labor conditions on the farm and also because of the tendency to hold potatoes for higher prices, much of the crop was still unmarketed with the advent of cold weather. Climatic conditions and transportation difficulties growing out of these conditions were responsible for the failure of potatoes to reach the market in quantity during part of December and all of January and February. Even with the approach of spring and the consequent bettering of transportation facilities, producers failed to send potatoes to the market in any quantity, hoping for some break which would increase the price.

To overcome this condition and in order to bring potatoes on the market in such a way as to insure at least a reasonable price and in turn to encourage as large a planting of potatoes as possible in the spring of 1918, a special potato consumption campaign was launched. Special letters and plans for the conducting of a potato campaign and for a special potato week were sent to the Administration's county organizations. Several field representatives were sent into some of the larger centers to assist and render more effective these local programs. Campaigns were inaugurated by various women's organizations in the state and a special campaign was inaugurated in the public schools.

In addition to the educational measures adopted to secure a larger consumption of potatoes every assistance possible was given in individual cases and communities. In marketing surplus potatoes, growers were referred to reliable dealers in the principal Pennsylvania markets. Where it was possible local outlets were used to absorb potatoes to prevent needless tying up of transportation, and needless freight, labor and commission charges. Counties having a surplus were referred to other sections in which there was a scarcity and in this way the supply throughout the state was largely equalized.

The reports from potato producing centers in the state during the late winter and spring were interesting. In some cases where a large stock was reported it was found upon investigation that a little energy on the part of distributors in calling the potatoes to the attention of the public, stimulated the demand quickly, and this together with the normal, local consumption and the demand for seed stock, completely absorbed the originally reported surplus. In most cases the large surplus reports were found in a measure at least to exist only in the minds of those making the reports.

The fact that in the main both producers and consumers were

satisfied with the prices which prevailed, is proof that the measure adopted was a success. Latest reports also indicate that, while in some sections the planting has been reduced, in other sections it has been slightly increased. The Administration has sought to pass along the word that the man who stayed in the game this year would be doing a wise thing and be rewarded accordingly.

THE PRICE OF MILK

The cost and supply of feed together with the difficulties in obtaining labor brought disheartening conditions to our dairy farmers this past winter. Prices to consumers had to be raised in proportion to the costs to the farmer. In other urban sections Mr. Hoover at the mutual request of farmers and dealers appointed Federal Milk Commissions with power only to recommend prices to producers and consumers.

The Pennsylvania branch of the Food Administration took up the matter under the following principles:

1. That the price to the producer should be determined as usual by conferences between producers and milk buyers.

2. That a representative of the Food Administration would be present at these meetings.

3. That the business of distributing milk would be regarded as a public utility with approach toward zone monopolies.

4. That the spread between the price of milk f. o. b. city and the price of milk to the consumer would be fixed by the Food Administration at a point that would allow a fair profit under a minimum duplication of service.

5. That milk is most economically distributed from the retail wagon and that duplication of service through grocery stores would not be encouraged.

6. That milk was a commodity which should be delivered to the consumer and not one that lends itself to the cash and carry methods, because it has to be delivered at stated times under sanitary and refrigerated conditions.

7. With control over the spread to the dealer the Food Administration would approve but not fix prices to the consumers, and would use this power of approval to make certain that producers' prices were as fair as could be secured under all circumstances.

8. The Food Administration joined heartily in campaigns to ncrease the consumption of milk.

The difficulty of getting condensed milk and other dairy products exported after January first added tremendously to the problem of getting a fair price for the farmer in this country. Nevertheless the farmers in the districts supplying Philadelphia have since January first received on the average a higher price than have the farmers in any other primary district, while the price to the consumer for bottled pasteurized milk was less than in any other city of any size in the United States.

That the consumer was satisfied with this program was indicated by the fact that the amount of milk now being consumed in the city of Philadelphia is as large at 12 cents as it was at 8 cents per quart. The production of milk has been maintained and the dairy herds have not decreased. All of this has in large part been due to the constructive efforts of the Food Administration.

The illustrations I have given will suffice to show the kind of duty coming before the Food Administration and the way that duty is being met. This résumé, which I give as typical, will indicate clearly that the first concern of the Food Administration is so to mobilize our food energies as to win the war. With this ever in mind the first duty is to maintain and stimulate production. Many have been the attempts to lead the unwary into believing that the Food Administration was not encouraging the farmer. The Food Administration can have no adequate conservation program save only as it has a production program. The two cannot be separated. In fact consumption and production have never been separated and cannot be separated. By following the standards set by normal business forces in normal business times as our guide, making changes as needed to meet war conditions, the Food Administration has created policies that have at once gained the confidence of the consumers, the merchants and the producers of the country.

There has been plenty of food in the country. The problem has been to get some foods used in America that we might send other foods to our Allies. This substitution was called conservation. This substitution program has not discouraged production. Other difficulties such as labor and supplies have made the farmers' problem a difficult one. But his difficulties the farmer met as heroically and as enthusiastically as the consumer met the sacrifice essential in substituting for the food he wants foods he does not like as well, or is not used to, or that cost more. With this spirit food will win the war.

PUBLIC OPINION IN WAR TIME

BY GEORGE CREEL,

Chairman, Committee on Public Information, Washington, D. C.

Now more than at any other time in history the importance of public opinion has come to be recognized. The fight for it is a part of the military program of every country, for every belligerent nation has brought psychology to the aid of science. Not only has Germany spent millions of dollars on its propaganda, but it has been very vigorous in protecting its soldiers and civilians from counter-propaganda. We are highly honored by having both Austria and Germany establish a death penalty for every representative of the Committee on Public Information, and imprisonment and execution are visited on everyone who is found in possession of the literature that we drop from airplanes or that we shoot across the line from mortars, or that we smuggle into the countries by various

means.

Any discussion of public opinion must necessarily be prefaced by some slight attempt at definition. Just what do we mean by it? A great many people think that public opinion is a state of mind, formed and changed by the events of the day or by the events of the hour; that it is sort of a combination of kaleidoscope and weathercock. I disagree with this theory entirely. I do not believe that public opinion has its rise in the emotions, or that it is tipped from one extreme to the other by every passing rumor, by every gust of passion, or by every storm of anger. I feel that public opinion has its source in the minds of people, that it has its base in reason, and that it expresses slow-formed convictions rather than any temporary excitement or any passing passion of the moment. I may be wrong, but since mine is the responsibility, mine is the decision, and it is upon that decision that every policy of the committee has been based. We have never preached any message of hate. We have never made any appeal to the emotions, but we have always by every means in our power tried to drive home to the people the causes behind this war, the great fundamental necessities that compelled

a peace-loving nation to take up arms to protect free institutions and preserve our liberties.

We had to establish new approaches in a great many respects to drive home these truths. We believed in the justice of our cause. We believed passionately in the purity of our motives. We believed in the nobility and the disinterestedness of our aims, and we felt that in order to win unity, in order to gain the verdict of mankind, all we had to do was to give facts in the interest of full understanding. It may be said that there was no great necessity for this -that this war was going on for three years before America entered it—but I cannot but feel that on April 6, 1917, there was very little intelligent understanding of fundamentals, for those three years had been years of controversy and years of passion-two things that are absolutely opposed to intelligent public opinion. You had your pro-Allies, you had your pro-Germans, you had your people who thought war was a horrible thing and who shrank from it without grasping the great significances involved; and so on the day we entered war we had a frazzled emotionalism, with people whose sensibilities had grown numb by very violence. We had to approach people to try to drive home to them some great truths.

Now, the press did not lend itself to our purposes in any large degree, because the press by its very constitution is not an interpretive or educational factor. The press chronicles the events of the day-it dies with the day that gives it birth-and so as far as historical record is concerned, so far as interpretation is concerned, so far as educational needs are concerned, we had to establish a new medium. So we called together three thousand historians of the country for pamphlet production, to set down causes in black and white, to put it so simply that a child could grasp just what we meant by democracy, just what we meant by freedom of the seas, and just what we meant by international law; so that people can read it and understand, and instead of being filled with a cheap and poisoning hate, they may be filled with a tremendous resolve, a great determination, that will last, not for a day, not for a week and not for a year, but until such time as a settlement is won as will forever safeguard our liberties and our aspirations.

There was also the spoken word that had to be organized. We had to try to substitute for the passions of the curbstone the logic and the reason of the platform, and so we formed the Four