Wheatlesser Still

In the spring of 1918 the wheat shortage was growing so acute that even the Spartan regimen advanced by the U.S. Food Administration was no longer sufficient. Indiana's federal food administrator, Dr. H.E. Barnard, sent a telegram to all county food administrators in the state asking them to promote a new wheatless way of life:

I am today asking the people of Indiana to go on a strictly wheatless diet. I ask them to refrain from the use of wheat flour and other wheat products until the next harvest. I ask them, because I know we have lived on corn, and can do so again. I know that our wheat situation is even more portentious [sic] than Hindenburg's army in Picardy. I know, as Hoover points out, that this is the most critical hour in our national history since Gettysburg. Indiana patriots do not need a command. They have risen to every patriotic request.

In compliance with Dr. Barnard's request to give this new policy the greatest possible publicity, Lake County's C.A. Westberg passed along the contents of the telegram to newspapers. Both Hobart papers reprinted it.

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The scarcity and high price of cattle feed and the narrow margin of profit on the sale of milk were causing local dairy farmers to cull their herds; they simply could not afford to feed dairy cows that did not produce a good volume of milk. Poor producers were sold for meat. A few farmers gave up on the dairy business and sold their entire herds.

The effect was an overall reduction in the amount of milk produced. But the population of Chicago was as thirsty for milk as ever. The changing relation of supply and demand led one Valparaiso milk producers' association official to say that "any farmer who admits a Chicago inspector to his barns now is a 'sucker.'" According to this unnamed official, dealers in Chicago would take any kind of milk they could get, and no one was in any position to enforce strict sanitary standards. Fastidiousness was a luxury of peacetime.



(Click on image to enlarge)
"Cows will win the war," according to this "One-Minute Food Talk" from the Hobart Gazette of August 9, 1918.


Sources:
♦ "'Cut Out' Use of Wheat Flour Is Dr. Barnard's Appeal." Hobart News 4 Apr. 1918.
♦ "Dairymen Weeding Out Poorer Milkers From Their Herds." Hobart News 14 Mar. 1918.
♦ "Use No Wheat." Hobart Gazette 5 Apr. 1918.