Slow Start to Voluntary Food Conservation

Women's page editor Dorothy Dunbar Bromley wrote that Sunday about the campaigns underway in the metropolitan area to urge New Yorkers to cut back voluntarily on their consumption of wheat, fats and oil. She also took notice of the little visible success that these efforts had to date. Most politicians, worried about upcoming elections or ideologically opposed to government regulations, were against the mandated cutbacks urged by Fiorello LaGuardia, Herbert Hoover and others engaged in the dealing with the famine in Europe and Asia.

The regional marketing officer of the United States Department of Agriculture, while reporting that little headway had been made, cited a number of organizations that had been encouraging compliance. Assemblies had been held at public schools in the city to discuss the famine emergency and the need for reducing bread consumption by 40 percent and the consumption of fats and oils by 25 percent. Among the organizations that had printed and distributed printed materials were the New York State Food Merchants Association, the New York City League of Women Voters, the American Women's Voluntary Services of Greater New York and the Union for Democratic Action, the forerunner of Americans for Democratic Action. The Hotel Association of New York City had distributed bulletins to members urging that only one roll or its equivalent be served to diners. The American Theatre Wing Service was rehearsing a sketch on the situation to be presented on request to union groups, high schools, church and civic groups and others. The Francis H. Leggett Company, a wholesale grocer, had printed and distributed 4,000 window signs to their retail customers. The haberdashers F.R. Triplet & Co. was planning on devoting its newspaper ads to the food emergency as H.J. Heinz had already done. The Advertising Council reported that the Famine Emergency campaign was being plugged on an increasing number of radio shows. Bromley also noted a number of campaigns in Westchester, where many of the newspaper's readers lived.

She made a spot check of grocers that showed that these campaigns had not made a dent in the volume of bread being sold. Government officials confirmed that this was an accurate reflection of the situation and the reason why a 25 percent cutback in wheat going to bakers had been ordered as a roundabout way to ration supply.

Bromley reported that on her train ride home after addressing a women's forum in Litchfield, CT, where the 150 members showed their concern but puzzled over where to begin, the usual assortment of crackers and bread were served to her in the dining car. More disheartening, the wheat products she declined had then been piled on a tray with the dirty dishes in a conspicuous display of waste.

Bromley, who had joined the newspaper in 1942 after working at the World-Telegram and elsewhere, was an interesting figure who covered a wide range of topics on the women's pages, reaching well beyond the usual service features and club news. In 1934 she had written the book Birth Control: Its Use and Misuse and was co-author of a controversial 1938 book Youth and Sex, which included a pre-Kinsey survey of the sexual behavior of college students. She had found that about half of the male seniors and juniors and one quarter of their female classmates had engaged in premarital sex. Of this group, about two-thirds of the men and one-third of the women had their first experiences in high school. Interestingly, boys from small towns and rural areas were more likely to have had premarital sex than boys from big cities. So much for small town conservative “family values” versus the liberal permissiveness of the wicked city. Most of the students surveyed approved of premarital sex.