CONTROL OF THE PUBLIC MILK SUPPLY 425 



way of securing such men. The two chief ones are that salaries are 

 ridiculously inadequate, and that the positions of inspectors are commonly 

 regarded as the property of political bosses to be used in paying political 

 debts. Added to this is the willingness of the public to be badly served. 

 It seems to believe that clothing a man with public office supplies him 

 with intelligence and ability. It is too stupid to see that a $900 salary 

 gets a $900 man and insures the work being done in a $900 way and it 

 loves to maintain the fiction that it is being served by men of superior 

 ability who toil for love of the work or of the public. Rarely does the 

 public see that its interests are as well worth while committing to the 

 care of well-paid men as those of private interests are. Moreover, the 

 readiness of the public to criticize its officers and to assail them, acts as 

 a further deterrent to men who value their reputations accepting a public 

 job. Some cities have found this attitude does not pay and have enlisted 

 the services of most competent men in the public service and among them 

 are some splendid milk inspectors. 



Obviously, the bureau of milk inspection has to be organized with as 

 good men as the standards of the community will permit being em- 

 ployed. For the positions of chemists and bacteriologists men of par- 

 ticular training along these lines must be secured. For the inspection 

 service men who have been schooled in sanitation, in scientific agricul- 

 ture, as veterinarians or those that have had practical farm experience 

 are promising material to choose from. Unfortunately, knowing how is 

 different from the ability to do and so there are many disappointments. 

 The men who succeed are those who are really interested in the work and 

 it not rarely turns out that some who appear handicapped by lack of 

 special preparation make good. In some offices it is the rule to hire 

 only veterinarians, or physicians, or agriculturalists, or what not. In 

 the opinion of the writer this is bad policy for a well-balanced force needs 

 men of different training. In general it has been found that poor results 

 are obtained by appointing men to the staff who divide their time be- 

 tween the practice of their professions and the work of the bureau. Their 

 position is equivocal and everybody knows it. If it is desired to make 

 use of such men they should be hired to do a particular service. 



Necessity of Defining the General Policies Adopted. In proceeding 

 to enforce an ordinance, the first step is to make what is wanted plain. 

 The standards adopted should be clearly defined and they should be 

 explained to producers and consumers. As the outset it should be 

 decided whether a pasteurized or unpasteurized supply is wanted. 

 A reasonably safe supply of the latter type is possible only in the case of 

 towns and small cities whose milk is produced by a few dairymen in the 

 surrounding country. Even the best of such supplies will occasionally 

 furnish milk-borne epidemics of infectious disease. The only effective 

 preventative of such outbreaks is carefully controlled pasteurization. 



