The President's News Conference

THE PRESIDENT. I have no special announcements to make this morning, but I thought maybe you might want to ask me some questions and I will answer them if I can.

[1.] Q. Mr. President, when the White House announced yesterday that you and Mrs. Truman had decided to cancel state dinners in order to conserve food, is there any attempt to have that as a national example, your action?

THE PRESIDENT. NO, not necessarily. It was a voluntary procedure on our part. We will have the receptions as usual. The idea was that we could probably save a good deal of food by canceling the state dinners for this season, as we did during the war, but that doesn't make it incumbent upon anybody else to make any cancellations unless they desire to do so. I know what you are interested in--you are interested in that photographers' dinner that you have been getting ready for some time. [Laughter] As long as they comply with the rules of food conservation, I see no reason why they shouldn't go ahead with the dinner, if they want to.

[2.] Q. Mr. President, Governor Blue of Iowa sent a message to you on the food situation, in reply to your message to all the Governors. I have been asked to inquire whether you have any comment on it?

THE PRESIDENT. Well, I have had replies from 23 or 24 Governors. They have been coming in right straight along, and I haven't had a chance to read all of them as yet. I remember, though, that the Governor's message was one of them and that it was cooperative. All of them have been cooperative, which makes me believe that the food program is well on the way to success.

Q. Mr. President, I have been trying to rationalize this food thing, especially this morning at breakfast without any egg, but I wondered are you going to have the chickens not eat any grain the seventh day of the week? How are you going to save that grain? That is going to mean more grain unless you cut down the flocks.

THE PRESIDENT. The Citizens Food Committee is in conference now with the poultrymen and with the feed men. What we are after is grain. We are trying to raise million bushels of grain to feed starving people over the next 6 months.

Q. I understand that.

THE PRESIDENT. That is what we are after. We are trying to find a practical way to do it. Now we have to make this program--it was an emergency with which we were faced, and under ordinary conditions we would have worked out the program more deliberately and have consulted these people in advance. As it was, we had to work out the program and then find out where the "bugs" were and remedy that if it is necessary. What we are after is grain for the hungry people, and I know it is a--sometimes we feel like we have been imposed upon, but this is an attempt to get this free enterprise Nation to do voluntarily what other nations have to do by police state methods, and that we don't want to do.

Q. Well then, trying to reason this out, it seemed to me that what you would do is decrease the market for chickens and eggs to the point where you would lower the number in the flocks.

THE PRESIDENT. Well, what we are trying to do is, over a certain period of time, is save a certain amount of grain. Now we have got the distillers and the bakery people, and everybody else--the restaurant people and everybody--trying to help us do that job. Now if they will tell us some way to save grain, I have no objection to any method that will save the grain to get to these hungry people. I am trying to keep people from starving to death this winter, that's all.

Q. Mr. President, if you ate more poultry, wouldn't you have fewer chickens to eat the grain?

THE PRESIDENT. Now that's like which came first, the chicken or the egg. Can't answer a question like that. Can't answer that question.

What I am trying to do is prevent grain, that should go to feed hungry people, from being fed to chickens and livestock for a certain period of time. If we can get that 100 million bushels of grain, then we can go on almost as usual.

Q. I should assume by this statement that if you find out that there are some deviations in this program which will do better, you wouldn't object to changing the program?

THE PRESIDENT. Well now, that's a matter that I am letting the Citizens Food Committee work out the best way that they know how. We have got some very able people on that committee, and they are holding conferences every day. Certain other people are trying to get this thing to work-some way to get the grain. That is what we are after. We are interested in grain to feed hungry people.

[3.] Q. Mr. President, have you, after these various food conservation measures and also reports of several financial plans-do you believe now that this stopgap aid for Europe can be provided without a special session of Congress?

THE PRESIDENT. I can't answer that question now. We are still working on it. We are still trying to find the funds for the stopgap aid, but that doesn't necessarily mean that there won't have to be a special session if it becomes necessary, as I have always told you. Not hesitate to call one.

Q. Have you had any success in finding those funds, Mr. President?

THE PRESIDENT. Yes, we have had considerable success in finding funds. We have got the Export-Import Bank to release some of its regulations on this last 93 or 98 million dollars, whatever it was, that France still had coming on their loan; and we found this $50 million that was owing to them-France says we owe them--bought francs-so that France would have the dollars to spend. We are making every effort in other directions, which I will report to you as they come along.

Q. There is still a possibility of a special session coming along?

THE PRESIDENT. Of course there is.

[4.] Q. Do you intend to make public General Wedemeyer's report on China?

THE PRESIDENT. General Marshall will have a statement to make on that in a few days. The report was made to General Marshall.

[5.] Q. Mr. President, after a test run of this food conservation campaign, and if it fails, will you have other measures like restoring controls?

THE PRESIDENT. That matter--we will cross that bridge when we come to it.

[6.] Q. Mr. President, what do you think about Mr. Wallace's speech, on Cabinet being Wall Street men?

THE PRESIDENT. I have no comment to make on that.

[7.] Q. Mr. President, are you prepared yet to name the advisory panel in the Federal Mediation Service?

THE PRESIDENT. I will be prepared in a few days to name that panel. I will announce it to you just as soon as it is ready.

[8.] Q. Mr. President, I want to ask you a question as former Chairman of the Truman Investigating Committee. We have a situation in Washington which involves the death of a man¹--a very unfortunate prisoner--who died as a result of injuries from police custody. There are charges of police negligence. The chairman of the Senate District Committee intimates that he may have an investigation by that committee. Do you have any comment on a situation like that, or do you think that the District of Columbia authorities should wait for an investigation by the Senate in a case involving.

¹ John Forrest Bunch.

THE PRESIDENT. I have no comment. That is a local municipal matter, which should be handled in the proper way by the proper authorities. I have no comment on that.

[9.] Q. Mr. President, what about the Krug report, which has been over here about 10 days?

THE PRESIDENT. The Krug report will be released in a few days, as soon as we are ready. I want to read it carefully myself before I release it.¹

¹See Item 212.

[10.] Q. Mr. President, have you read Mr. Byrnes's new book?²

THE PRESIDENT. Not entirely, no. I have read some of it--extracts from it--but I haven't read it carefully.

²James F. Byrnes, "Speaking Frankly," New York: Harper and Brothers, 1947.

Q. What do you think of what you have read, Mr. President?

THE PRESIDENT. I have no comment.

[11.] Q. Mr. President, in counterposing voluntary methods of saving food to police state methods--a few minutes ago--do you mean to suggest that consumer rationing would be a police state method?

THE PRESIDENT. Why necessarily. Anything that you have to enforce by police methods is a police state method. I remember all the argument about taking off price controls, and voluntary saving, and all that sort of thing, that prices wouldn't go up. Don't you remember all that conversation about what would happen when we got rid of price controls ? Most interesting history, if you want to go back a little into it.

Q. The Star had a very interesting table on that last night, showing that prices had risen from 8 to 80 percent on meat.

THE PRESIDENT. That's right. I have some very interesting figures on that myself. I try to keep up with these things. There is a graph--[taking one out of his desk and indicating ]--right there that shows the situation. Most interesting.

Q. Mr. President, if everybody is for this export relief of food abroad, you wouldn't have such high prices, would you?

THE PRESIDENT. Yes, it would be just the same high prices. The export--that is a piece of misinformation. The effect, of course, of large purchases in any market has a tendency to raise that price a small amount. But it is a very small percentage of the grain crop in this country that goes for exports. There has been a tremendous amount of gambling on those commodity exchanges, both in food and fiber. That is what causes high prices principally in the food products.

Q. Mr. President, this wheat crop is 1,400 million bushels--

THE PRESIDENT. Yes, it has been--it has been--

Q.--over a third'-

THE PRESIDENT.--that wheat crop has been traded in about 8 or 9 times--8 or 9 billion bushels have been traded in on the Chicago Board of Trade alone. Now you can put that down for what it's worth, because about exports--the exports are not out of line with what it has always been. We have always exported a third or more of our wheat crop.

Q. Mr. President, since the higher margins were put on the grain exchanges, prices have continued to go up. Do you think they should be still higher than they are?

THE PRESIDENT. I don't know. We will have to wait and see how they are going. They haven't had a chance to work completely yet. Haven't been in force long enough.

[12.] Q. Is there any intention in the administrative side of the Government to investigate this gambling on the food exchanges ?

THE PRESIDENT. Yes, we are having it looked into.

Q. By whom?

THE PRESIDENT. By the Attorney General.

Q. Mr. President, on this gambling in fiber also, are there investigations into cotton and wool trading too?

THE PRESIDENT. No, there hasn't been, so far.

Q. Well, that is on the--the Attorney General's investigation is in food and fiber?

THE PRESIDENT. Food and fiber, yes. This thing covers the whole ground.

Q. The grand jury that has now been in session in Chicago, or is it a separate investigation into the grain exchange?

THE PRESIDENT. You would have to ask the Attorney General about that, because I don't run the details. You ask the Attorney General.

Q. Mr. President, what I was getting at is whether you had requested a specific investigation of the grain exchanges?

THE PRESIDENT. No, the Attorney General took it up on his own initiative, which was right in his department, and should have been done.

Q. Deals with what you have called gambling on the exchanges ?

THE PRESIDENT. That's right.

Q. Does livestock come in on that, sir? I think a few of these questions included something about meat.

THE PRESIDENT. NO. No, these--they don't come in on that. You don't have commodity exchanges in livestock. The prices of livestock usually are set in the five market centers--in Chicago, St. Paul, Omaha, Fort Worth, and Kansas City.

Q. Mr. President, there has already been a grand jury investigation of the meat packers in Chicago?

THE PRESIDENT. That's right.

[13.] Q. Mr. President, has the decision been made yet whether the United States will take over the British Zone of operations in Germany?

THE PRESIDENT. No. No decision has been made on that.

[14.] Q. Mr. President, can we get back a minute to this business of consumer rationing and the police state? Did I understand you correctly, sir, to say that you thought that consumer rationing and price controls were methods of a police state ?

THE PRESIDENT. Yes, they are. Anything you have to enforce and punish people for infringing is a police state approach.

Q. That is true of the Office of Price Administration, then--is it ?

THE PRESIDENT. Yes, it had to be. It was the only way you could make it work. Under the emergency we have to assume those controls. But I was told, I think very vociferously, that this is a free country, that we wouldn't suffer from any of the things that we are now suffering from, if we took price controls off right away.

Q. But you don't consider you will have to reimpose them at this point?

THE PRESIDENT. I can't answer that. You will have to see how the situation works.

Q. That was true of rent controls, too, was it?

THE PRESIDENT. Yes.

[15.] Q. The other day the Vice Chairman of the Commodity Credit Corporation was in here. Can you tell us whether any decision has been reached on using the CCC funds ?

THE PRESIDENT. NO, I can't answer that now. I will make an announcement on it whenever we can.

[16.] Q. Mr. President, did you say that there was--I didn't hear very clearly-did you say that there was a grand jury investigation of this gambling on the exchange?

THE PRESIDENT. Yes.

Q. Just the Attorney General ?

THE PRESIDENT. The Attorney General is making the investigation. I don't know how he is doing it. You will have to ask him.

[17.] Q. To clear up one thing that was asked, would that likewise apply to direct controls--

THE PRESIDENT. Any control enforced by the state is a police method of getting the job done. And of course it has to be done in any emergency, and everybody agrees to do it. But in a free country like this it wants to be done under the agreement of all the people, and not at the behest of just one

Q. In other words, both methods have their application according to the times, is that right, Mr. President ?

THE PRESIDENT. That's right. It depends on the emergency.

Reporter: Thank you, Mr. President.