Beef Is Cheap And Plentiful From The Spokesman-Review Aug. 28, 1917

Tue., Aug. 1, 2000

To the Editor of the Spokesman-Review:

Why “meatless days?” No food should be as cheap and plentiful as beef should be right now.

The country is full of cattle. There is no shortage and there never has been. The receipts of beef cattle in Portland and Seattle are very large and have been so large this summer as to be a drag on the market.

Good steers are now $7.50 and cows $6.50. The value of the hide and by-products should put the meat on the block for 12 cents and give a big profit to the killer. This should retail at 18 cents for the best steak, round and shoulder, and roasts 15 cents, and the balance from 3 to 10 cents.

The retailer wants more for putting the meat over the block than the raiser gets for three years’ work producing it. A few days ago I saw a retail butcher charge 75 cents for three pounds of the tip end of brisket.

The government should now be filling cold storage houses with this cheap beef, like the packers are doing, against the time next spring when the chances are that they will put the price up to 20 cents and make a profit of 75 percent in six months.

This war is a good thing for us. Not altogether for the number of Germans we will kill, but in showing up and routing out the varmint that we have in our own hollow logs. G.H. Mottinger Mottinger, Wash.

This sidebar appeared with the story: News of the day

Headlines from Aug. 28, 1917:

Fresh Austrian Troops Fail to Stop Italians

Flee Homes in Path of Flames - Montanans Pack Goods on Wagons and Seek Safety

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