East St. Louis Daily Journal

Among Our Contemporaries

THE FOOD SHORTAGE.

(Alton Telegraph.)

The farmers have been warning the people for six months that food supplies would be reduced this year, owing largely to inability to get help. But most people have thought this was the same old cry of "wolf, wolf," and it has not been taken seriously.

At last, however, the fact is realized that farm production is going to fall below the average, and grave fears of an actual food scarcity are felt. The government has a heavy responsibility. It must not fall down as it fell down on the sugar shortage.

The immediate step, of course, is to organize all possible labor forces to help the farmers. There are at least 300,000 young men in colleges, universities, and technical schools. The great majority of these young men, and a considerable number of young women, should be available as farm helpers during the summer. The number of high school students capable of doing farm work is still greater. If the United States suffers food shortage with this source of labor supply not thoroughly organized, it deserves to go hungry as a penalty for its stupidity.

Every farmer should be canvassed to know what he needs, and everything possible done to see that everyone gets his requirements. Also the garden movement should be thoroughly reorganized, to secure utilization of the vacant lots and back yards.

After all possible labor forces have been put to work, the next step should be to make a careful survey of anticipated production, and if the peril of shortage is threatening, to make a thorough canvass of food supplies in the southern hemisphere. There will be plenty of food in the world, if it is secured and transported. But to provide these supplies takes careful planning and pre-arrangement, as has been so amply proved in the sugar famine.