HOOVING

Hokitika Guardian, 27 December 1917, Page 4

HOOVING

HOW AMERICANS DO IT AND WHY. (By Hamilton Kyfe.) Providence (Massachusetts) “ 1 hope that you are not very hungry,” my host said. “ You see, we are ‘ liooving.’” • The word was new to me, but I had no difficult)* in guessing what it*'meant. The hospitable Americans with whom I was spending the week-end in New England had, like a vast number of others, re solved to ration themselves. Mr H. C. Hoover is the United States Food Controller, hence the verb “ To hoove.” Since then I have heard it often and seen it in the newspapers. The practice which the word denotes is spreading, though if you only eat in public places you might not notice it. As with us in the early days of threatened food scarcity, the hotels and restaurants show so far no signs ol anything like restriction. To those arriving here from England they seem to give their customers far more than enough of everything. If one orders a steak it costs 4s, and consists of a slab of meat sufficient for three people. Roast beef at 3s is cut with so prodigal a hand that it almost overhangs the rim of your plate. Most people do not eat "half, even a third, of what is put before them. Only ogres could finish these immense helpings. What is left is wasted.

All this will soon be changed, so the food controllers, say. In private houses there is already much saving where, by all accounts, there used to be much waste. '* We were the most careless people in the world,” so one of Mr Hoover’s assistants told me ; “ there was so much of everything here that we threw away vast quantities of food. That must stop. We have gone a long way towards stopping it al- ' ready.” Here in New England there are two wheatless days a week. There is no white bread on Wednesdays and Thursdays. I went to a country fair in Rhode Island and heard a speech made from the grand stand during the horse show appealing to the farmers to observe this rule. Similar appeals are being made daily at all kinds .of gatherings and in the newspapers. “We must have wheat to feed our Army,” so the argument runs. “If we eat as much as usual here we cannot send enough across the ocean. Therefore we must eat less. We must also deny ourselves beef, pork, sugar, dairy products, and all concentrated foods which are needed by our soldiers and the Allies.” There is no doubt that this will influence the mass of the American people. They are ready and anxious to help on the war and only need to be told what they can do. * * * * «

They will probably have to give up driving their automobiles long distances every week. A limit will be set to petrol consumption. The quantity consumed at present is enormous; everyone above the clerk and the day labourer class own a car an l uses a great deal. But there will not be an outcry against rationing petrol; it will be recognised to be a necessary war measure. The same thing is likely to come true of coal. Already the Coal Controller has suggested that the warmth of American houses should be reduced during the coming winter from 70 to 65 degrees. The average warmth of houses in England is said to be 65 degrees. One result of present anticipated privations is that the feeling against Germans has become decidedly more hostile and embittered. Spurlos versenkt (“ sunk without trace”), the phrase used by the German representative in Argentina in liis message sent through Sweden, has become a war cry. The revelations of Hun cunning and abominable abuse of friendship and hospitality which the State Department is issuing ever)* few days are having an excellent effect. : One result of daily warnings such as the New York Tribune irsues under the heading. “ The Enemy in Our Midst,” is the withdrawal of almost all theatrical advertisements from New York German language news papers. I find this notice printed b)’ the Providence Journal, a New England paper of the highest reputation, in the most prominent position in the editorial page : “ Every German or Austrian in the United States, whether naturalised or not, 1 unless he is known by years of association to be absolutely loyal, should : be treated as a potential spy. Keep your eyes and ears open. Whenever any suspicious act or disloyal word comes to your notice communicate at once with the Bureau Investigation Department, Justice Room, 301, Federal Building, Providence. We are at war with the most merciless and inhuman nation in the world. Hundreds of thousands of its people in this country want to see America humiliated and beaten to her knees. They are doing and will do everything in their power to bring this about.” The campaign against all Germans, pro-Germans, and Pacifists is making things uncomfortable for them. It may have even more unpleasant consequences before long.