U.S. At War: The Potato Mystery

Newspapers in New York, Chicago, Pittsburgh and way stations ran scare stories about the most unthinkable food shortage yet, a black market to end all black markets. This time it was potatoes. With other food shortages already makin dinner planning a hollow mockery (see cut), outraged housewives wanted to know why this latest outrage. How could the U.S. be out of potatoes?

The U.S. was not out of potatoes, but there was, at the moment, a shortage: 1) half the Florida crop froze last fortnight; 2) the Army took over half the Idaho crop and big fractions of Oregon's, Nebraska's and Maine's;...

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