84 THE COMMON SENSE OF THE MILK QUESTION 



we can do anything we must know what there is to 

 be done and how to do it. In making a statement of 

 the evils to be attacked, therefore, and describing 

 some of them with a certain amount of detail, it is 

 not my purpose to pander to a demand for morbid 

 sensationahsm, nor to provide materials for the ex- 

 citation of the public mind in the intervals between 

 other "exposures" or sensational campaigns. What 

 I want to do is to place before the American public a 

 calm and dispassionate statement of certain curable 

 ills as a basis upon which to rest an earnest plea for 

 action; to waken, if possible, all those dormant and 

 neglected powers and impulses for good which need 

 to be called into active cooperation in order that the 

 evils may be remedied. And, terrible as some parts 

 of that statement may be, sickening as some of the 

 details are, it is perhaps necessary to assure the 

 reader that they fall far short of truth. For a truth- 

 ful statement of conditions, that is, a complete state- 

 ment of all the evils, given with photographic accu- 

 racy, would be unprintable and unreadable. The 

 worst that was said about the conditions existing in, 

 the meat-packing houses of Chicago during recent 

 exposures, does not excel, even if it equals, what 

 might truthfully be said of the conditions which attend 

 the production and distribution of the milk supply of 

 our cities. It is a calm and studiously moderate state- 

 ment of fact to say that dirt and disease germs are 



