NEW YORK MILK COMMITTEE 19 



have much better milk to-day than ever before, and are better 

 off by buying our milk from a few responsible milk companies 

 than from thousands of peddlers as in years gone by. The 

 consumer can help much by appreciating the good work of 

 several dealers and by not blaming all milk troubles on the 

 farmer and dealer, but learn to care better for the milk after 

 he receives it. Cooperation must be the slogan all along the 

 line. 



MR. PHILLIPS: Students of the milk problem have expressed 

 concern from time to time that what is said about the character 

 of the milk, its bacteriological content, its qualities, and its possi- 

 bilities of carrying infection, may discourage the use of milk, with- 

 out which most important food, our children will grow up under- 

 nourished and physically unfit to compete with other children and 

 to develop into strong and healthy citizens. The New York Milk 

 Committee issued recently a leaflet on the care of milk in the 

 home, and in this leaflet, this significant statement is found: 

 "Milk borne diseases are far less common than the underfeeding 

 which results from the use of too little milk." We all realize that 

 the excessive infant mortality in this City is largely occasioned by 

 the fact that mothers are unable, on account of poverty, to purchase 

 a milk which is safe for their babies. We also realize that there 

 is a very close relationship between retardation in the public schools 

 and under-nourishment. The New York School Lunch Committee 

 has said that children who are unsuccessful in school, in the ma- 

 jority of cases, are underfed, and that once you give these chil- 

 dren sufficient nourishment, so that they can compete, physically 

 and intellectually, with their schoolmates, their lives become suc- 

 cesses instead of failures, they succeed in their school life, and 

 they are started out on the pathway to strong and efficient citizen- 

 ship. And the reason that so many of our school children are 

 under-nourished is that their parents are too poor to afford a 

 milk which is essential to the lives and to the health of these chil- 

 dren. 



Now, if we recognize that our infants are our future citizens, and 

 that the strength of the State depends upon the number of its 

 citizens, then it becomes the duty of the State to see that the milk 

 upon which the lives of our infants depend, is placed within reach 

 of the pocket-books of the poor. And if we realize that once these 

 children are saved to the State, the strength of the nation depends 

 upon their future physical and intellectual strength, then it be- 

 comes the duty of the State to see that proper food is placed within 



