February 22, 1917
QUICK ACTION TO CUT FOOD PRICES WANTED IN HOUSE
Ten Representatives Send Letters to Other Members Demanding Funds Be Provided For Probe—Senate May Also Take Hand in Order to Stop Speculation.
BULLETIN.
PHILADELPHIA, Feb. 22.—Food rioting broke out in
Philadelphia this afternoon.
Shouting "Its robbery, robbery," several hundred
Jewish women attacked dealers who had advanced prices. Push carts were
overturned and several sho[p]s on Seventh-st were entered by the women.
Intermittent fighting continued between the women and dealers
until police reserves arrived. The trouble started when women discovered that prices
had been advanced over night. Carp, which sold at 10 cents a pound yesterday
was 18 cents today.
The police are watching every corner of Philadelphia for other
demonstrations.
WASHINGTON, Feb. 23.—Ten representatives in a letter to members
of the house today demanded an investigation immediately by the federal trade
commission of the food situation.
Promise of possible senate action came today when Senator Borah
said he would address the senate at the first opportunity probably today on the
food shortage question and the food rioting.
"The situation is most deplorable," said Borah.
"It must be met at once. We must immediately provide some relief."
Determined to force some action from congress that will at
least temporarily relieve the serious food shortage that has caused bread riots
in New York and which the federal trade commission prophesies will spread to
every large city, Representative Fess, Ohio, today informed Representative
Meyer London, New York, he will introduce a resolution providing at least
temporary food control.
London, explaining that he believes congress should
immediately enact a permanent government food control law, announced he would
support such a measure as absolutely necessary to get over the present
emergency.
Fess intimated he would introduce his resolution today
despite apparent disinterestedness shown by many members of congress.
Such a resolution will have support of Representative
Borland, who announced he would press his provision appropriating $400,000 [2013 CPI: $7,279,812] for
a federal trade commission investigation of the food shortage by tacking an amendment
on the sundry civil bill when it reaches the house floor.
In the meantime the federal trade commission, the interstate
commerce commission and the department of agriculture and the commerce
department have been called in to aid in affording some kind of a temporary
relief.
The American Railways association will work with the
interstate commerce commission in an effort to do what it can to remedy any
conditions the car shortage may have caused.
Discussing the situation today Representative London
bitterly assailed food speculators as the chief cause.
“I call on the house to take up the food control question
now,” London said. “We are giving hundreds of millions of dollars for
preparedness and preparedness programs for the future but we are disregarding
an exigency already created by the European war.
“If these starving people in New York have any fault it is
not that they do not work but because they work too hard—beyond human endurance—and
cannot make a living.
“Prices of food have risen so high as to become inaccessible
to the masses.
“These are not riots, but outcries to heaven for relief.
“These people want bread—not in Berlin or Petrograd or
Vienna or London, or Paris, but in New York, the richest city in the country, enjoying
the highest degree of prosperity.
“This country is surfeited with European gold but shows a
lack of bread for its workers. Having given so much time to a leak
investigation. It is time congress gave some attention to the leak in the
country’s prosperity.”
Representative Borland today blamed the appropriations
committee for smothering the $400,000 appropriation resolution which would
afford the federal trade commission money to…
(Continued on page Eight.)
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…carry on a nationwide probe.
"The president is behind the plan," said Borland.
"The trade commission has sufficient facts now to warrant such an
investigation but the appropriations committee still says no.
"It is imperative for congress to appropriate the Full
amount at once. Criminal prosecutions are merely temporary although they may be
useful in the present emergency.
"However the real remedy is to find the basic causes.
This country has unlimited facilities for food production. We can feed all of
our millions and more. I am one of those that believe that greed has closed the
channels of distribution.
"It is a lasting disgrace to think of food riots in
this time of peace and great prosperity in the metropolis of the richest and
most productive country on the globe.''
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