February 3, 1918 - Don Martin writes about food supplies and dogs

Don Martin diary entry for Sunday, February 3, 1918: 
Had breakfast with Buchanan, an old newspaper friend, but now a captain in the Aviation Corps. Later went for jaunt around with him to Cheshire Cheese, Whitechapel; then taxi drive by Parliament, Buckingham Palace, etc. Had tea with him and then to hotel where I wrote several articles for mailing. Dinner at Simpson’s and then to Fleet St. for an hour or two. Sat around lobby of hotel talking till 1 a.m. with Major General Swift.

Food situation getting unpleasant here. Must have sugar and butter cards tomorrow. Hotel left ½ lb sugar in my room. Each guest gets the same to last a week. 

Submarine sunk and crew captured by American destroyer.

Weather very foggy. Not cold.

       On this foggy Sunday, despite complaining in his diary about shortages of sugar and butter, Don Martin cabled a rather optimistic article about food conditions in Britain and also about the situation on the high seas, repeating some from earlier dispatches. It was published in the New York Herald on Monday, February 4.

Food conditions in Britain Much Improved,

 Helped by Generosity of America

Large Shipments of Beef and Bacon from United States Ease Shortage —

People Wait Philosophically in Queues to Buy Supplies

[Special to the Herald]

Herald Bureau, No. 130 Fleet Street, London, Sunday

     Food conditions in Great Britain have improved considerably in the last two weeks, due in large measure to America’s generosity and enterprise. The situation early in the year was by no means satisfactory and the inability of the great mass of the wage earning population to get their accustomed Saturday night “joints” of beef or mutton caused much grumbling.

     In the latter part of January large shipments of beef and bacon arrived from the United States, and while the millions in London and the other cities of the British Isles are unable to have meat as often as they wish—or as much as they would like, perhaps--there is enough to take the edge off the craving for red meat two or three times a day.

    Preliminary rationing of food will start on February 25 in London. Some other cities already have it. It will begin with butter and margarine. Every family will have its card and every restaurant customer will have one also. No person will be allowed more than four ounces a week. The system is being perfected with British thoroughness, and when the cards are distributed every man, woman and child in the United Kingdom will get just so much a day and no more. Announcements that the rationing programme would be started caused no flurry among Britishers. They had expected it. They are prepared for rationing all along the line, and it is not unlikely that they will get it before another year has passed.

Food Lines Cause Anxiety

     The queues of London, Liverpool, Manchester, Sheffield, Birmingham and other large centres have been a cause of some anxiety to the officials. In the United States these queues are called lines. For instance, a bread line in New York is a bread queue in London. They began in the latter part of December, when the supply of butter, margarine and sugar began to get low. Since January 1 they have been seen at practically all the butcher shops in London and the other cities, and at other shops where provisions are in great demand.

     In the last few days I have inspected the sections of London which would correspond in New York to the lower east side, Greenwich Village, Harlem, Manhattanville, the upper east and west sides and various parts of Brooklyn. I counted more than fifty queues. Most of them started at butcher shops. They were longest on Saturday afternoons. The poorest, the wealthiest, the prosperous worker and the man and woman of moderate means were to be seen in the lines, some of which were three hundred to four hundred feet long.

     If a person got into a butcher shop after a wait of two hours, he or she felt himself fortunate. In many instances there were waits of from three to five hours and empty shelves and disappointment when the goal was reached. Every shop where butter, margarine or sugar was for sale had its queue. People of every sort were in every line.

Disorders Are Lacking

     But there seldom was a suggestion of disorder. The people took the discomfort and annoyance as inevitable, and, with the customary British patience, accepted them good naturedly. There were exceptions, of course. In some of the manufacturing cities, the workers threatened raids on the shops after they found that the workers’ wives had been in line for hours without getting supplies. But these instances were only sporadic and in no case became serious.

     There are two meatless days—Tuesdays and Fridays. To a nation which always has liked its “under done” roast beef or mutton this is an inconvenience, but London’s population has grinned and borne it and will continue to do so. The millions have learned to get along on half as much sugar as usual and to thrive on one-third as much margarine as they formerly had butter. 

     In a line on Whitcomb street I saw a woman in costly furs and next to her an urchin with very scant clothes. The woman said she was waiting at the butcher shop while her maid waited at a margarine shop. The urchin said his mother was a washerwoman and wanted six pence (12 cents) worth of sausage. In Ludgate Circus I talked with more than twenty men, women and children---children form a large part of the queues—and found no spirit of bitterness. One man, who said he has four sons in the war, declared that he was perfectly willing to “stand in the queues and do with little so long as the rich are doing it too.”

Plenty of Food on Way

     Oscar T. Crosby, of Washington, president of the Inter-Allied Council, told me yesterday that there will be plenty of food for Great Britain and all the other allied nations, both the military and civil populations, but that England may have to modify her diet.

     It may be stated that one of the obstacles to be overcome in solving the food problem in Great Britain is the difficulty English people have of breaking away from a custom. Another obstacle is the prosperous condition of a large part of the wage earning classes. The average householder dislikes to eat rice, porridge or vegetables when he always has had beef or mutton whenever he pleased, and the wage earners for the first time in their lives, it might be said, are able to spend liberally for food supplies. Men working in munitions, who before the war earned $12 a week, are now making as high as $50, and they have been living on the best there was to be had.

     The people who have always had plenty of money are willingly putting up with conditions, and it is said by the authorities that these people are ready to adjust themselves to any restrictions which the government may see fit to impose.

People Are Optimistic

     In fact, from the people of the wealthy class as well as others in Great Britain, they have had almost complete and hearty cooperation in every way. Continued cooperation with people in all parts of the empire means that, while it may be compelled to deny itself some things, England will not grow thin or anemic and her armies will be fed on the most sustaining food offered in any market.

     The recent records of the submarines have about convinced Great Britain that these pests of the sea have seen their high water mark and that the raids upon shipping will lessen steadily, with perhaps an occasional increase. Even should the rate of sinkings be kept up to the average there is no possibility of forcing Great Britain to any such food rationing as Germany is known to have been subjected to for upward of two years. Of one kind or another there is food enough in England now to sustain the entire civil population for a long time and ample provision has been made for caring for the army.

     Not only have new ways been found to deal with the submarines, but the situation in the shipbuilding industry is such as to give optimistic hopes to the nation.

      Don Martin wrote a second whimsical article about dogs in the war that Sunday, published in the New York Herald on Monday, February 4.

Dogs in Fighting Service Win Honors for Brave Acts

[Special Cable to the Herald]

Herald Bureau, No. 130 Fleet Street, London, Sunday

     Many dogs have received decorations during the war—not of course by the government, but from soldiers and seamen. A naval officer who has just returned from the Mediterranean tells an interesting story of the pet on board his ship.

     The dog was taken as a puppy and was rated as a “puppy,” which, it seems in naval estimate, is a pretty humble rating. However, this particular dog conducted himself as a gentleman dog and a scholar as well, the officer declares, and was in due time decorated with the insignia of A. B. dog.

     He misbehaved on various occasions and did not do his full part in one or two brushes with submarines, so he was marched to the quarterdeck and solemnly made “puppy” again . Ever since, the story goes, he has been striving to retrieve himself, but thus far he has failed to get back to the rank of nobility.

     It is said that the dogs on board the ships which fought at Jutland—and there were many of them—have been decorated by their admiring shipmates. The animals during the battle, it is asserted, played the parts of real heroes without a cowardly hair upon one of them.