Kirby's Augusta: A Thanksgiving Without Cranberries?

There's a lot to be thankful about each Thanksgiving, but there are things to be scared about, too.
Such was the case more than half a century ago when Augusta joined the rest of America in fear of a frightening Red Menace.
I'm talking, of course, about cranberries.
These days, it might seem hard to believe, but Thanksgiving 54 years ago had comedians joking about, politicians worrying about and housewives doing without the tart, red fruit that traditionally accompanies a slice of turkey.
The panic set in early in November when Arthur S. Flemming, United States secretary of Health, Education and Welfare, held a press conference in Washington to announce that the nation's cranberry supply might be contaminated. A weed-killer was suspecteded. To be on the safe side, he told Americans, stay away from cranberry products.
For some reason, the news took the nation by storm.

The next day, Nov. 10, 1959, a front-page story at the top of The Augusta Chronicle reported the hazardous news. In the weeks that followed The Chronicle had 65 stories referring to the latest "Red Menace."
Secretary Flemming tried to calm things down. On Nov. 17, The Chronicle reported, he held another press conference to report that the tainted cranberries were very limited. He knew this because government chemists had tested 3.5 million pounds of cranberries.
On Nov. 19, The Chronicle reported more bad berries had been found, only hours after the government had issued a statement that everything was probably OK.
Well, by now, nobody knew what to believe, and to be safe THAT Thanksgiving Day of 1959 ... they stayed away from cranberries.
Some food writers suggested substituting Swedish ligonberries for cranberries, but Augustans complained that they couldn't find Swedish ligonberries.
On Thanksgiving Day, Nov. 26, a front-page Chronicle photo shows a little boy looking at his plate with the headline: "What, No Cranberries?"
Looking back five-plus decades, scientists still talk about the nation's reaction.
"The cranberry scare of 1959 set the stage for decades of unfounded anxiety about trace levels of agricultural chemicals and additives in food," Dr. Elizabeth Whelan, the president of the American Council on Science and Health, wrote in 1999.
Maybe so.
But maybe something else was to blame.
"Frankly," a 1959 Chronicle editorial concluded, "it all sounds like a Communist plot."
If so, it worked.
Happy Thanksgiving.

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