“When Congress enacted the Second War Powers Act, it gave the President power to ration commodities through federal agencies… Your ration books do not belong to you. They are the property of the of the United States Government. You have the right to use them, but they can be taken away from you unless you use them properly… When a Black Marketeer steals ration coupons, he is stealing government property. When a consumer buys stolen coupons, he is trafficking in stolen government property. Those are offenses no sane citizen wants to risk… Some of the worst offenders are in the field of food. There have been more than 1,000 enforcement suits over meal violations alone in the past ten weeks, and violations are being reported now at the rate of almost 1,000 a month.”
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