravagance of the ultimate consumer allowed to escape unscathed. Threats of government ownership relieved the freight congestion at the Atlantic seaboard, and superhuman efforts on the part of railroads, middlemen, and government officials brought a temporary measure of relief, but the problem was not solved.

That it would remain unsolved, if times were normal, goes without say

ing. We would forget it, as is our wont. But the times are not normal and there is consequently every chance that the problem will continue to be forced on our attention until something definite is done about it. The war is the unusual circumstance that is not going to allow us to forget it. We find ourselves in a situation where food-conditions promise to be worse instead of better. Potatoes went up in February, following our diplomatic break with Germany. Wheat climbed to two dollars a bushel two days after the President read his war message to Congress. There is not only a shortage of food in America, but a world-shortage as well. It appears that, if we are to feed ourselves and at the same time help to feed the world, we shall need a better organization of our resources than we have. Brains will have to be applied to the problem, and a thorough and coordinated system of control figured out. Action, not talk, is required. Oratory and boasting about the vastness of our resources have had their day and have been found wanting. They grow no potatoes.

We have entered the war, not knowing when or how it will end, or where it may lead us. In the matter of foodsupply it may face us with conditions not unlike those of Europe. Happily there are men in Washington who realize this, and who have made a beginning. The Council of National Defense is alive to the necessity of food-preparedness as well as of the military, naval, and industrial kinds. Actively

coöperating with Messrs. Coffin, Gifford, Clarkson, and Rosenwald of the Council are Assistant Secretary of Agriculture Vrooman and Quartermaster-General Sharpe of the army, the President backing them in their efforts. These men, with others, propose to give America a measure of foodcontrol that will prepare us to meet any emergency that may arise in that connection during the war.

We know that in entering the war we are going in against the most efficient and highly organized state that the world has ever known a state which has proved its efficiency by being able to hold out against a powerful ring of enemies and the material resources of the world for almost three years. We have thrown down the gauntlet to that power, and made our entrance a question of the survival of democracy or autocracy. We are taking the risk of that power winning in Europe, as Admiral Fiske says it has an even chance of doing, then turning on us and making us stand the brunt of the battle, perhaps with the theatre of operations transferred to our own soil. In anticipation of our entrance against her, Germany proposed to create for us a 'ring of enemies' similar to her own. She would have us, as she has been, shut within an 'iron ring,' and we can be sure that, if able, she would join in the formation of the ring. Whether we would be able to live as successfully on an 'iron ration' as she has done depends to a large extent on the way we prepare ourselves in advance for the test.

We can 'muddle through' as we have in past wars, this time jeopardizing the existence of the Republic, or we can develop instead an adequate programme of food-preparedness. Fortunately the problem has been greatly simplified for us by what has been learned by the experience of the Euro

pean belligerents, particularly Germany herself. We have but to apply the information to our own circumstances. using what is deemed necessary and discarding the remainder.

The idea of food-preparedness is a new one, which has come out of the war. Before, it existed only in embryo. In the war it has been developed and perfected, ready for the adoption of any needy nation. It calls merely for the use of foresight instead of hindsight, intelligent leadership, system, and coördinated control. We have the necessary knowledge and the brains. It remains only to provide the plan and to act according to it. In brief, the system prevents draining the farm of needed men, stimulates and directs the production of food-stuffs, controls the matter of hoarding and price-raising insures the military an effective backing for its efforts, and protects the civil population against want and extortion.

Before the war Germany alone seems to have had any idea that there was such a thing as food-preparedness. She had by no means thoroughly developed it, but her scientists and experts had gone into the problem as far as they could go without having real, modern war conditions to test their theories by. Her experts gathered the information of the world on the subjects of scientific agriculture and nutrition in such form that it was at the service of the nation when the war began. It was not left scattered haphazard in the heads of individuals. What the Germans knew they knew as a nation, and they kept the knowledge to themselves. That they made use of the pioneer work of our own nutrition experts is vouched for by Horace Fletcher, the American food economist, member of our preparedness board and of the Bel gian Relief Commission, who made numerous trips to Germany before the war, to keep in touch with what she

was doing in matters of nutrition, and who was in Belgium when the war broke out.

The newer school in Germany followed closely the work of such men as Professors Chittenden and Fisher of Yale, Graham Lusk of Cornell, Fisk of the Life Extension Institute, Gephart of the Sage Foundation, and others. They followed also the work of our farming experts, and added to their own store of knowledge that developed by our state and national agricultural departments and by the departments of agriculture of our colleges. This explains in part at least why Germany normally grows thirty bushels of wheat to the acre to our fifteen, and it indicates how it happens that she beats the world generally in matters where system and efficiency count.

On the outbreak of the war she proceeded to apply the knowledge that she had stored. Through a commission headed by Dr. Paul Eltzbacher and known as the Eltzbacher Commission, a report in book form was issued shortly after the hostilities began, recommending measures for the conservation, the increase, and the control of Germany's food-resources. The commission was made up of experts in agriculture and nutrition, and its report was based on exact censuses, not only of population, but of the nation's various items of food-stuffs. It discussed and recommended measures for working out the problem of rationing under war conditions, and handled the question of nutrition from the point of view of the newer school in that field. The result was that for the first time in history a scientific diet was prescribed for a nation, the report discussing the ration in terms of calories instead of pounds and tons. The commission made mistakes and was laughed at both in and out of Germany by those who did not appreciate the grav

ity of the situation. But on the whole its report was sound, and has been the basis of the measures of food-control by which Germany, to the astonishment of the world, has held out against 'a world of enemies.'

When it came to putting the recommended measures of control into operation, the first plan hit upon was the division of the country into eight military departments. This was virtually administration by martial law, with operations directed by the Great General Staff of the Army, on the walls of whose offices in Berlin there were foodmaps of the Empire, colored to show which districts were peculiarly adapted for the production of particular foodstuffs. Wheat-growing areas were, for instance, colored red; potato lands, blue; grazing lands, green, and so on. There were, besides, specifications of the kinds and amounts of fertilizers to be used. War cook-books were issued by the million and adapted to the needs of various parts of the Empire.

But this control by the military did not work well. Conflicts arose between the regulations of the several departments, between them and the laws of the various states of the Empire, and again between the laws of the states themselves and the laws of the Empire. It was not at all unlike the conflict between the laws of our own states, and between state laws and federal laws. Inequalities in production and distribution resulted. There was hoarding, price-boosting, shortages, and riots. Housewives feared that they faced famine. The military authorities, with their hands full of the war, were unable to cope with the situation. Control by martial law failed. The problem had to be turned over to the civil authorities to be solved.

It was in June, 1916, that the Imperial Government finally took over entire charge of the matter and created

a central agency of control, known as the War Nutrition Office. All red tape was cut and all conflict of laws eliminated. The board placed in control was made up of experts in the production, transportation, and distribution of food-stuffs, and at its head was placed an efficient operator, Dr. Adolf von Batocki, known to the world as Germany's 'Food Dictator.'

His regulations are law and are enforced by the machinery of the government, national, state, and municipal. His power is absolute in food matters. He dictates the kinds and amounts of crops to be grown and cattle to be raised, what portion the farmer may keep and what he shall sell to the state, the price he shall get, how and by whom the food-stuffs shall be handled, both wholesale and retail, and the prices to be charged, and, finally, by the cardsystem he regulates consumption by the individual, insuring to each his share. In practice the system was worked out backwards. First the card idea was perfected, then the control of the retailer and the wholesaler was established, and finally a drive was made on the farmer, the latter being the most elusive factor in the situation. To-day the system is in working order, but the farmer continues to bother the War Nutrition Office and probably will do so more or less to the end of the war. The German people as a whole are playing the game, but there is a widespread belief that the farmers, especially the Junkers of East Prussia, are holding out supplies, and the result will doubtless be that the government will proceed to confiscate stores and surplus stocks.

In December, 1916, six months after the establishment of the food-dictatorship, Germany passed her civil service mobilization law, making subject to draft into the service of the state every man and woman between the ages of

eighteen and sixty. This enables the government to play checkers with the people as to their employment. Its primary purpose was to increase the output of munitions, but it will also be used to replace farm-labor that has gone into the war, to insure the proper cultivation and harvesting of crops. It makes it possible for Germany weather permitting-to have a better yield in 1917 than in any season since the year the war began.

A further measure of economy contemplated by the government is the feeding of the entire population, rich and poor alike, from government kitchens, after the manner in which the quartermaster's department feeds the army. It will not be resorted to unless present measures of control fail, but it will be applied in case necessity dictates. If adopted, it will be the most amazing step in socialization of effort ever attempted by a state, in itself revolutionary in character and a step which perhaps might be the cause of revolution. It would release from the work of preparing food hundreds of thousands, if not millions, of men and women, and would result in ability on the part of the government further to prolong the war.

The adoption of a food-dictatorship for the United States is an unthinkable thing. It is difficult to imagine, in the first place, that we could ever be put to such straits to feed ourselves as Germany has been. But, if blockaded from the outside world, there are factors which would enter our problem which would make it not altogether unlike the one Germany has had to solve. It is certain that we would need at least some similar measures of control, though we should try very hard to avoid the dictator. War complicates things. things. Life no longer moves in its usual channels as in peace-time. The tendency is to upset whatever system

exists and throw things out of gear. We know we have none too much system as it is. That was demonstrated to us in February. That we shall need vastly more than we have, in the real war that we are entering, would seem to go without saying.

Our population numbers one hundred million people, and we have three million square miles of territory from which to feed ourselves. As compared with that, there are comprised in the blockaded area of Germany, her allies, and their conquered enemy territory, together with the semi-blockaded area of the neutral states contiguous to the Teutonic empires, a population of about one hundred and eighty millions, to be fed from an area of, in round numbers, one million, eight hundred thousand square miles. We should have to ration thirty-three people to the square mile as against their one hundred. In other words, considering population and area alone, our problem would be but one-third as difficult.

But there is to be taken into consideration the German capacity for system, organization, and efficiency, and our own comparative lack of them. If we had to do it, we could doubtless become as systematic and as efficient as Germany, and, under compulsion, we could by intensive farming feed ourselves from an area the size of Texas, which is larger than Germany. But we have not experienced the necessity of having to do it and, therefore, have not done it, and we are consequently wasteful, profligate, unsystematic, lacking in organization and efficiency.

Now the necessity confronts us of preparing ourselves to meet a contingency such as we have never before faced in the life of the nation. We have to prepare, not to a known degree, but for the ultimate. The plainly indicated procedure for us is to leave nothing undone that would put us on a plane of

efficiency equal to, or higher than, that of our enemy. We should summon our best agricultural and nutrition experts, and with them experts in the field of transportation and distribution of food-stuffs, and have them outline what is necessary for the conservation, the increase (if necessary), and the control of our available food-supply. We have such experts in plenty, and in their brains and in the files of the various bureaus and departments of our government there exists the necessary information. It should be mobilized. This body should be made to work with, or under, the Council of National Defense, and to coördinate our foodsupply problem with our other problems of preparedness.

Following that work, which has already been done in part at least by the Council itself, an efficient operating body, with power to act and really control the situation, should be created. It should have at its head a real executive and administrator, and should have power to carry out nationally such measures of control as would ensure an adequate food-supply. The delegation of such power should be accompanied by the elimination in advance of any possible conflict with, or interference from, local municipal and state authorities. Unless this is done the attempt at food-control will fail just as it failed in Germany at the start. It is a problem which can be dealt with only by a national agency, and it will not suffice merely to clothe such an agency with power similar to that possessed by the Interstate Commerce Commission, which, while exercising authority over interstate traffic, has no control of traffic wholly within state borders. As a branch of our war government its power should be as broad as that of the army in military matters or the navy on the sea. We should think it ridiculous if the army