FOOD: Ceiling Zero

Meat ceilings returned to the U.S. last week—and meat itself went out the window.

OPA put up a tough front, sent out some 2,500 agents to try once more to hold its price line against the black market. In New York City, where about two out of every three butcher shops closed, some black marketeers showed utter contempt for OPA's toughness. They bluntly told OPA agents to scram.

Even if OPA's flurry of crackdown activity succeeded beyond its hopes, the results would be hardly noticeable on U.S. tables. The meat shortage was virtually a famine, and it would not soon get...

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