Sweet and Sour

Before the sugar ration cards are shuffled, it would be wise to see who forced the deal. Although the press has promoted a campaign to point the reproving finger at housewives, a logical examination of sugar consumption unmasks the subterfuge. Had not Leon Henderson's stamp plan already nullified their small hoardings, it could still be shown that every housewife in the land could stock her pantry, fill her attic and basement, and still not equal the consumption of the soft drink, chewing gum, and whiskey industries. Each of them takes an average of a billion tons of sugar off the market annually. Hoarding is the chief cause of the sugar shortage. But industrial hoarders, not housewives, are the culprits.

The major tip-off on the situation came last week when a New York brokerage firm circulated a market letter advising that now is the time to buy the stocks of firms depressed by the sugar shortage. The letter listed as safely stocked: American Chicle, Canada Dry, Coca Cola, Nehi Corporation, Pepsi Cola, and William Wrigley. Of course the patriotic press can scarcely afford to offend these heavy advertisers. Many of them also have close connections with Washington. Coca Cola, for example, can give a tremendous tug to the purse-strings of many southern representatives. Besides using sugar in its extract formula, the concoctors of this drink add four more teaspoonfuls to each bottle. Naturally Coca Cola Corporations has felt it wise to be prepared for the emergency. And the other soft drink companies have followed suit.

The whiskey industry is in a peculiar position. Although the producers of alcoholic beverages are big sugar consumers, commercial alcohol corporations, like U. S. Industrial Alcohol and Commercial Solvents, are causing the real trouble. These corporations, conveniently represented at Washington by Frazer M. Moffat, formerly of U. S. Industrial Alcohol, and now chief of WPB's Alcohol Unit, are trying to monopolize the production of alcohol for explosives. But their plants cannot be adapted for distilling from grains. They use blackstrap sugar, and invert molasses as their raw products. And these maximum sugar demands have caused 1,300,000,000 tons of Cuban sugar to be diverted to their use. This sizable part of the sugar board is unnecessary, because the distillers of liquors could do the job without it.

Powerful industrial sugar consumers with influence in Washington have brought the nation to the verge of sugar rationing. The hoards of the soft drink, chewing gum, and commercial whiskey industries should be poured on the market before this happens. In sugar rationing, as in automobile production, rubber, and aluminum the business as usual crowd is hard at work losing the war.