BUREAUCRACY: The Cranberry Boggle

"Why," asked New England Missionary John Eliot in 1647, "are Strawberries sweet and Cranberries sowre?" The reason in those days was that cranberries needed sugar. But progress took care of that, and the cranberry has since nourished into a $45 million-a-year business, graced Thanksgiving tables in sauces and jellies, and even—when its juice is mixed with gin—in a concoction called swampfire. But mixed with Arthur S. (for Sherwood) Flemming, U.S. Secretary of Health, Education and Welfare, the cranberry last week turned out to be something more powerful: pandemonium.

Said Secretary Flemming at a press conference...

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