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Contents vii
Types 232
Executive Structures: Presidential and Parliamentary 233
Formal Powers 235
Partisan Powers 238
Coalitions 238
Informal Powers 243
Causes and Effects: What Explains PART IV: Politics, Society, and Culture
Executive S tability? 243
Stable and Unstable Regimes: Presidentialism, Parliamentarism, CHAPTER 12
and Democracy 244
Stable and Unstable Executives: Styles of Presidential Rule 246 Revolutions and Contention 280
Stable and Unstable Executives: Patterns of Parliamentary Concepts 282
Rule 248 What Is “Contention”? 282
Revolutionary and Non-Revolutionary
THINKING COMPARATIVELY Beyond the American and British
Contention 283
Models 250
CASES IN CONTEXT
Types 283
Social Movements 283
France 234
Revolutions 288
United States 234
Insurgencies and Civil Wars 290
Russia 237
Terrorism 291
China 239
“Everyday Resistance” 293
Nigeria 244
Thinking About Contention: Summary 294
CHAPTER 11
Causes and Effects: Why Do Revolutions Happen? 294
Relative Deprivation 294
Political Parties, Party Systems, and Interest Resource Mobilization and Political
Groups 254 Opportunities 295
Rational Choice 297
Concepts 257
Culture or “Framing” Explanations 299
Political Parties 257
Party Systems 257 THINKING COMPARATIVELY The “Arab Spring” of 2011 and Its
Interest Groups 258 Legacy 301
x Contents
BrazilKUWAIT
400 Bushehr
Zahedan
Germany 443
SAUDI Asaluyeh
PROFILE
ARABIA
400 Bandar Abbas
PROFILE 443
Introduction 400 Persian
PAKISTAN Introduction 443
Chabahar
Historical Development QATAR
402 Gulf
Historical Development 445
Gulf of Oman
Regime and Political Institutions 405 Regime and Political Institutions 448
U.A.E.
Political Culture 406 Political Culture 449
Political Economy 407 OMAN Political Economy 450
0 110 220 Kilometers
Insights
CHAPTER 5 Atul Kohli, State-Directed Development: Political Power and Industrialization in the Global Periphery 108
Daron Acemoglu, Simon Johnson, and James A. Robinson, The Colonial Origins of Comparative
Development 110
Francis Fukuyama, Trust: The Social Virtues and the Creation of Prosperity 111
Immanuel Wallerstein, The Modern World System 114
Jared Diamond, Guns, Germs, and Steel: The Fates of Human Societies 115
CHAPTER 6 Seymour Martin Lipset, Political Man: The Social Bases of Politics and Some Social Requisites of
emocracy: Economic Development and Political Legitimacy 135
D
Alexis de Tocqueville, Democracy in America 137
Samuel Huntington, The Third Wave: Democratization in the Late Twentieth Century 139
Guillermo O’Donnell, Philippe C. Schmitter, and Laurence Whitehead,
Transitions from Authoritarian Rule 141
Ronald Inglehart and Christian Welzel, Modernization, Cultural Change, and Democracy:
The Human Development Sequence 142
CHAPTER 7 Barrington Moore, Social Origins of Dictatorship and Democracy: Lord and Peasant in the Making of the
Modern World 163
Daron Acemoglu and James Robinson, Economic Origins of Dictatorship and Democracy 164
Gabriel Almond and Sidney Verba, The Civic Culture: Political Attitudes and Democracy in Five N
ations 166
Timur Kuran, Now Out of Never: The Element of Surprise in the East European Revolution of 1989 168
Steven Levitsky and Lucan A. Way, Competitive Authoritarianism:
Hybrid Regimes After the Cold War 169
CHAPTER 8 William Riker, Federalism: Origin, Operation, Significance 189
Alfred Stepan, Federalism and Democracy: Beyond the U.S. Model 189
Wallace Oates, Fiscal Federalism 192
Jonathan Rodden and Erik Wibbels, Beyond the Fiction of Federalism: Economic Management in
Multi-Tiered Systems 193
Ran Hirschl, Towards Juristocracy: The Origins and Consequences of the New Constitutionalism 196
xv
xvi Insights
CHAPTER 9 Scott Morgenstern and Benito Nacif, Legislative Politics in Latin America
216
Hannah Pitkin, The Concept of Representation 217
Gary Cox and Matthew McCubbins, Legislative Leviathan: Party Government in the House 222
Morris Fiorina, Divided Government 224
Michael Mezey, Comparative Legislatures 225
CHAPTER 10 Juan Linz, The Perils of Presidentialism and The Virtues of Parliamentarism 245
Scott Mainwaring and Matthew Shugart, Juan Linz, Presidentialism, and Democracy:
A Critical Appraisal 246
Guillermo O’Donnell, Delegative Democracy 247
Kenneth Roberts, Neoliberalism and the Transformation of Populism in Latin America:
The Peruvian Case 248
Arend Lijphart, Consociational Democracy 250
CHAPTER 11 Robert Dahl, Who Governs? Democracy and Power in an American City 268
Maurice Duverger, Les Partis Politiques [Political Parties] 271
Giovanni Sartori, Parties and Party Systems: A Framework for Analysis 271
Anthony Downs, An Economic Theory of Democracy 274
Mancur Olson, The Logic of Collective Action: Public Goods and the Theory of Groups and The Rise and
Decline of Nations: Economic Growth, Stagflation, and Social Rigidities 276
CHAPTER 12 Zeynep Tufekci, Twitter and Tear Gas: The Power and Fragility of Networked Protest 287
Mark Sageman, Understanding Terror Networks 292
Samuel Huntington, Political Order in Changing Societies, and Ted Gurr, Why Men Rebel 296
Theda Skocpol, States and Social Revolutions: A Comparative Analysis of France, Russia, and China 297
Mark Lichbach, The Rebel’s Dilemma 299
Preface
T he field of comparative politics is changing, not only in how it’s studied but
in how it’s taught. We set out to write this textbook because we saw the
need for a new approach—one that is truly comparative, that goes beyond a litany
of facts or abstract ideas. In the process, we had to rethink what a book for this
course should look like. We started with a central aim: to get students to think like
comparativists. Toward that end, we have integrated theories and methods with
a range of country case applications to address the big questions in comparative
politics today.
Many undergraduates take a course in comparative politics because they
are broadly interested in world affairs. They want to understand issues such as
democracy and democratization, economic and social development, transnational
social movements, and the relationship between world religions and conflict
around the globe, just as we did as students (and still do!). This book focuses
squarely on these big issues and offers a framework for understanding through
comparison.
Our job is to teach students how to think critically, how to analyze the world
around them. We want our students to do more than just memorize facts and
theories. Ultimately, we want them to learn how to do comparative politics. This
course is successful if students can use the comparative method to seek out their
own answers. We are successful as educators if we give them the analytical skills
to do so.
An Integrative Approach
One of the distinctive features of this book is the way we have integrated theories,
methods, and cases. Rather than focusing on either country information or themes
of comparative politics, we have combined these approaches while emphasizing
application and analysis. By providing students with the tools to begin doing
their own analyses, we hope to show them how exciting this kind of work can
be. These tools include theories (presented in an accessible way), the basics of the
comparative method, and manageable case materials for practice, all in the context
of the big questions.
We thus take an integrative approach to the relationship between big themes
and country case studies. This text is a hybrid containing sixteen thematic chapters
plus linked materials for twelve countries of significant interest to comparativists.
The country materials following the thematic chapters include both basic country
information and a series of case studies dealing with specific thematic issues.
We link the country cases to the thematic chapters via short “call out” boxes—
“Cases in Context”—at relevant points in the chapters. For example, a “Case
in Context” box (titled “Democracy’s Success in India: What Can We Learn
from a Deviant Case?”) in a discussion of theory in chapter 6, “Democracy and
Democratization,” points students to a full case study on democratization in
India, included at the back of the text.
CASE IN CONTEXT
Democracy’s Success in India:
What Can We Learn from a Deviant Case? PAGE 466
India is a major anomaly for modernization theories of develop- 3. Can you think of a way to “save” modernization theory
ment. In essence, the relationship between its political and eco- in the face of the case of India?
nomic development has been the inverse of what modernization
theory would predict. India is the world’s second largest society
and its largest democracy—consider, therefore, the share that
Indian citizens hold in the world’s broader democratic popula-
tion. This anomaly has potentially serious implications and makes
the puzzle of Indian democratization all the more intriguing.
For more on the case of democratization in India, see the
case study in Part VI, p. 466. As you read it, keep in mind the
following questions:
1. What, if anything, does Indian anti-colonial resistance
have to do with the country’s democratization?
2. What, if anything, does Indian democratization sug-
gest about the importance of individual actors, leader- Indian Voters, 2017, in Uttar Pradesh state. India is
ship, and institutional design? the world’s largest democracy.
CASE STUDY
Democracy’s Success in India: What Can We Learn
from a “Deviant Case”? CHAPTER 6, PAGE 136
How does modernization theory account refutes modernization theory, and turn development facilitates democratiza-
for low-income democracies such as India? to some other theory of democratization. tion and democratic consolidation? Why
As discussed in chapter 6, modernization For example, we could turn to institu- would this be different? Because the
theory predicts that economic develop- tional theories of democratization as an theory would now say that it is unlikely
ment will lead to democratization and alternative. Perhaps something about that India could successfully democra-
democratic consolidation. Indeed, this the parliamentary form of government tize without first achieving a higher level
relationship generally holds. More often rather than presidential government of economic development, but not that
than not, increasing economic develop- contributed to India’s rather successful it is impossible. A more flexible theory of
ment increases the probability that any democracy (as is discussed in chapter modernization might be compatible by
given society will have democratic politics. 10); one could consider the Indian case to including insights from other theories. For
India, however, poses a major anomaly for test this hypothesis. For example, has the example, perhaps modernization theory
some versions of modernization theory. parliamentary system with its multiparty could be linked to institutional theories,
Given that India’s population is approxi- coalitions and governments that are ac- like the one on parliamentarism men-
mately one-seventh of the world’s popu- countable to the legislature resulted in tioned previously. Maybe parliamentarism
lation, this anomaly is not easily dismissed. more power-sharing and less “winner- is particularly called for as a form of insti-
Why does India constitute an anom- take-all” politics? Has it resulted in a prime tutional design when the society in ques-
aly or “deviant case” for modernization ministerial “style” that is less centralized tion has a relatively low level of economic
theory? India only recently began to see than in presidential systems? There is evi- development. We are speculating here for
notable economic development; and for dence both for and against the argument the sake of argument and not proposing
most of the twentieth century, the coun- that parliamentarism has been a cause of this theory; India’s history of development
try was profoundly poor. Modernization India’s democratic success. and democracy does not and cannot
would lead us to suspect authoritarian Another alternative, though, would prove this assertion. Rather, it might sug-
governance under these conditions. Yet be to use a deviant case like India’s de- gest this hypothesis, which we could then
after decolonization, India defied pes- mocracy to amend or clarify the nature test through the examination of other
simists and built the world’s largest de- of the original theory. What if modern- well-selected cases. In general, deviant
mocracy, one that has now endured for ization theory is not making the law- cases are useful. We should be pleased
decades. There are several conclusions like generalization that development when we find them, as they help us to criti-
that one could draw from this. We could leads inevitably to democratization, but cally assess existing theories, modifying or
decide that this anomaly disproves or rather a “weaker” claim that economic rejecting them as appropriate.
CASE STUDY
Another “Case in Context” box in chapter 6 (titled “Is China Destined for
Democracy?”) invites Federalism
students to and Differences
consider in Development
whether democratization in Chinain India
is CHAPTER 8, PAGE 192
inevitable. Other boxes in that chapter focus on issues of democracy and democ-
ratization
One of the inmain
Brazil and theofUnited
advantages federal-States.
competition with one another while Brazil can have different policies in differ-
Using
ism these short
is purported “linking”
to be its impact onboxes
eco- has enabled
also ensuringus togovernment
that integrate adecisions
complete entset states,
of each adapted to local needs
case materials
nomic without
and social interrupting
development. As notedtheabout
narrative
taxesflow of the chapters.
and services are “closerThe
to kind
and of
demands. Yet this key advantage
reading we 8,suggest
in chapter with the
federal systems maystructure
allow of this
the textand
people,” is similar
thus moretoresponsive.
following hyper-
of federalism and decentralized govern-
links in online
different statestext—something
to engage in healthy students do easily.
A country like This
India,flexible design
the United States,feature
or alsois also one of its disadvantages:
ment
xx Preface
growth, we must understand why the idea spread that human- inconsistency in each case in the key groups that are most cen-
Competitive Authoritarianism: Hybrid Regimes
ity is divided into distinct “peoples”
INSIGHTS After the Cold War who are “sovereign” and tral in redefining their societies as nations. At the same time,
“equal.” For Greenfeld, the key preconditions
by Steven Levitskyforandthe develop-
Lucan A. Way Greenfeld acknowledges the importance of institutions like the
ment of national identity are problems in stratification systems state prior to national identity’s emergence in helping to shape
L
through which societies
evitsky andhierarchically
of transitions
as the class structure. Elitethat are likely
status
divide
Way are interested themselves, the
in understanding such
to develop out ofcondition
inconsistency—a
sorts the
“competitive this
type to
linkages
firsttheory
that
thedevelops
is ongoing
in any
West, though, given
two main
authoritarianism
also
case.
paths
in the context
note that political
areScholars working with
possible. The
of a strong play
institutions
authoritarian” regimes, a term that they have coined to label This path is most likely, the authors argue, when (a) the state
state. an impor-
present when the stratification system breaks down and elites tant role in spreading and preserving national identity.
regimes that do allow (often problematic) elections alongside is strong at the beginning of the process and (b) the party or
are no longer other
sure non-democratic
of their status—leads
features. Assome groups
they note, to seekau- Liah
competitive other strongest
Greenfeld, organizational
Nationalism: vehicle
Five Roads in the competitive
to Modernity. Cambridge,au-
MA: Harvard
to transform thoritarian
identity, regimes
and national
should notidentity often
be thought seems
of as to University
transitional: thoritarianPress, 1992.
environment (which is the core of the competitive
there is no reason to assume that competitive authoritarian authoritarian regime) has lots of “organizational power.” The
regimes will become democratic or more fully authoritarian. second path is authoritarian persistence with lots of instability
However, certain characteristics do predict the likelihood of and turnover, which is more likely in the context of a weaker
the countrytarian
turnedregime thatand
inward is characterized by many
sharply limited of the features
commercial we have discussed. It is making “laundry lists” (as noted earlier)
questions:
a “personalist” regime, the population of which is subject to many of the vagaries and saying, “Everything matters”? In
and cultural contact with the outside world. Yet many schol- 1. What does Japan show preparingus about
to make theargu-
theoretical relationship
of authoritarianism. It is characterized by repression, a lack of secure political ments, it is of course important for any
ars think that it only
rights, developed
seemingly modern
arbitrary rule,national identity
and so on. Eveninafter its recent
between nationalism
transition, and
au- particular other key
question to examine how
aspects of
Discovering Diverse Content Through
Random Scribd Documents
another triumph at home. In truth, the prospect of impending triumph at first almost
defeated the need of a campaign. The enthusiasm during the period of the drive
transcended everything ever seen in this country before. The result reflected it: In an issue
of $6,000,000,000 there was an oversubscription of $933,073,250 and the total number was
the 22,777,680 which will stand as the high mark of Americanism for many generations to
come.
It has been set forth here that all appeals were based on arousing the emotions of the
people. This was necessary because, had the offerings gone before the public solely on
their practical value as investments, the results would have been considered abroad as
another demonstration of our sordidness. Had the people of the United States been
sordid, it is certain that they might have obtained better investment values. That they
were not touched by selfish instincts is further proved by the fact that all through the
drives the bonds of the previous issues had been quoted below par, due to the
machinations of a group that never could be lifted above self-interest. The public, in full
realization of this apparent depreciation, fought it out and showed their utter contempt
for the manipulators by subscribing in greater force and for greater amounts to each
subsequent issue.
It has been said before that the feeling of the public toward the war was made clear in
the First Loan. It became the problem of the Second and the succeeding drives to organize
enthusiasm so that through contagion the more resistant types might be affected. This
compelled an organization of psychology. Back of each demonstration there were stage
managers. These managers of psychology worked upon the public through the
newspapers, through advertising, through "stunts," and generated a force of example
which affected the whole community in which they were expressed.
For instance, a parade always has the effect of stirring people; feelings deep-hidden
cannot be well concealed when, in war-time, marching men stride past. Unconsciously
there comes to the mind of people the question: "What will become of these fine boys
when they reach France?" There is the wish to help them, and the means to help them has
been before their eyes for days in the Liberty Loan publicity. That is what is meant by
stage management.
Through all the Loans it was necessary to manipulate the emotions first, to bring to the
consciousness of the people in the news reports the facts and purposes of the loans;
secondly, to carry the "urge" to them through the advertising; and thirdly to work upon
their feelings through spectacles, meetings, aeroplane flights, sham battles, motion
pictures of actual warfare, and like accelerants. It was necessary to infect them in the
mass so that as individuals they might infect others with the fever to buy bonds.
All this work had to be carried through and was carried through with brilliant success
in the four war-time loans. The Army, the Navy, the stage women's committees, police
organizations, Boy Scouts, foreign language groups, all played a part. When the call came
for the Fifth Loan, practically everything that had been done before had to be scrapped. It
was all part of the war equipment and would help little in getting over another loan when
people were striving with every fiber to get away from the thought and the sacrifices of
the war.
We had to deal, then, with a people who were beginning to adjust themselves to peace,
who were consoling themselves with the thought that they had done their part and
should not be called upon again. It looked like a hopeless prospect from the vista
presented at the close of the Fourth campaign to expect the same response for a peace
campaign. The one optimistic fact that stood out was that the people had proved their
patriotism, and such patriotism never dies. The Fifth Loan based its appeal solely upon
patriotism's one expression in peace, duty.
"Finish the Job" was the slogan of the Fifth Loan. The country was told that the war was
not ended until its debts were paid, that we should feel gratitude in the lives spared by its
sudden end. The Liberty Loan workers had to create a new state of mind, to begin a new
education—for this time the issue was in Victory notes instead of bonds—and to arouse
the people to new emotions through spectacles, parades and other features. It may be
mentioned here that the greatest parade of the entire war was held in New York in this
Fifth Loan, when the different branches of the army showed in procession the men and
weapons they had employed to win victory.
The call was for $4,500,000,000 and the answer was subscribed in notes by 12,000,000
persons, who paid in $5,249,908,300.
In between the drives there was a lesser drive constantly carried on among people who
were not able to participate in bond buying. This was the War Savings campaign which
was a part of the Government Loan enterprise. Newsboys, bootblacks, shop-girls, clerks
and others who had been unable to participate in the Loan drives or who wanted to
prove again their devotion to their country answered this appeal. In these savings there
was collected for the country up to the date of the armistice $932,339,000 and the number
of persons hoarding in small sums was far beyond a million.
The benefits derived from the Loan campaigns were many. Prominent among them
was the growth of thrift among the American people. The growth of this habit will be an
important factor in the future greatness of this country.
A lasting monument to the war spirit of those who had to stay at home is the fact that
more than a million persons, men, women and children, were engaged actively in the
promotion of the five loans. In other words, one person in every hundred in the United
States was a part of the organization, and each induced twenty other persons in that
hundred to buy bonds. This colossal force did not work in haphazard fashion nor scatter
its energy but acted under a definite plan of campaign in which each had an assigned
part and in which each worked according to a method that would avoid duplication or
extra expense.
The five campaigns which united such an aggregation of workers and which produced
such remarkable results were carried forward with a minimum of expense. Never before
in the history of finance had such widespread exploitation been accomplished at so low a
cost. Of the million workers all but a small nucleus were volunteers; the resources of the
country were thrown open to the organizers with unexampled prodigality, mediums of
flotation in a veritable flood being contributed without cost to the officers in the Liberty
Loan Army.
A single purpose animated the whole nation. Party lines, race prejudice, creed
distinctions, social barriers, all were wiped out in these loan drives. The whole country
formed itself into an All-American team that rushed onward irresistibly. The closest
approximation to a common brotherhood had been achieved. War, with its terrible losses,
with its impairment of lusty young men, with its heartbreaks and agonies, surely had not
been waged in vain when it brought about such a unity.
The United States in waging the war for democracy had won that democracy for
herself at home.
VIII—FOOD AND THE WAR
How Scientific Control and Voluntary
Food-Saving Kept Belgium from Starving
and Enabled the Allies to Avert Famine
By VERNON KELLOGG
Member of the Commission for the Relief of Belgium
America was made familiar with a slogan during 1917 and 1918 which declared that
"Food Will Win the War." The European Allies became familiar from the very beginning
of the war with the fact that without much more food than they could count on from their
own resources they could not hope to win the war. And it became equally obvious to
Germany and her associates that if their normal food resources were materially impaired
they also could not hope to win the war.
So there arose almost from the beginning of the great military struggle an equally great
struggle to get food and to keep food from being got. The Allies, devoting their
manpower to fighting and munitions-making, saw their farms doomed to neglect and
their food reduction doomed to lessen. And they began their call on America for food in
such quantities as America had never dreamed of exporting before. In the last years
before the war we had been sending about five million tons of foodstuffs a year to
Europe. In 1918 we sent over fourteen million tons. Also the Allies began trying, by their
blockade, to prevent the Central Empires from adding to their own inevitably lessened
native production by importations from without.
On the other hand, Germany and her associates began to husband carefully their
internal food supplies by instituting a rigid, or would-be rigid, control of internal
marketing and consumption, and to collect from any outside sources still accessible to
them, such as the contiguous neutral lands, whatever food was possible. Also they had
strong hopes of preventing, by their submarine warfare, the provisioning of the Allies
from America and other overseas sources.
Thus, from the beginning of the war, and all through its long course, food supply and
food control were of the most vital importance. If our epigrammatic slogan, "Food Will
Win the War," was, like most epigrams, not literally true, it was, nevertheless, literally
true that there was always possible to either side the loss of the war through lack of food,
and it is literally true that the food victory of the Allies was a great element in the final
war victory. Germany's military defeat was partly due to food defeat, and if a military
decision had not been reached in the fall of 1918, Germany would have lost the war in the
spring of 1919 anyway from lack of food and raw materials.
ECONOMIC SELF-SUFFICIENCY
The great struggle for food supply and food control involved so many and such
complex undertakings that it is hopeless to attempt a detailed account of it in any space
short of a huge volume. Yet the very limitations of the present discussion may have its
advantages in compelling us to concentrate our attention on the most important aspects
of the struggle and to try to sum up the most important results of it. Some of these at least
should not be forgotten, for they have a bearing on the peace-time food problem as well
as the war-time one. Fortunately the war-time food situation has developed in us a
national and an individual food consciousness that will certainly not disappear in this
generation at least.
The first important lesson that has been learned is that it is of great value to a nation to
be able to provide in its own land its own necessary food supply. For although in times of
peace and usual harvests international food exchanges enable a country, such as England
or Belgium, highly industrialized and of large population in proportion to area, to make
up without much difficulty its deficit as between production and consumption, the
moment the great emergency arrives there is the utmost danger for its people. The history
of the "relief of Belgium" during the war will illustrate this.
This little country, famous through all past history as a battleground and now famous
for all future time for its heroic and pathetic rôle in the World War, found itself at the
very beginning of the war faced with a food problem that seemed at first insoluble, and
which, if not solved, meant starvation for its people. It is a country highly industrialized,
and with an agriculture which, though more highly developed as to method than that of
almost any other country, was yet capable of providing but little more than a third of the
food necessary to its people. It depended for its very life on a steady inflow of food from
outside sources. But with its invasion and occupation by the Germans this inflow was
immediately and completely shut off. Belgium was enclosed in a ring of steel. What food
it possessed inside this ring disappeared rapidly.
The terrible situation was met in a way of which Americans may be proud. For the
Commission for the Relief of Belgium, which was the agency that solved Belgium's great
problem, was an American organization with a staff composed chiefly of young
Americans, most of them from American colleges and universities, headed by an
American, Herbert Hoover, of great organizing and diplomatic genius, and with the large
heart of a world philanthropist. In the four and a half years from November 1, 1914, to
May 1, 1919, which was the period of activity of the Commission, Belgium depended
upon it for the supplying of three-fourths of the food of its people, over seven million in
number. This amounted to about one million tons a year. In addition, the Commission
supplied the food through practically all this period for the maintenance of the nearly
two million unfortunate people in the German-occupied area of France. This amounted to
a total of about one million tons. The total value of the food supplied to Belgium and
occupied France was about six hundred million dollars, which was provided by the
Governments of Belgium, France, England, and America, and the private charity of the
world.
For another impressive war-time food problem—which did not have the same solution
as Belgium's—let us take that of Germany. In peace times the Germans produce about 80
percent. of the total food annually consumed by them. But their tremendous military
effort necessarily entailed some reduction in their capacity for food production, although
they also made a tremendous effort to stimulate and direct into most effective channels
the native production of food.
Photo by P. Thompson
Now in the light of these needs for proper feeding, and in the light of the special
conditions produced by the war, what was Germany's food problem through the war? It
was that of attempting to increase production when the men and work animals had been
sent to the fighting lines, of repressing consumption when both men in the army and the
men in the war factories had to be well fed in order to fight well and work well, of
attempting to get in food from outside the country when a blockade was steadily closing
the borders ever and ever more tightly, and finally, of trying to get the people to modify
their food habits in the way of accepting substitutes and using strange new semi-artificial
foods in place of the familiar staples.
In 1916 the potato crop of Germany was a failure—but the turnip crop was enormous.
So turnips were substituted largely for potatoes, and for many other kinds of food as
well. Even marmalade and coffee substitutes were made from them, and turnip meal was
mixed in the already too coarse and too much mixed flour. The Germans will never forget
that terrible kohl-rüben zeit, or turnip time, of late 1916 and early 1917. And it was just
after this time that the effects of Germany's great food difficulties began to show in a
really serious way; they began to undermine the strength and health of the people. Those
diseases like tuberculosis, which can rest in incipient or suppressed form for years
without becoming serious as long as the body is well nourished, began to develop rapidly
and dangerously. The birth rate decreased and the death rate increased. The physical and
mental and moral tone of the whole nation dropped.
Belgium and Germany illustrate a special food situation created by the war, namely,
one in which a country, which relied on outside sources for a greater or lesser part of its
food needs, had access to these sources suddenly and almost completely shut off. But
grave food problems also confronted the countries which were not blockaded in so
specific a way. England and France, with full access to all the great food-producing lands
overseas (except to the extent that the submarines reduced this freedom of access),
nevertheless had food problems hardly less serious than those of the more strictly
blockaded countries. Their difficulties arose primarily from the fact that there was only so
much shipping in the world and that the war conditions created suddenly a need for
much more shipping than existed. The transference of large numbers of troops with their
necessary equipment and munitions from the distant colonies to the European seat of
fighting, and of other numbers from the mother countries to extra-European
battlegrounds, made great demands on the shipping available to these nations. At the
same time, the reduction of their native production increased largely their needs of food
importations.
Take, for example, the case of the sugar supply for England and France. England is
accustomed to use about 2,000,000 tons of sugar a year but she does not produce, at
home, a single ton. She had relied before the war chiefly on importations from Germany
and Austria with some little from Belgium and France. But with the outbreak of the war,
she could get none from the Central Empires, and none from Belgium, while France,
instead of being able to export sugar, suddenly found herself with her principal sugar-
producing region invaded by the Germans and able to produce hardly a third of her
former output. In fact, France herself was suddenly placed in the position of needing to
import nearly two-thirds of the supply needed for her own consumption. So England and
France had to turn to Cuba, the nearest great sugar-producing country, and ask for large
quantities of her output. But the United States has always depended on Cuba for a large
part of its own needs. Consequently there was a sugar problem for our own country as
well as for England and France long before we entered the war.
The situation was serious; the demands on Cuba were much larger than she could
meet, although she was able under this stimulation of demand to increase materially her
sugar crop in the years following the first of the war. One way of meeting this problem,
which was promptly resorted to, was to cut down the consumption of sugar in the
countries involved. In England and France sugar was strictly rationed; and in America
the people were called on to limit their use of sugar by voluntary agreement. England cut
her sugar allowance per capita from about seven and a half pounds a month to two, and
France from nearly four to one. In America we reduced our per capita consumption by
legally restricting the making of soft drinks and candy and by the voluntary restriction of
the home use of sugar by about one-half. All this lessened the demand on Cuba, and also
the demand on shipping.
In this discussion of the war-time sugar problem one may be struck by the fact, as
noted, that the people of France were normally accustomed to eat much less sugar than
the people of England, indeed only about one-half as much. This introduces a subject of
importance in any general discussion of the world food problem. It is that of the varying
food habits of different peoples, even peoples living under very similar climatic and
general physical conditions. For example, the people of Germany are accustomed to eat
twice as many potatoes as the people of England, who in turn use more than three times
as many as the people of Italy. On the other hand, England uses twice as much sugar as
Germany, although she produces no sugar and Germany produces much sugar. The
Italians eat only a third as much meat as the English and the French only half as much.
But the English eat only two-thirds as much bread as the French.
These differences in food use, established by long custom, have to be taken into
account in all considerations of the world's food supply. They are differences which
cannot be easily or quickly changed, even under circumstances which such great
emergencies as war may produce. For example, we in America are accustomed to eat corn
as food in the form of green corn, corn meal, corn flakes, etc. And in Italy one of the great
national dishes is polenta (corn meal cooked in a certain way). But when the Commission
for the Relief of Belgium tried to introduce corn as human food in Belgium, because of
the large amount that could be obtained from America when wheat and rye were scarce,
it met with great opposition and but little success. To the Belgians, corn is food for
animals.
An important point brought out by the war-time food problem is that of the "scientific"
make-up of the personal ration. Not only are the national food habits of a people often
difficult to understand from a point of view of taste, but they are often of such a character
as to lead to a most uneconomical use of food. The exigencies of a world food shortage
and a shortage of shipping for food transport have made it necessary for food ministries
and relief organizations to give careful consideration to the most economical selection of
foods for import and distribution, both from the point of view of economy of space and
weight and lack of deterioration during shipping and storage, and from that of
concentrated nutritional values and proper balancing of the ration.
Food provides energy for bodily work and maintenance. It is the fuel for the human
machine. Scientific students of nutrition measure the amount of energy thus provided, or
the amount needed by the body, in units termed calories. Physiologists have determined
by experiment the different amounts of calories produced by different kinds of foods and
the varying amounts needed by men at rest, at light work, at hard work, by women and
by children. By analyzing the make-up of a given population as to proportions of men,
women and children, and of work done by them, it is possible to express the total food
needs of the population in calories and to arrange for the most economical provision of
the total calories necessary.
But the simple provision of the total sum of calories may by no means satisfy the real
food needs of the population. For example, all the calories might be provided by potatoes
alone, or grains alone, or meat or fats alone. But the population would starve under such
circumstances. Food provides not merely the energy for the body, but the substances
from which the body adds new tissue to itself during growth and reproduces its
constantly breaking down tissues during all of life. Now while all kinds of food produce
energy in greater or less quantity, only certain kinds are the source of new tissues. Hence
there must be in the personal or national ration a sufficient proportion of the tissue-
producing foods, the protein carriers, as well as a sufficient amount of the more strictly
energy-producing foods, such as the fats and carbohydrates. And there is necessary, too,
in any ration capable of maintaining the body in properly healthy condition, the presence
in it, in very small quantities, of certain food substances called vitamines which have an
important regulatory effect on the functioning of the body. These substances occur only
in certain kinds of food.
All these things had to be taken into account in the war-time handling of food. So
important was a proper knowledge of scientific food use and application of this
knowledge, in connection with the efforts of the various countries to feed themselves
most economically and to best effect in the light of their possibilities in the way of food
supply, that every country concerned called on its scientific men to advise and help
control the obtaining and distribution of its national food supply. For example, America
and the Allies (England, France, Belgium and Italy) established an Inter-Allied Scientific
Food Commission composed of experts who met at various times at London, Paris, and
Rome, and on whose advice the determination, both as to kind and quantity, of the
necessary importations of food from overseas to England, France, Belgium and Italy was
largely made. Thus the war has done more to popularize the scientific knowledge of food,
and to put into practice a scientific control of food-use than all the efforts of colleges and
scientific societies and food reform apostles for years and years before. Calories, proteins,
carbohydrates, fats and vitamines have been taken out of the dictionary and put into the
kitchen.
Photo by P. Thompson
A Community Conference on
Food-Saving
The importance of work of this kind increased after the
signing of the armistice, because the Poles, the Belgians, and
other peoples whom we could not reach during the war
needed every pound of food we could spare.
GOVERNMENT REGULATIONS
America's special relation to the world's war food problem was primarily that of a
provider of the Allies, but in order to insure that this provision should be sufficient to
keep the Allied soldiers and war workers up to full fighting and working strength and
their families in full health, it was necessary for America to stimulate its own production,
repress considerably its consumption and cut out all possible waste in food handling. To
do this there was needed some form of governmental food control and a nation-wide
voluntary effort of the people. Each of the Allied countries had established governmental
food control early in the war under the direction of a "food controller" either attached to
an already existing government department of agriculture or commerce, or acting as an
independent food minister.
On the actual entrance of America into the war in 1917, governmental food control was
vested in a "United States Food Administration" with powers given it by Congress to
control all exports of food and all food-handling by millers, manufacturers, jobbers,
wholesalers, and large retail dealers. But no retail dealer doing a business of less than
$100,000 a year, nor any farmer or farmers' coöperative association came under the Food
Administration's control. Thus the American food administration differed from that of
most European countries in that it had no authority to fix the prices at which the actual
producers should sell their products or the small retailers should charge the consumers.
But, indirectly, it was able to do, and did, a good deal in this direction. By its direct
control of exports, and of the millers, manufacturers and large dealers, it was able to cut
out a great part of the middleman profits, and reduce wholesale prices for most staple
foodstuffs, especially that most important one, flour. By publicity of prices and by
indirect pressure through the wholesaler it was also able to restrain the further sky-
rocketing of retail prices.
But if the Food Administration was limited in what it could effect by legal authority,
there was no limit to what it could do by calling on the voluntary action of the people of
the country, except by the possible refusal of the people to help. So there was set in
movement a nation-wide propaganda for food-production and food-saving which
resulted in the voluntary acceptance of wheatless and meatless days, voluntarily
modified hotel and restaurant and dining-car meals, and the adoption of household
pledges, taken by more than 12,000,000 American homes, to follow the Food
Administration's suggestions for food-saving. All this, and the many other things which
the Food Administration asked the people to do, and which the people did, resulted in
accomplishing a very necessary thing. It enabled America not only to meet all those ever-
increasing absolutely imperative calls of the Allies for food for their armies and people
through 1917 and 1918, but to supply its own army and people sufficiently well to carry
on the war effectively. The more food sunk by submarines, or prevented from coming to
Europe from distant food sources, as Australia and Argentine and India, the more we
provided by saving and increasing our production.
A few figures will illustrate the actual results of the call for food conservation. We
entered the crop year of 1917 (July 1, 1917, to July 1, 1918), with a wheat supply which
gave us only about 20,000,000 bushels available for export. By December 1, 1917, our
surplus had gone overseas and an additional 36,000,000 bushels had been shipped to the
Allies. In January we learned of the further imperative need of the Allies of 75,000,000
bushels. We responded by sending 85,000,000 bushels between the first of the year and
the advent of the new crop. When the crop year ended we had sent in all about
136,000,000 bushels of wheat to Europe. We were assisted in these operations by the
importation of 28,000,000 bushels of wheat from Australia and the Argentine to
supplement our domestic supply, but the outstanding fact was the saving in our domestic
consumption, most of which was accomplished in the six-months' period from January 1
to July 1, 1918.
But the cessation of the war did not produce food for the war-ravaged countries of
Europe. The newly liberated peoples of Central and Eastern Europe found themselves, at
the time of the Armistice, facing a period of starvation until their 1918 harvest could come
in. Something to save these peoples had to be done quickly and on a large scale. The
situation was met by the establishment of a new American governmental organization
called the American Relief Administration which, with Mr. Hoover as director-general,
worked in connection with the Inter-Allied Supreme Economic Council. Representatives
of the A. R. A. were sent at once into all the countries crying for help to find out the exact
food situation, and to arrange with the respective governments for the immediate
beginning of the importation and distribution of staple foodstuffs. Programs for a food
supply sufficient to last until the 1919 harvest were determined on a basis of minimum
necessity, and provision for sufficient shipping and rail transportation was arranged by
international agreement.
Modern war has thrown the spotlight on food. It has partly realized that famous
prophecy of the Polish economist, Jean Bloch, who wrote, twenty years ago: "That is the
future of war, not fighting, but famine." In the World War of 1914—18 there was fighting
on a scale never before reached, but there was also famine, as never before dreamed of.
IX THE HIGH COST OF LIVING
A Study of the Extraordinary Conditions
Subsequent to the Armistice
In the report the problem of the high cost of living is viewed as a permanent one. It
was, in other words, not peculiar to past war conditions. Careful investigation by the
Council has resulted in the following analysis of the problem.
"1. The only complaints of the high cost of living which have justification are those
which are based upon inability of the present income to maintain previous or reasonable
standards of living at present prices—such well-founded complaints mean that increase
of income has not kept pace with increased cost of living, and therefore imply enforced
reduction in standards of living.
"2. America's industrial and economic achievements during the war, notwithstanding
depleted man power and diversion of productive effort to war purposes, demonstrate the
ample ability of the Nation to sustain its population according to a standard of living
equal to or above standards of living which obtained previous to or during the war.
"3. The fundamental basis for the maintenance of national standards of living is
adequate production, economical distribution, and fair apportionment among the various
economic groups which constitute our society. With the exception of agricultural activity,
production since the armistice has shown evidence of curtailment, and has in general
been abnormally low. Normal consumption can not continue unless an adequate rate of
production is maintained.
"4. Food production and the facilities for food production were improved rather than
injured during the war. Moreover, the program with respect to food production since the
signing of the armistice has been one of vigorous expansion of the means of providing
raw food products. The actual consumption of wheat, as shown by the Grain
Corporation's report of May 25, 1919, had for the previous ten months averaged
37,700,000 bushels per month, as against 39,000,000 bushels for the previous twelve
months. This does not necessarily imply reduced consumption of cereals.
"The number of cattle slaughtered in the period January to May, 1919, was 3,803,000, as
against 4,204,000 for the corresponding period of 1918, though the national reserve of
cattle on farms had increased during the war. The swine slaughtered January to May
increased from 18,260,000 in 1918 to 20,500,000 in 1919.
CLOTHING SITUATION
"5. The production of civilian cloths and clothing suffered some reduction during the
war, and has suffered heavy curtailment for many months since the signing of the
armistice.
"Boot and shoe production for civilian use was unfavorably affected by the war and has
likewise undergone extreme curtailment since the signing of the armistice.
HOUSING PROBLEM
"6. Housing facilities developed acute shortage through curtailment of building during
the war and, due to curtailment, for many months following the armistice, of the
production of building material and of building construction, housing is still far below
normal. Rents continue to rise.
"8. The very fact that prices of finished commodities, consumption goods, so called,
have risen to an extent out of proportion to the rise in prices of raw materials and
perhaps out of proportion to the rise in general wages, indicates that production and
distribution carried on under these conditions is, in general, yielding profits abnormally
high."
In corroboration of the preceding analysis, the report cites statistical data gathered
from various sources. The relation of currency and credit to prices is admirably
epitomized in the following extract:
"The manner in which the volume of circulating credit and currency is related to the
war-time rise in prices is about as follows:
"The outbreak of the war brought to America urgent government orders for munitions
and supplies. Inasmuch as the belligerent governments could not brook delay they were
obliged to pay the increased prices which American producers found it possible to
demand, and thus the wave of war prices was started in America. When America entered
the war it required, in order to perform its part, almost boundless quantities of
equipment and man power. Producers naturally took advantage of the extremely urgent
character of these demands in order to increase their prices, and, as a natural sequence,
wages began to advance. These increased prices and wages of course necessitated larger
expenditures by the government.
"Increased prices also necessitate the employment of larger funds in the conduct of a
business. A larger volume of credit is required at higher prices to take care of bills for raw
materials, and more money is necessary to meet increased payrolls. As a consequence,
therefore, of increased prices, business men required increased credit if they were to
avoid curtailment of operations and reduced production. Due to higher prices, therefore,
the banks were under the necessity of meeting the business demand for expansion of
credit."
INFLATION
"In pre-war times every dollar finding its way to the market was supposedly the
counterpart of some commodity or part of a commodity also appearing in the market.
Funds expended for the purchase of food, clothing, and for the payment of rentals were
assumed to have been earned by some productive contribution to the general supply of
commodities. With the outbreak of war there began to appear in the market, funds
derived from wages, profits, etc., which had been paid out in connection with
nonproductive activities of war, and which therefore implied no corresponding
contribution to the market supply of commodities. The producers of, and the dealers in,
the decreased quantity of commodities brought to market increased the prices of these
commodities to the point where they might absorb all the purchase money that became
available. These increased prices and wages have required increased circulating medium.
This requirement has been met primarily by increased credit and the increased use of
bank checks as an instrument of payment. As to the currency situation, the total money in
the United States in 1900 amounted to $2,340,000,000. According to a statement issued by
Governor W. P. G. Harding, of the Federal Reserve Board, the amount of money in
circulation has varied during the last five years as follows:
"This shows an increase during our war period of $7.28 per capita. The amount of
money in the Treasury and in Federal Reserve Banks is not in circulation, and is,
therefore not included in the figures quoted from Governor Harding's statement.
"In regard to the part played by national credit in meeting the situation growing out of
the extraordinary requirements of the government and the rise in prices which the
urgency of demands made possible, it is to be noted that government bonds had to be
sold to pay for a large proportion of the goods which war activities were consuming. In
consequence the national debt up to August 1, 1919, had been increased by
$24,518,000,000, or approximately $230 per capita. Of course, government bonds are
always good security for bank credit."
Despite the fact that we sent large shipments of food to our Allies, our supply at the
close of the war was not seriously diminished. The 1919 crop, while not expected to be
large, was amply sufficient to prevent a real shortage. This is supported by the following
extract from Mr. Clarkson's report:
"The wheat crop for 1918 amounted to 917,000,000 bushels, as compared to an average
for 1910—14 of 728,000,000 bushels; and the probable harvest in 1919 is 1,236,000,000
bushels. Our supply of wheat in elevators, mills, etc., on May 9, 1919, was 96,000,000
bushels, as against 34,000,000 bushels the year before. Our flour mills, whose capacity is
estimated at something like double their usual output, were milling week by week during
1919 considerably more flour than the year before. They produced for the week ending
May 9, 1919, for example, 2,553,000 barrels as against 1,569,000 barrels for the
corresponding week of 1918. Notwithstanding large exports, our wheat supply is
obviously adequate. In 1918, a record year, we exported 21,000,000 barrels of flour. In
1915 our wheat exports reached their maximum—206,000,000 bushels.
"The sugar industry of the United States passed through the period of the war with a
tendency to increased production, notwithstanding shipping difficulties. Though present
stocks are somewhat low in the United States, our exports during 1919 have been
unusually large. The future is normally provided for."
"America emerged from the war producing meat at a rate far above pre-war figures,
and yet possessing in reserve a larger number of animals on the farms than we had before
the heavy war drafts upon our supplies began. The number of cattle slaughtered in 1918
was 11,000,000, as compared with 6,978,000 in 1913. Swine slaughtered were 41,214,000 in
1918 and 34,163,000 in 1913. The cattle slaughtered in 1919, January—May, were
3,803,000, as against 4,204,000, January—May, 1918. The swine slaughtered January—
May, 1919, made an increase over the 1918 record, the figures being 20,500,000 for the
present year, as against 18,260,000 for the corresponding interval last year. Although
exports of hams and shoulders for 1918 approximately doubled previous records,
amounting to 518,000,000 pounds, as against 172,000,000 pounds for 1913, and exports
have continued large during 1919, there is no doubt that our productive capacity is vastly
more than ample to meet our requirements."
In view of the apparent abundance of food it is interesting to know the reason for the
high price of foodstuffs. The Council of National Defense is of the opinion that the
probability that the production of garden products in war gardens had fallen far below
that of 1918, when, it is estimated, to have reached the value of $525,000,000, would not
account for the high prices. Exportation and storage had not depleted our stock
sufficiently to affect prices abnormally. In regard to the question of exports the report
gives the following illuminating figures:
"Present food prices are not to be accounted for largely on the basis of heavy exports.
Exports of beef, canned, fresh, and pickled, for example, have been less for 1919 than in
the previous year, the quantity amounting to 23,499,000 pounds in May, 1919, as
compared with 82,787,000 pounds in May, 1918. The May figures for exports of hog
products show 125,937,000 pounds in 1919, as against 201,279,000 pounds in May, 1918.
The monthly exports of beef and pork show a declining tendency during the first five
months of 1919, contrary to the tendency in 1918, the total amounting to 1,090,000,000
pounds in 1919, as against 1,122,000,000 pounds for the corresponding period of 1918—
less than the amount of all meats in cold storage on July 1, 1919, which was 1,336,000,000
pounds."
"Even the fact that the report of goods in cold storage shows an increase of over 9 per
cent. in the quantity of all meats held on July 1, 1919 (1,336,000,000 pounds), as compared
with the figures for July 1, 1918, is, though very important, not a matter of significance for
any considerable period of time. Storage poultry July 1, 1919, was 48,895,704 pounds, or
181 per cent. above last year; cheese, about 25 per cent.; butter, about 75 per cent.; and
eggs, about 25 per cent. above July 1 last year. There was a decrease of frozen fish of
about 13 per cent. from last year. Taken in connection with the evidence of relatively
abundant reserves of live animals and large crops for the current year, it would seem that
some relief from high prices of food should be possible."
"It is true that food is, by comparison, plentiful. But it is also true that money or other
circulating medium is unprecedently plentiful. The fact that food prices are relatively
high and that the prices of chemicals, metals, lumber, etc., are relatively low, though their
supply is relatively small, may be due to a concentration of purchasing power upon food,
and the general direction of the flow of currency toward the purchase of immediate
consumables. Some relatively minor luxuries such as jewelry (and perhaps automobiles
should also be included here as the semi-luxury of greater magnitude) find favor with
purchasers, but the main trend of purchase seems to bear toward demand for the
necessities of life now in a finished state or nearly so, with a relatively weaker tendency
toward demand of capital goods. If the supply, and also the production, of raw materials
has been relatively small, and if the prices at which they have exchanged have also been
relatively low, it seems obvious that the proportionate amount of currency and credit
engaged in their purchase must be abnormally small, thus accounting for the ability of
the producers and purveyors of food to demand abnormally high prices regardless of the
relative plentifulness of their goods."
"The conditions just described are highly favorable to both speculative profiteering and
wasteful distribution, through the intervention of supernumerary middlemen and
caterers. In fact, the statistics published by the New York Industrial Relations
Commission seem to indicate an unusually large increase of persons engaging in certain
kinds of salesmanship after the armistice. It should, however, be remembered that even
though it may smack of profiteering to produce a very large crop and sell it at abnormally
high prices, this is a kind of profiteering which deserves unstinted praise as compared
with that other species of profiteering which deliberately reduces output in the
expectation that the extortionate prices which the reduced product will command may
more than make up to the producer or speculator for the portion of production withheld
or the percentage of hoarded goods condemned to spoil and be lost to the nation."
OTHER COMMODITIES
The price of commodities other than foodstuffs was influenced in 1919 by the
inadequacy of supply and the curtailment of production. This was especially true of
woolens, as stated by the Council:
"The most obvious explanation of the high prices of woolens is the glaring fact of the
extreme reduction in output which ensued after the signing of the armistice and the
completion of Army orders, which practically ended in January, 1919.
"The war came to an end with the supply of civilian woolens unprecedentedly low. The
total quantity of wool available for civilian fabrics between April and November, 1918,
was probably somewhere in the neighborhood of 75,000,000 pounds, an amount perhaps
a little more than sufficient to meet the demands of normal manufacture for civilian
consumption for one and one-half months.
"In consequence of the general situation the total consumption of wool in manufacture
during first five months of the year 1919 amounted to but little more than one-half the
amount consumed during the corresponding months of the previous year. The
proportion of looms, 50-inch reed space and over, idle increased from 21 per cent. in
November, 1918, to 52 per cent. idle in February, 1919, and these looms were still 39 per
cent. idle in May, 1919. Of worsted spindles, 27 per cent. were reported idle in December,
1918, and 52 per cent. idle in March, 1919, and 26 per cent. were still idle in May. In the
meantime an extraordinary number of textile workers were condemned to idleness, their
productive capacity perishing day by day and week by week, while the deficiency in the
supply of clothing was developing to such a point that it became possible for the
wholesale index number of the prices of cloths and clothing to rise to 250 in June."
The production of cotton and cotton goods also was far below normal. To quote again
from the report:
"When the war ended the world's cotton supply was understood to be below normal.
The supplies of cotton goods were also reported low. The acreage planted to cotton was
in 1919 approximately 9 per cent. less than for 1918. The present prospects are that the
cotton crop will be small, and published articles are appearing expressing gratification
over the prospectively large commercial returns which the cotton producers may be able
to command because of the high prices which may be had for the reduced cotton output.
The forecast of the cotton crop for 1919 is 10,900,000 bales—about 10 per cent. below that
of recent years and but little over two-thirds as large as the record crop of 1914."
"In regard to cotton manufacture, it may be recorded that the situation is less
unsatisfactory than as regards wool manufacture. In this industry, as in most of our
industries, the economic watchword of war-time, which was 'Output, and more output'
(the necessary condition of full prosperity in peace, as well as of success during war), was
not heard after the armistice. There soon developed, on the contrary, groundless doubts
about future demand, and hints of unhealthy fears of 'overproduction.'
"The production of boots and shoes for the first quarter of 1919 was reported as about
60 per cent. below the production for the last quarter of 1918. Plants were partially closed
and in some cases it is reported that machinery was returned to the Shoe Machinery Co.
All in all, there were 75,000,000 less pairs of shoes produced in the first quarter of 1919
than in the last quarter of 1918.
"The census report shows a reduction of more than 25 per cent. in the output of civilian
men's shoes in the quarter ending with March, 1919, as compared with production in the
quarter ending with December, 1918, and nearly 25 per cent. reduction as compared with
the quarter ending with September, 1918. The reduction in output of women's shoes
amounted to approximately 30 and 25 per cent., respectively, in comprising
corresponding periods. The reduction in the output of shoes for youths, boys and misses
was even more marked."
What has been said of the production of cotton and woolen goods applied equally to
the mining of coal and to the output of iron and steel. During the war we increased our
coal production. In 1918 it amounted to "685,000,000 short tons, almost 50 per cent. of the
world's estimated output for that year. Production for 1913 was 571,000,000 short tons."
The coal situation since the armistice is stated as follows:
"Coal, the source of a vast proportion of our industrial power as well as our chief
source of heat and light, is a commodity the production of which is itself an index of our
economic life. Coal output since the armistice has been greatly reduced, the weekly
production of anthracite for the first half of 1919 being from 1,200,000 to 1,800,000 net
tons, as against 1,800,000 net tons to 3,000,000 net tons for the corresponding period of
1918. Bituminous production was 9,147,000 net tons for a typical week in 1919, as against
12,491,000 net tons for the corresponding week in 1918. Coke production for the week
ending June 28, 1919, amounted to only 287,000 net tons, as compared with 627,000 net
tons for the week ending June 29, 1918. The total amount of coal produced up to July 5,
1919, was 261,000,000 long tons, as compared with 364,000,000 long tons for the
corresponding period of 1918."
The production of iron and steel which was greatly stimulated by the war was allowed
to decline as soon as the concentrated effort of the nation to win the war was abandoned.
The resulting condition is succinctly described by the Council:
"The record of our after-war steel and iron output furnishes us with another warning
that we have been neglecting to keep pace with the established American rate of
industrial improvement and expansion and foresighted preparation for future
requirements and progress.
"The iron and steel business was considerably stimulated by war-time requirements.
There was a governmental agency whose business it was to forsee the war needs and to
place orders so that those productive forces which are wrapped up in the steel industry
might be utilized to capacity. The steel industry's activity has, however, since the
armistice greatly declined. Pig-iron production for April, 1919, was 82,607 tons per day,
as against 109,607 tons in April, 1918. Birmingham properties are reported to have been
working in April, 1919, at about 50 per cent. of the 1918 production. For the period
January to May, 1919, pig-iron production was only 2,114,000 tons, as against 3,446,000
tons during the same period in 1918. Steel-ingot production fell in the spring of 1919 to
lower figures than had been reached in more than two years. In fact, a regular decline in
production was in evidence after December, 1918.
"The figures representing the unfilled orders of the United States Steel Corporation at
the end of May, 1919, were smaller than they had been since 1915."
RECOMMENDATIONS
The Council summarized its findings and recommends remedial measures as follows:
"4. Improvement and standardization of methods and facilities for distributing and
marketing goods.
"5. The perfecting of means of keeping the nation frequently, promptly, and adequately
informed regarding probable national requirements and of current production and stocks
of the more important commodities.
"The findings emphasize the fact that high standards of living can not be maintained
upon a basis of reduced production, regardless of whether price levels be high or low."
The Ore Market—Cleveland
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