Food Administrator and Contradictor of Rumors

Food in general had risen to the level of news by late spring 1918. Dr. Harry E. Barnard, Federal Food Administrator for Indiana, began sending out "Official Food News" to the press. And, as we can see from the column that ran in the Hobart News of May 2, 1918, Dr. Barnard's duties included not only spreading information but stopping misinformation. The Indiana division of the wartime rumor mill had lately produce a story about foodstuffs being contaminated with ground glass. Dr. Barnard duly contradicted the story and made the usual patriotic anti-gossip appeal, though he stopped short of attributing the story to pacifists.


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Notice the advertisement of the Hobart Lumber Company on that page, urging people to lay in their coal supplies early. A month later the federal fuel administration started spreading a similar message, in more forceful terms. William J. Killigrew, as local fuel administrator, passed along to the local citizens "an ultimatum in the form of an appeal" to buy as much coal now as they had room to store, or they would "be placed at the bottom of the waiting list next fall." He and his fellow fuel administrators kept detailed records of who bought how much coal when, and next winter they would certainly not exert themselves to help any freezing grasshoppers who had idled away the summer instead of stockpiling coal.

The implication was that the war and its attendant shortages were expected to continue through the winter.


Sources:
♦ "Buy Your Coal Now." Hobart Gazette 7 June 1918.
♦ "U.S. Fuel Administrator." Hobart Gazette 7 June 1918.