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Last week the U. S. was full of farmers who refused to come in out of the rain. Without raincoats they went whistling down muddy roads, slogging across gummy fields. To them nothing felt better than a thorough soaking to the skin. Let it rain! Let it fall! Let it keep on falling! One inch, two inches, three inches, four inches, five inches in parts of Missouri, Kansas, Iowa, Illinois, Indiana, Ohio! Let it break Drought's brazen back! People would again have water to wash their dusty faces. Cattle would again have water to drink. In some places rain would save the remainder of the corn crop. If it kept up, forage crops could be sown in ruined grain fields to help feed cattle during the winter. If it kept up still longer, it might replenish the subsoil moisture enough to make possible a good winter wheat crop next year.

But farmers knew that if God picked up the five Great Lakes and sloshed them over the Midwest, He would still fail to restore the lost crops of 1934. In Washington farm statisticians ground out columns of figures upon adding machines, calculating the damage which could not be mended, estimating the shortages which cannot be made up.

When all the totals had been footed the experts of the Department of Agriculture emerged to announce: "Nobody will starve." Then they added, "But the country may have to change its diet."

Of bread there would be just about enough, thanks to the wheat carry-over to make up this year's crop shortage. Where a family ate ten white potatoes at a meal last winter, they will probably have to get along with nine this year. But they can make up on tomatoes, which are more plentiful than usual. Milk will be scarcer and citizens will have to get along with 16 lb. of butter on their yearly bread instead of the 18 lb. to which they are accustomed. Meat will prove the major food problem, not everywhere at once but in spots gradually. At first there will appear to be an abundance of beef steaks, veal cutlets, legs of lamb and mutton chops as farmers without forage dispose of their stock. But by 1935 herds will be down to such a point that stockmen will have much less meat for sale. Because of the Government's wholesale slaughter of pigs, pork will be about the scarcest commodity this winter. Where ten pork chops made a 1934 dinner, seven will have to suffice in 1935.

Nobody will starve but many will grumble as these changes in U. S. diet are effected, not by any hard and fast system of food rationing but by the equally potent method of rising food prices. The family that ate ten pork chops at a sitting this year can have them next year but at a higher cost. Last week Secretary Wallace announced that he expected the cost of living to rise about 7%, that food would probably go higher.

The Consumers' Counsel of AAA calculated that retail food prices had risen 12% in a year. The National Industrial Conference Board calculated a 21.5% rise in food prices from April 1933 to the close of last July. With bigger price rises ahead, consumers might find the prospect gloomy but the Department of Agriculture officially reassured them: "What shortages do exist can be compensated for by shifts in the diet to use more of the foods which are available in abundance. As a whole, these shifts can be accomplished without any severe burden on consumers as to cost, or any material decrease in the nutritional value of the diet."

No responsible official in Washington last week doubted that serious repercussions would follow scarcity. A national complaint against the High Cost of Living would be a serious political threat to the existence of AAA. If the complaint should occur before the November elections the threat would be more serious still. Last week New Dealers were congratulating themselves on the fact that the most serious price rises--in meat--are not likely to occur before spring.

But an Administration attack on rising prices was being prepared. The President led off by authorizing Secretary of the Treasury Morgenthau to admit imports of livestock feed & forage duty free. Two other procedures were held in reserve: 1) reduction of tariffs on food; 2) use of AAA's power over all food processors, distributors and speculators to keep them from profiteering.

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