CONTROL OF THE PUBLIC MILK SUPPLY 377 



cleanliness and stop the adulteration of such milk. In campaigns to 

 improve such supplies the effort is made to teach dairymen better methods 

 of production. 



State Control of the Milk Supply. It has been mentioned that, in 

 Idaho, Montana and Iowa, control of the milk supply is exercised solely by 

 the State which acts through variously constituted State boards or a State 

 Dairy Commissioner. None of these States have large ' cities, conse- 

 quently the regulation of the milk supply presents a somewhat different 

 problem than in those States with large urban populations that are sup- 

 plied by a specialized highly organized milk industry. Control of the 

 milk supply may be put in the hands of the State for the good reason 

 that the interests of the people and the industry are best served by a 

 moderate amount of supervision mostly of an advisory character or for 

 the unworthy one that the granger element wishes to keep cities from 

 enacting milk ordinances that dairymen regard as inimical to their inter- 

 ests. In many States, as for instance New York, New Jersey and Illi- 

 nois, the State Boards of Health maintain laboratories and a force of 

 inspectors in the effort to improve both city milk supplies and dairy 

 manufactures and often pay particular attention to the milk supplies of the 

 smaller cities because their purity is commonly inadequately protected. 



Sanitarians are not agreed as to the wisdom of State control of the 

 milk supply. The magnitude of the problem is an all but insuperable 

 obstacle to dealing with it successfully in this manner. There are thou- 

 sands of dairies in a State and to inspect them so often as to be assured 

 that the ordinary precautions that are known to be essential to the pro- 

 duction of clean milk are employed would require a far larger force of 

 inspectors than any State has ever contemplated employing. Some of 

 those most experienced in the enforcement of pure food laws are con- 

 vinced that the skimming and watering of milk can be kept down only 

 by sampling and analyzing the milk of the different dealers so frequently 

 that the dishonest ones will not care to take the risk of being detected in 

 fraud. That sort of supervision may be necessary with city milk sup- 

 plies but it would probably be unwise and certainly would be impossible 

 to attempt to maintain the milk standards of the entire State in this way. 

 These officials point out that the efforts of the States to eradicate tuber- 

 culosis by legislation have not been conspicuously successful. Therefore, 

 they believe that it is futile for the State to attempt to exercise even so 

 much as a supervisory control of the milk supply. They would have it 

 do a minimum of analytical work and inspection and confine its efforts 

 toward improving the milk supply, to utilizing its numerous avenues of 

 publicity to educate the citizens on all phases of the milk question and 

 in assisting municipalities to draw up sensible workable ordinances. 

 These officials regard the control of the milk supply as a local question 

 to be worked out by local officers and dairymen. 



