Anecdotes from other locales told the same story. Detroit cafés were using brown sugar — and only a little of it — to sweeten their brew. Federal agents searching a Buffalo warehouse found millions of pounds of sugar hidden away in bags and barrels labeled "Top Crust Flour," with flour sprinkled on the floor around them for verisimilitude. In mid-November Charles Goldman advertised his store's Saturday specials with a note on the limit for sugar purchases:
As head of the U.S. Food Administration, future president Herbert Hoover worked to establish rules and procedures designed to minimize hoarding, profiteering and waste. He also had public relations to contend with. Conspiracy theories could arise out of very little — for example, an unseasonable hard frost in October had caught a few loads of potatoes on their way into Chicago by rail, damaging them so severely that they had to be thrown out. From that incident spread rumors of government agents dumping carload after carload to create a potato shortage that would drive up prices. Of course, a Food Administration spokesman denied any such action, and insisted that, while some damage to foodstuffs was bound to occur due to weather or shipping delays, his agency's day-to-day oversight at the Chicago rail yards salvaged everything that was fit for human consumption.
Back in Hobart on November 1, patrons of the Gem Theatre found their entertainment delayed for four minutes as Judge John Killigrew spoke on "Food Conservation Week," urging everyone to sign a pledge to do their part. On Saturday evening, a repeat performance, this time starring attorney Franklin T. Fetterer.
Sources:
♦ "Food Distribution Rules Made Public." Hobart News 1 Nov. 1917.
♦ "Local and Personal." Hobart News 25 Oct. 1917.
♦ "Local Drifts." Hobart Gazette 2 Nov. 1917.
♦ "No Conspiracy to Boost Prices Says the Food Administrator." Hobart News 29 Nov. 1917.
♦ "Special for Saturday." Hobart Gazette 16 Nov. 1917.
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