ropaganda in May, 1917, wheat was
selling in Chicago at $3.25 a bushel and the consumer was paying for his
bread on that basis, although the official estimate of the Department of
Agriculture of the average price actually received by the farmer for his
crop was but $1.44 a bushel.

Congress had provided a government guarantee only for the 1918 crop. At
the time of the organization of the Food Administration the 1917 crop
was on the point of coming to market. It seemed highly desirable for the
sake of the farmers to insure their receipt of a fair price for this
crop, also. Therefore the President appointed a committee composed of
representatives of leading farmers' and consumers' organizations
together with a number of agricultural experts from the agricultural
colleges of the country under the chairmanship of President H. H.
Garfield of Williams College, later U. S. Fuel Administrator, to fix on
a "fair price" for the 1917 crop. The Food Administrator, as publicly
announced by President Wilson at the time, took "no part in the
deliberations of the committee" nor "in any way intimated an opinion
regarding that price."

The Committee in view of the fact that the price for 1918 wheat was
already guaranteed at $2.00--it was later increased by the President to
$2.26--and that any smaller price would undoubtedly lead to a
considerable holding over of 1917 wheat for sale at the 1918 price and
that a higher price would have been dangerously unfair to the consumers,
especially the great body of working men, recommended a "fair price" of
$2.20 a bushel for 1917 wheat. It was a price a little higher than that
guaranteed by England to its farmers, about the same as that adopted by
Germany, and a little less than that guaranteed by France, so desperate
that she was ready to pay anything for production, and was already
forestalling the complaint of consumers by subsidizing the bread. The
President adopted the price as recommended to him by the Committee, but
there was no Congressional guarantee to back it up. So, with the fair
price thus determined by an independent commission, the Food
Administrator proceeded with plans for holding the price of wheat at
this level and reflecting it to the farmer. The principal steps taken to
effect this were:

First, the creation of a government corporation (the U. S. Grain
Corporation) which, acting under the provision of the Food Control Law
authorizing the government to buy and sell foodstuffs