222 THE COMMON SENSE OF THE MILK QUESTION 



intimate experience with them, become, almost in- 

 variably, conservative and hostile to progress. There 

 are several reasons for this. In the first place, it is 

 perfectly natural for people who have organized them- 

 selves into an association for doing certain work, 

 when it is proposed that the work shall be done by 

 the community as a whole through its constituted 

 authorities, to say : " That is our work. We are doing 

 it as well as it can be done. If the public want it 

 better done, let them support us more liberally." 

 That is the most humble and the least arrogant posi- 

 tion they ever take. 



The more common position is that the work is 

 being done and there is no further need. This feeling 

 is fostered' by interested secretaries, directors, collec- 

 tors, and other officials, who feel, rightly or wrongly, 

 that they have vested interests to protect against 

 attack. For example, take the Society for the Pre- 

 vention of Cruelty to Children and its attitude 

 toward juvenile probation in this state. I am a 

 member of the Board of Directors of the Westchester 

 County S.P.C.C, and, it is superfluous to add, thor- 

 oughly in sympathy with the aims of the organization. 

 But everybody knows that the leaders of the society 

 have consistently opposed the appointment of pro- 

 bation officers other than its own officials and thwarted 

 the development of a very important work, partly 

 from jealousy, and partly also as a result of the a^ta- 



