1911. 
THE RURAL NEW-YORKER 
973 
CONTROLLING THE PRICE OF MILK. 
There are some conditions growing up 
about the business of producing milk 
for city markets that are well nigh in¬ 
tolerable to the self-respecting citizen, 
making him look forward eagerly to the 
time when he can see his way clear to 
earn a living in some other way. It is 
bad enough to know that the price he is 
to receive for his product!, and upon 
which largely depends his profits, or 
want of the same, is determined at coun¬ 
cils in which he has no adequate repre¬ 
sentation. In addition to that, he now 
has to submit to the humiliation of 
having city inspectors invade his prem¬ 
ises and lay down rules which he must 
follow, made by a body in which he has 
absolutely no representation. If he at¬ 
tempts to stand on his threshold and 
guard the premises for which he holds 
a title deed, these invaders show their 
club, instead of their badge of authority 
with the usual “open in the name of the 
law.” 
It makes no difference that a milk 
producer is obeying every law of his 
nation, State, county, township, and 
school district, and selling clean cold 
milk from clean healthy cows, to a sat¬ 
isfied buyer. These invaders tell him to 
stand aside or they will use their club 
to make his satisfied buyer break his 
contract. The most specious argument 
I have ever heard, that farmers have 
representation in city health depart¬ 
ments, is the one sent by Dr. Darling¬ 
ton to the meeting of Pomona Grange 
at Warwick, N. Y., as his substitute, 
He claimed that the State delegated 
certain powers to city health officers, 
when it granted a city charter. This 
argument is easily swept aside by re¬ 
minding readers that State lines are no 
barriers to these modern buccaneers. 
The residents of Connecticut or New 
Jersey certainly took no part in grant¬ 
ing a charter to New York City, and 
there is not even a national board of 
health. 
There is no doubt that conditions 
could and should be improved, and 
that city representatives have some 
good ideas on the subject. When they 
use arguments and ballots to get what 
they want, we are ready to meet them 
half way, respect their opinions, and 
abide bv majority rule. When they use 
clubs, they get as much “respect’’ as 
the weight of their club entitles them 
to, and no co-operation. Is it any won¬ 
der that New York City admits the 
failure of country inspection, and is 
preparing to try pasteurization? 
I have had strong hopes that we 
shall be able, eventually, to rectify the 
more obnoxious conditions surrounding 
milk production for city markets, 
through the instrumentality of the 
Dairymen’s League. The primary object 
of the League is to enable producers to 
have some voice in naming the price 
producers are to receive for their 
goods. 
This will be easy of accomplishment 
whenever we are prepared to act col¬ 
lectively. The very magnitude of the 
wants of the New York City market, 
and of some of the larger dealers, make 
them “an easy mark” for the men who 
own the cows and the grazing lands in 
their territory, as soon as we are in 
position to deal with them collectively. 
One of the greatest bugbears, here¬ 
tofore, has been the fear of certain 
anti-trust laws, and the recent convic¬ 
tion of members of the Live Poultry 
Association and the imposing of a jail 
sentence, shows that these fears were 
well grounded. 
I propose to point out a plan by 
which we can accomplish our purpose 
without running any such risk, in the 
hope that stockholders in the League, 
and prospective stockholders, will bring 
pressure to bear on the Board of Di¬ 
rectors, inducing them to adopt this 
plan as the future policy of the League. 
At the last meeting of stockholders for 
the election of a board of directors. 
Judge A. H. F. Seeger, of Newburgh, 
consented to act as legal adviser, and 
he was one of those who feared there 
were rocks ahead in the shape of the 
law against conspiring in restraint of 
trade. He told us that “I cannot see 
that it makes any legal difference 
whether the parties are all buyers, or 
whether they are partly buyers and 
partly sellers. The violation of the law 
consists in a number of buyers and a 
number of sellers getting their heads 
together for the purpose of controlling 
the price and creating a monopoly in 
price.” 
The plan which I now propose, called 
the. contract plan, was afterward ex¬ 
plained to him in detail, and it brought 
the following response: 
Your plan meets with my entire ap¬ 
proval. I do not. see how it possibly could 
be a violation of either the letter or the 
spirit of the law. I confess that I did 
not understand it so from your first letter. 
You know that 1 have always been em¬ 
ployed upon the side of the enforcement 
of laws and have had no experience what¬ 
ever in devising plans for their evasion. 
That has never been my forte and 1 cer¬ 
tainly think that you have struck the right 
plan. It is far better for the League to 
study to comply with the law according 
to its declaration of purposes than it is to 
attempt to invent schemes which are of a 
shady nature. What the League wants is 
the support of the people. I think it has 
that at the present time and it is advis¬ 
able to hold it. A. H. F. SEEGEK. 
I cannot go into the - details of the 
plan in this article. In brief, it is this: 
A corporation, which the League is, is 
regarded as a unit in the eyes of the 
law. Its board of directors or officers 
can decide upon a selling price for the 
League, without coming under the head 
of “conspirators.” Each owner of a 
dairy is another unit. No law can for¬ 
bid the latter to enter into contract 
with the former, appointing the League 
his or her sole agent for the sale of 
the product of the dairy m the form of 
sweet milk or sweet cream, on a com¬ 
mission basis, much as many men place 
the sale of their farms or other real 
estate in the hands of a real estate 
agent. So long as buyers are not 
changed without the consent of the pro¬ 
ducer, and payments are made direct to 
producers, little or no financial respon¬ 
sibility need be assumed by the League, 
and a very small commission will be 
sufficient to pay all expenses. At pres¬ 
ent the Borden Company and the Milk 
Exchange are the chief price-naming 
bodies. As a starter, the League should 
get control of the sale, as nearly as 
possible, of each dairy of milk supply¬ 
ing the Borden Company and the direc¬ 
tors of the Milk Exchange. When the 
League can say to those parties, “When 
your present contracts expire you must 
come to us to get them renewed.” pro¬ 
ducers will be able to force their way 
into the price-making chamber on at 
least an equal footing. The purchase 
and sale of such a volume of milk will 
establish a precedent in the market 
which small buyers and sellers will 
have to recognize as a basis when mak¬ 
ing their contracts, just as they now 
recognize the Borden price. In fact, the 
Borden price and the League price will 
then be synonymous. 
The capital stock of the League 
should be owned, as it is, by producers 
exclusively throughout the whole New 
York milk territory. The holdings of 
each are small, and all are more in¬ 
terested in keeping the price of milk 
good than in big dividends on their 
stock. Each stockholder will also have 
a voice in choosing the board of direc¬ 
tors who will have the naming of the 
price, or the acceptance or refusal of 
price made by the present price-nam¬ 
ing body. If patrons of other buyers 
than those mentioned above have diffi¬ 
culty in selling at a price based on the 
League price, that is satisfactory, let 
them also, by contracts, appoint the 
League as selling agent. The more of 
such sales it can have charge of the 
bigger fish it will be in the sea of milk. 
The big fish thrive at the expense of 
the little ones in all waters. 
Let us take advantage of what we see 
going on about us in the business world. 
The U. S. Steel Corporation dominates 
the steel situation because it owns and 
controls the bulk of the supply of steel. 
The same is true of the Standard Oil 
Company and many other corporations 
I might name. The Borden Company 
dominates the milk situation for the 
same reason. But please remember that 
until we sign their contracts they have 
no weapon. We own the cows, and the 
farms about their costly factories, all 
of which they cannot move to new loca¬ 
tions. Let us put the shoe on the other 
foot and first sign our contracts with a 
corporation whose interest it is to keep 
the price at the highest possible notch, 
instead of at the lowest possible notch 
as now. o. w. mapes. 
Milk Notes. 
Tho New York Exchange price is $1.61 
per 40-quart can, netting 3% cents per 
quart to shippers in 20-cent zone who have 
no additional station charges. 
The Massachusetts. Situation. 
Milk situation in Massachusetts is some¬ 
what agitated as the time draws near for 
making a price for the Winter months. 
Much dissatisfaction is felt in some sec¬ 
tions over the price and conditions existing 
at present, and many things point to a re¬ 
duced supply for Boston this Winter. The 
outlook is high prices for grain and a short 
supply of rough feed and hay to supple¬ 
ment Winter feed. The recent frost dam¬ 
aged silo corn to quite an extent. The 
field corn really needed another week at 
least to bring it to proper eondition, and 
much Hungarian and millet which stood 
still in the dry time has just begun to 
grow, and also needed another week to be 
fit for cutting. Many acres of this are 
frost-bitten and practically spoiled. The 
directors of the farmers’ company or B. C. 
M. P. C. met September 19 to arrange a 
price for Winter milk and look over the 
situation generally. We are informed that 
in one section of Vermont the farmers have 
received 20 cents a can, 8% quarts, for 
May and June, 22 for July, and 20 for 
August, milk sold to the Hood Co. These 
people are much stirred up. and intend to 
get fairer prices or put the milk into a 
creamery instead of sending to Boston. 
I)r. Smith, cf Washington, D. C., has just 
finished an inspection of the Boston milk 
supply and reports it al>6ve the average in 
regard to sanitary conditions and quality 
generally. We have always believed our 
milk was all right with few exceptions, but 
the price received was generally too low, 
and too wide a margin existed between the 
producer's price and the price paid by the 
average consumer. Too many middlemen, 
contractors and other officials, including 
inspectors, are supported by this same mar¬ 
gin, and if some of these were cut out and 
dropped, and the saving from this went 
into the farmer’s pocket where it belongs, 
we should be nearer to the solution of the 
problem. The present prices are about as 
follows: Independent peddlers pay 33, 37, 
38 and 40 cents per 8y 2 quart can. Con¬ 
tractors’ prices are 32, 33. 36 and 38 per 
8% quart can. For inspected and special 
milk 10 cents per can more is received. 
Milk retails in Boston for nine, 10 and 12 
cents per quart for common quality; in 
local towns and cities seven, eight and nine 
cents. A - E - p - 
Ilopkinton, Mass. 
Milk Conditions in Rhode Island. 
The evils of the middleman’s tax are 
of course not confined to New York. They 
are country-wide. It may be necessary to 
have commission men. The wrong is in 
their combining to control prices. The par¬ 
ticular grievance in our neighborhood is the 
milk question, and it exists in the neigh¬ 
borhood of all large cities. I recall the 
legislative investigation into the New Y'ork 
City milk supply and the abuses shown 
there. The milk middlemen in Providence 
combine in an association called the “Poor 
Milk Car Association.” They fix the price 
to the farmer for his milk, he having no 
voice whatever in saying what it shall be. 
Ilis only alternative is to sell at the price 
or keep his milk. Then they turn to the 
consumer and fix the price to him. thus 
working the game at both ends, and finally 
charter a car of the N. Y. & N. II. R. R. on 
which no other milk can be shipped but 
theirs, and get their milk into Providence 
at a rate much less than any individual 
can, and so their control of the situation 
is complete. With capital and business 
ability the farmers could organize their 
own distributive agency and cut the middle¬ 
men out. They lack the courage to do that. 
If they combine to hold their milk and so 
force prices they are open to the same 
criticism as the “Association” trust meth¬ 
ods ! G. G. P. 
Rhode Island. 
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