From the Lawrence Daily Journal-World for March 31, 1974:

Local beef producers were not happy with the federal government’s recent decision to purchase $45 million worth of beef. Farmers and wholesale meat distributors interviewed by the Journal-World agreed that the beef market would be better off without government intervention, saying that although the purchase would temporarily drive prices up, to the benefit of meat producers, the government’s periodic changes of policy was harming the meat industry. “The best thing the government can do is keep their damn nose out of it and let supply and demand take over,” said Winston Harwood, manager of Harwood’s Wholesale Meats, 3103 Iowa. “It’s kind of a stupid situation. The government is trying to ram these prices back up when not too long ago they were having a fit over high meat prices.” Thomas Pyle, manager of Eudora Meat Market and Locker, agreed, saying, “The government ought to let supply and demand take care of it. Going back and forth is not good for the working man. It’s not healthy for the industry. I never know anymore where I stand, and it leaves the farmer in a terrible position.” A USDA official, asking not to be identified, had told the Associated Press this week that “the amount to be bought is small, very small, and is more of a gesture than anything…. It could make 100,000 cattlemen feel better and 200 million other people mad.”