156 Cooperation in Agriculture 



the regulation of the practices of these middlemen by the 

 state, whereby the commonwealth protects the public 

 against monopolistic mischief and says that the common 

 necessities of life shall be furnished without discrimination 

 and at a reasonable compensation. The second is through 

 the state and municipal ownership of the facilities of 

 distributing the necessities of life, a method that is being 

 tried experimentally and which, on account of the greed 

 of the middlemen when unrestrained and the partial 

 failure of state regulation up to the present time, is grow- 

 ing in popular favor in the United States. 



The Organization of Milk Producers 



The producers of milk, however, do not need to invoke 

 the law as the only means of protecting themselves against 

 the abuses of the middlemen. They have it in their 

 own hands to meet these conditions and to protect their 

 own interests to a large extent by conducting their busi- 

 ness through cooperative organizations. Neither should 

 the consumers depend wholly on the state to protect 

 them against the greed of the middlemen. They, also, 

 have it in their hands to organize cooperatively and thereby 

 safeguard their interests in their dealings either with the 

 middlemen or with the organizations of producers. The 

 state and the municipalities may enact legislation that 

 will tend to prevent monopoly and the restraint of trade 

 and to protect the public against the abuses of organiza- 

 tion, but neither the producers nor the consumers of the 

 United States should depend on the law to protect them 

 against abuses which they can at least partially correct 

 by conducting their business operations along legitimate 



