Even this fare might have been bearable had it been supplemented by the
usual amount of sugar. In the past this had been as much as six pounds
per month and person; now the regulations permitted the consumption of
only 2.205 pounds per month and capita for the urban and 1.65 pounds
for the rural population, while persons engaged at hard labor were
allowed 2.75 pounds. Parents who were willing to surrender all to their
children went without sugar entirely.
How these victuals were obtained by the woman of the household has
already been indicated. Heretofore it had been necessary to stand in
line for bread, fat, and milk, the latter two being usually obtained
simultaneously at the Fat Central. The establishing of food
zones--_Rayons_--had obviated that. The measure was a great relief, but
since it governed no more than the distribution of these articles, much
standing in line was still necessary. The disciplinary value of the
food-line was still kept in mind in the distribution of potatoes, beets
(_Wrucken_), wheat flour; now and then other cereal products, such as
macaroni, biscuits, buckwheat flour, and oatmeal; meat when the city
distributed it at or below cost price; fuel, coal-oil, sugar, and all
groceries; soap and washing-powder; shoes, clothing, textiles of any
sort, thread, and tobacco. Now and then dried fruits would be
distributed, and occasionally jam, though with the ever-increasing
shortage in sugar little fruit was being preserved in that manner. Once
a week the solitary egg per capita would have to be waited for. One egg
was not much to waste hours for, and usually people did not deem it
worth while to claim it, if they had no children. The woman who had
children was glad, however, to get the four, five, or six eggs to which
her family was entitled. It might mean that the youngest would be able
to get an egg every other day. Such, indeed, was the intention of the
government, and such was the purpose of the food-line. It would happen
now and then that there were so many who did not claim their weekly egg
that the woman with children got a double ration!
For many of these things certain days had been set aside. Potatoes could
be drawn every other day, for instance, while wheat flour was issued
every fourth day, meat on all "meat" days, fuel once a week, petroleum
every two weeks, and sugar once a month. Shoes and clothing were issued
only after the Clothing Central had been satisfied that they were
needed. It was the same with thread, except silk thread, and with
tobacco one took a chance. Other articles were distributed when they
were available, a notice of the date being posted near some shop where
the food-liners could see it. The arrival of "municipal" beef and pork
was generally advertised in the newspapers.
In this manner, then, was the government ration obtained. To it could be
added fresh, salted, and dried fish, when available, and all the green
vegetables and salads one wanted--peas and beans in season; in their dry
form they were hard to get at any time. For a while, also, sausage could
be bought without a ticket. The government put a stop to that when it
was found that much illicit trading was done with that class of food.
Many hours were wasted by the women of the household in the course of a
month by standing in line. The newspapers conducted campaigns against
this seemingly heartless policy of the food authorities, but without
result. The food-line was looked upon as essential in food conservation,
as indeed it was. In the course of time it had been shown that people
would call for food allotted them by their tickets, whether they needed
it or not, and would then sell it again with a profit. To assure
everybody of a supply in that manner would also lead to waste in
consumption. Those who did not absolutely need all of their ration did
not go to the trouble of standing in a food-line for hours in all sorts
of weather.
Subsisting at the public crib was unpleasant business under such
conditions, but there was no way out. The food "speak-easy" was almost
as much a thing of the past as was the groaning board of ante-bellum
times, though it was by no means entirely eradicated, as the trial of a
small ring of food sharks in Berlin on October 10, 1917, demonstrated.
How hard it was for the several governments to really eradicate the
illicit trading in food, once this had been decided upon, was shown in
this case, which involved one of the largest caches ever discovered.
There were hidden in this cache 27,000 pounds of wheat flour, 300 pounds
of chocolate, 15,000 pounds of honey, 40,000 cigars, and 52,000 pounds
of copper, tin, and brass. The odd part of the case was that to this
hoard belonged also 24 head of cattle and 9 pigs.
On the same day there was tried in a Berlin jury court a baker who had
"saved" 6,500 pounds of flour from the amounts which the food
authorities had turned over to him. It was shown that the baker had sold
the loaves of bread he was expected to bake from the flour. Of course he
had adulterated the dough to make the loaves weigh what the law required
and what the bread tickets called for. A fine profit had been made on
the flour. The food authorities had assigned him the supply at $9 for
each 200-pound bag. Some of it he sold illicitly at $55 per sack to a
man who had again sold it for $68 to another chain-trader, who later
disposed of it to a consumer for $80 a bag. There can be no doubt that
this flour made expensive bread, but it seems that there were people
willing to pay the price.
But forty cents for a pound of wheat flour was something which only a
millionaire war purveyor could afford. All others below that class,
materially, ate the government ration and stood in line.
Sad in the extreme was the spectacle which the food-lines in the workman
quarters of Berlin, Vienna, and Budapest presented. Upon the women of
the households the war was being visited hardest. To see a pair of good
shoes on a woman came to be a rare sight. Skirts were worn as long as
the fabric would keep together, and little could be said of the shawls
that draped pinched faces, sloping shoulders, and flat breasts. There
were children in those food-lines. Thin feet stuck in the torn shoes,
and mother's shawl served to supplement the hard-worn dress or patched
suit. Everything had to go for food, and prices of apparel were so high
that buying it was out of the question.
Once I set out for the purpose of finding in these food-lines a face
that did not show the ravages of hunger. That was in Berlin. Four long
lines were inspected with the closest scrutiny. But among the three
hundred applicants for food there was not one who had had enough to eat
in weeks. In the case of the younger women and the children the skin was
drawn hard to the bones and bloodless. Eyes had fallen deeper into the
sockets. From the lips all color was gone, and the tufts of hair that
fell over parchmented foreheads seemed dull and famished--sign that the
nervous vigor of the body was departing with the physical strength.
I do not think sentimentalism of any sort can be laid at my door. But I
must confess that these food-lines often came near getting the best of
me. In the end they began to haunt me, and generally a great feeling of
relief came over me when I saw that even the last of a line received
what they had come for.
The poorer working classes were not getting enough food under the
system, nor were they always able to prepare the little they got in the
most advantageous manner. While the effort had been made to instruct
women how to get the maximum of nutriment from any article, and how to
combine the allowances into a well-balanced ration, results in that
direction were not satisfying. Many of the women would spend too much
money on vegetable foods that filled the stomach but did not nourish.
Others again, when a few extra cents came into their hands, would buy
such costly things as geese and other fowl. Cast adrift upon an ocean of
food scarcity and high prices, these poor souls were utterly unable to
depart from their cooking methods, which had tastiness rather than
greatest utility for their purpose. The consequence was that the ration,
which according to food experts was ample, proved to be anything but
that.
In Berlin the so-called war kitchens were introduced. A wheeled boiler,
such as used by the army, was the principal equipment of these kitchens.
Very palatable stews were cooked in them and then distributed from house
to house against the requisite number of food-card checks. The
innovation would have been a success but for the fact that most people
believed they were not getting enough for the coupons they had
surrendered. The stew could not be weighed, and often there would be a
little more meat in one dipperful than in another. There was grumbling,
and finally the women who were giving their time and labor to the war
kitchens were accused of partiality. The kitchens were continued a while
longer. They finally disappeared because nobody cared to patronize them
any more. It is possible, also, that people had grown tired of the stew
eternal.
The _Volksküchen_--people's kitchens--and those war kitchens which were
established when the war began, operated with more success. The public
was used to them. They were located in buildings, so that one could eat
the food there and then, and their bill of fare was not limited to
stews. Being managed by trained people, these kitchens rendered splendid
service to both the public and the food-regulators. I have eaten in
several of them and found that the food was invariably good.
A class that had been hit hard by the war was that of the small
office-holders and the less successful professionals, artists included.
They were a proud lot--rather starve than eat at a war kitchen or accept
favors from any one. The hardships they suffered are almost
indescribable. While the several governments had made their small
officials a war allowance, the addition to the income which that gave
was almost negligible. At an average it represented an increase in
salary of 20 per cent., while food, and the decencies of life, which
this class found as indispensable as the necessities themselves, had
gone up to an average of 180 per cent. The effect of this rise was
catastrophic in these households. Before the war their life had been the
shabby genteel; it was now polite misery. Yet the class was one of the
most essential and deserved a better fate. In it could be found some of
the best men and women in Central Europe.
Devoted to the régime with heart and soul, this class had never joined
in any numbers the co-operative consumption societies of Germany and
Austria-Hungary, because of their socialistic tendencies. This delivered
them now into the hands of the food shark. Finally, the several
governments, realizing that the small official--_Beamte_--had to be
given some thought, established purchasing centrals for them, where food
could be had at cost and now and then below cost. Nothing of the sort
was done for the small professionals, however.
[Illustration: Photograph from Henry Ruschin