Speaker 1: Wartime America faces the greatest demand for food in our history. Food for our Army and Navy. Food for the invasion front. Food for ourselves on the home front. Food to help our fighting allies and the people of the allied countries. It takes pounds of food a day to keep a soldier on the fighting front. Millions of pounds of food each day. The best way to supply our men overseas and are fighting allies with most of the foods they need is in dried form and in cans. In addition to the military, other factors affect our canned food supply. Take tin, for example. Our major peacetime sources have been cut off by the enemy. Our railroads and other transportation facilities are being taxed to their utmost carrying munitions, armaments, war supplies and troops. That leaves less shipping space for civilian food stuffs. And then there's the farm labor shortage. All this means that we at home will have less canned fruits, vegetables, soups, and other processed foods for our use. Without rationing of these foods, some people would get more than their fair share. Others would not even get what they need. But rationing assures every one of his fair share. That is why your government is rationing canned fruits and vegetables and other processed foods. Until now, we have been rationing one item at a time like sugar and coffee. But processed fruits and vegetables are not one product. They are hundreds of products in hundreds of different brands, grade, sizes, varieties. In cans, bottles, packages, in dried and frozen form. One cannot say, as in the case of sugar, each citizen will be allowed two cans of peaches a week or four cans of spinach. It may be true that some people don't like spinach. Some of you may want to buy canned corn. Others of you may want to buy canned peas or spinach. So, the question arises, what method of rationing can be used so that each citizen may get his fair share of canned fruits and vegetables and other commercially packed foods, and that will still allow freedom of choice? The system which has been adopted and has worked successfully in England for over a year is called point rationing. In the point rationing system, all these foods are grouped together and your ration book is used to buy those you like. Those items which are not so scarce will take fewer points. Items which are more scarce will take more points. Point stamps to buy these ration goods are in War Ration Book Two. This book contains blue and red stamps. Blue stamps are to be used for canned fruits, vegetables, soups, juices, and other processed foods. Red stamps will be used for meat. This is a typical page of blue stamps in War Ration Book Two. Notice that the stamps are given point numbers: eight, five, two, one. Everyone will get 48 points each period. That means you'll use blue stamps A, B, C for the first period, D, E, F for the second and so forth. Point values will be the same in all stores. Every store in which you shop must post the official table of point values of all point rationed items in all sizes. From time to time, point values may change and stores will post the new point values. Here's an example of how point rationing works. This lady all decked out with her family's brand new ration books starts out to do some shopping. First of all, she wants to buy a can of peas [writes 8 on her list]. She wants to buy a can of chicken soup [writes 5 on her list]. And she wants some dried prunes [writes 1 on her list]. Well, there's our list complete, and all that remains to be done is to tear out 14 points in stamps and pay the grocer. But wait just a minute, just for fun, let's take another look at that point ration table. Hey, slow down there. What about those string beans? Why, they're only three points in the size we want. If we buy those instead of peas, we can save five points. And what's this? Fresh apples don't require any points. Well, why not buy those instead of dried prunes and save another point. So there we are, our shopping list complete, with the same amount of goods and with six points saved for future use. Smart girl. She's smart in more ways than one too, because she used her large stamps first, wisely saving her small ones for low point purchases later on, because she shops early in the day and so helps her grocer. Because wherever possible, she substitutes unrationed fresh fruits and vegetables for canned or processed ones. This is point rationing. This is the way to assure everyone here at home an equal opportunity to get the same fair share. This is the way to assure food for our fighting men and for are fighting allies. Share and share alike is the American way to victory.
