No. 4.] REPORT OF SECRETARY. xiii 



arcl is a protection to the piiLlie health. Nothing can be 

 further from the truth. It is simply a commercial standard 

 designed to protect the consumer against fraud by the addi- 

 tion of water and skimmed milk to whole milk in such 

 quantities that they cannot conclusively be shown to have 

 been added, to the satisfaction of our courts. It is exactly 

 on the same footing as the law prohibiting the coloring of 

 oleomargarine to resemble butter, or that prohibiting the 

 sale of renovated butter unless it is properly stamped. 

 Xeither water nor skimmed milk is injurious to the public 

 health, and their addition to whole milk is simply a fraud 

 on the consumer. It is a fraud also on the producer, in that 

 by just so much it takes the ])lace in the market of the whole 

 milk which he produces, and renders his legitimate product 

 less salable. Until such time as the science of milk inspec- 

 tion and analysis shall have advanced to the point that allows 

 of the detection of skimmed milk or water, except in the 

 most minute proportions, when added to whole milk, the 

 standard is necessary to both producer or consumer. 



ISTevertheless, the attempts to inflame the minds of the 

 consumers against legislation aimed to reduce the evils of 

 this necessary system, on the ground of danger to the public 

 health, are pure buncombe, and cannot be too severely con- 

 demned. The rigid enforcement of the milk standard law 

 would, on the other hand, form a much more serious menace 

 to the public health than a reasonable exemption from prose- 

 cution of honest producers. It is well known that standard 

 milk cannot be fed to infants or to some invalids, but must 

 be diluted and rectified to meet the requirements of their 

 delicate digestive organs. Cartoons which represent that 

 legislation such as that of last winter is an attack upon the 

 health of infants are not only false but absolutely criminal 

 in their recklessness, as they lead the uninformed portions of 

 our cit}" population to believe that milk as now sold in the 

 market is a proper infant food. I would urge temperance, 

 fairness and judgment in the discussion of milk questions, on 

 both sides, and that all the agencies of the State having to 

 do with the milk problem, from any point of view, unite in 

 an attempt to show the consuming public the true situation of 



