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Show failed to induce sheepmen to expand their operations, nor that the created conditions failed to invite new men to venture investing in the sheep business under these market A - . A 13 conditions. Probably they were unaware, also, that in 1917, sheepmen suffered severly from bad weather, high costs, heavy losses, and an increased labor shortage due to military enlistments. Because Europe had experienced a tremendous slaughter of meat animals since the outbreak of the war, the responsibility resting on the United States was of a two-fold nature; supplying not only our own soldiers and citizens, but helping to feed those of our allies as well. The importance of the livestock industry was stressed and we were urged to reduce our own consumption and waste. Then a hundred members of the livestock organizations and closely allied groups were named to a committee known as the United States Livestock Committee. President Hagenbarth of the National Wool Grower Association, was on that committee, along with other important figures of the sheep industry and they, spent much time in Washington during the autumn of 1917 in the interests of the sheepmen. Mr. Hoover and other Food Administration officials had initiated meatless Tuesdays, but fanatical propagandists carried it to excess. To add to the woes of the sheepmen, the propagandists reached President Wilson, urging legis- 152 |
