THE STRUGGLES OF COOPERATION 95 



anti-trust act. There is no darker page in 

 American legislative records with respect to 

 business organization than the manner in which 

 we have treated farm organizations, particu- 

 larly the milk producers. 



The record of the treatment of the Milk Pro- 

 ducers' Association during the war is enough to 

 point out the injustices that have been done. 

 For some time previous to the war the milk 

 producers in the vicinity of our larger cities had 

 been operating successfully on a collective bar- 

 gaining plan in reaching understandings with 

 milk distributors as to the price of milk to the 

 producer. When the war began it seemed de- 

 sirable that milk production should be en- 

 couraged wherever possible, and it would have 

 been logical to expect that every encouragement 

 would be made to dairymen. The shortage of 

 labor on farms had increased their difficulties 

 and made it hard for them to operate success- 

 fully. The rising prices of feeds had added 

 other cost handicaps. 



The public attitude toward these organized 

 dairy farmers, however, was surprisingly criti- 

 cal. In 1916, the milk producers near Chicago 

 asked a modest increase in price which the dis- 

 tributors refused to meet. When the dairymen 



