Oic RURAL NEW-YORKER 
465 
A Correspondence With Judge G. W. 
Ward 
A Fair Question Fairly Asked 
Hon. Geo. W. AVard, 
The Wicks InTestigatiug Committee, 
Albany, N. Y. 
Dear Sir— 
A good many of our readers are sending us copies of 
a local paper, in which the report is made that you 
have stated the report that the farmer received 35 
cents of the consumer's dollar is not and never has been 
a fact Will you be kind enough to tell me if you 
have really ever made such a statement as this, and 
if so what your conclusions are based on? I have 
spent a great deal of time, and collected a great many 
figures on this subject, and if it is true, as you say, 
there is no such thing as a .35-cent dollar, I would 
like very much indeed to learn where you get your 
authority for making any such statement. 
Yours truly, 
H. W. COLLINGWOOD, 
. . . . Editor. 
Judge Ward’s Kindly Reply 
LIE NO. III.—We asked Judge Ward the ques¬ 
tion in perfect good faith. We believe the state¬ 
ment he made is foolish and untrue. Whenever we 
see the statement made we write and ask the 
author of it for his authoritj% He usually refers to 
some professor who never in his life grew a pound 
of produce or shipped to a commission man. Judge 
Ward is the only retailer of this foolish statement 
who has thus far refused to give his authority. We 
conclude therefore that he has none, but was sim¬ 
ply trying to get away with a bluff. As for the per¬ 
sonalities in this remarkable letter we could no 
doubt find 50 crooks who would agree fully with 
Judge AVard, as the memory of well-deserved pun¬ 
ishment made their scars burn. There are others, 
however, as Judge AVard will find out. We under¬ 
stand that Judge Ward is to receive $0000 for *his 
part of the Wicks investigation. If we were to 
speak “disrespectfully”—as he does—we should say 
H. AV. Collingwood, Editor, 
Itural New-Yorker. 
Hir :— 
A’our very unesteemed favor of March 7th at hand. 
It is unesteemed because even this communication is 
the expression of the sham, fraud and pretense of your 
daily life, not the sincere expression of an honest 
man. Go back now to the moment of writing that 
letter and you will agree with me if you allow your¬ 
self honestly to reflect, that in dictation you did not 
honestly expre.ss the ideas in your mind but rather de¬ 
voted j’our time and talents to the framing of a trick 
and device intended to deceive. 
I can believe you may have adopted this method of 
expression quite unconsciously. Many years of busi- 
ne.ss life devoted to fraud, misrepresentation, falsehood 
and stratagem often leaves men quite incapable of 
frank and open business action. 
You have made at least three untruthful statements 
in your communication of the 7th which are readily ap¬ 
parent to me. 
First you say “a good many of our readers are send¬ 
ing us copies of the local paper, etc.” This is merely 
j'our stock falsehood^ to introduce an untruthful sug¬ 
gestion as to the thing that moves you. Responsible 
and intelligent editors of integrity have long since 
abandoned this stock fiction. 
Second, you state “I have spent a great deal of time 
and collected a great many figures on this subject” of 
the 35-cent dollar. 
This is utterly untrue. You and your kind have 
never spent any appreciable time or energy in a study 
of the actual facts upon this or any other economic 
subject. Facts are not the material upqn which you 
build. Study, attention and knowledge would be ut¬ 
terly worthle.ss in your business; and would only 
be a handicap to the faker with his sham and misrep¬ 
resentation by which he seeks to extract sundry nimble 
dollars from confiding readers but more particularly 
from business men and the Public Treasury. 
Your time being devoted to fiction, fraud and false¬ 
hood for several yeai's pa.st you are quite incapable of 
studying, enjoying or comprehending dry facts and 
figures. AA’hat you seek is a tissue of falsehood upon 
which you can build, such as you used in your daily 
attempts to injure business men who do not contribute; 
things with and by which you can blackmail business 
and frighten timid men with threats. 
Now, if you can wake yourself up to appreciate a 
frank and candid letter that presents the real you to 
yourself and write an honest letter it will stand much 
differently with men than such blackmailing communi¬ 
cations as you wrote to Senator Brown last Fall and 
as you now endeavor to write me. I believe you are 
no longer capable of .so doing. Get one of the em¬ 
ployees of the so-called Bureau of Foods and Markets 
to write it for you, one recently employed if possible. 
Thirdly you state, “I would like very much indeed 
to learn where you^ get your authority for any such 
statement.” This is your third false statement in 
your letter of March 7th. 
You_ have no liking whatever for such sources of 
authority. As you see now when you reflect, if you 
possibly can, you had no such liking or desire when 
you wrote the letter in question. 
It should bring home to you now how utterly im¬ 
possible it is for you to deal truthfully and speak or 
write candidly or frankly with men even in so simple 
a matter. I am cheerful by nature and am going to 
devote a year or two to uncovering you and similar 
rascals, who make an easy living trying to fool the 
farmers of this State. AVhen I complete that work you 
will understand why I and others disrespect you and 
write disrespectfully to you. 
The figures you sought and seek are those on a bank 
check which you hoped to receive from the Joint 
Legislative Committee and a covering up by the Com¬ 
mittee of past frauds. Go to it. You will receive 
neither. '• 
GEO. W. WARD. 
R. N.-Y.—Is this the letter of a great lawyer and 
statesman or rather the mental indiscretion of a 
man who knows he is beaten and discredited? 
Judge Ward accuses us of crowding three false¬ 
hoods into that short note. Analyze them and you 
will find the true size of the man. 
LIE NO. I.—Judge Ward delivered an address at 
Walton, N. Y. We did not even know he had spoken 
until our readers began sending us clippings from 
the Walton Reporter. In the report of this speech 
It was stated that Judge AA''ard said that “the theory 
that the farmer received only 33 per cent, of a dol¬ 
lar was not and never had been a fact.” We have 
now sent Judge AA’ard one of the original letters sent 
to us by these farmers as proof that such letters 
were actually sent. So much for that lie. 
LIE NO. II.—We have talked and studied the 
“35-cent dollar” for 25 years or more, as thousands 
of our older readers will testify. We originated the 
phrase, and we claim to have spent more time in¬ 
vestigating the producers’ side of the case than any 
other person in the country. 
that the value of his services proves the existence 
of a 35-eent dollar—of value to the State. 
The New York Milk Situation 
The League Prices Announced 
The headquarters of the Dairymen’s League in 
New York has been moved from the office of the De¬ 
partment of Foods and Markets to 110 West 40th 
Street. The officers have taken over the sale of the 
milk for the next six months themselves. The of¬ 
ficers of the League have issued the following an¬ 
nouncement for the prices for milk for the six 
months from April first to September .30: 
Price of milk for next six months based on 3% 
milk. Grade B. 
1st District 2nd District 
per 100 lbs. per 100 lbs. 
April . 2.20 2.10 
May . 2.15 2.05 
June . 1.95 1.85 
July . 2.20 2.10 
August . 2..35 2.25 
September . 2.55 2.45 
Sy 2 cents for each 1-10 point butterfat to be added. 
Grade A milk 15c added. 
Grade B milk based on 55 barn score. 
Grade A milk based on 68 barn score. 
Average 1-5 cent per quart over AA’inter prices; ly^ 
cent per quart over Summer 1916 prices. 
Last December the milk dealers organized what 
is known as the New York State Milk Dealers’ 
Conference Board; I. L. Elkins Nathans is the of¬ 
ficial secretary of this board, witli offices at 2 Rec¬ 
tor Street. He was formerly milk agent for the 
Pennsjdvania railroad; and assembled milk for the 
dealers during the strike. Conferences have been 
held between the members of this board and the 
executive committee of the League, but at this writ¬ 
ing no definite understanding has been reached. The 
dealers, however, have asserted that they would not 
pay the above prices. They asserted that they can¬ 
not do so Avithout advancing the price given to the 
consumer. This threat of still higher prices to the 
consumer has aroused a new excitement in the city. 
The advertisements of the League which have been 
running in the city papers have been interpreted by 
the consumers as an attempt to justify the dealers’ 
advances of 2c a quart to the consumers, and the 
situation for a time began to look serious, especially 
in view of the threat of the dealers that a further 
advance to the consumer would be necessary to 
meet the new price to the producer. 
The executive committee, however, clarified the 
situation through the week by issuing a statement 
endor.sing the Towner-Smith bj^, which authorizes 
the Department of Foods and Markets to establish 
a milk market and pasteurizing plant in the City of 
New York, and expressed itself in favor of a more 
direct connection between the consumers and pro¬ 
ducers on the grounds that their interests are to a 
large extent identical, and at the same time ex¬ 
pressing the conviction that the farmers could be 
paid the present schedule of prices without any ad¬ 
vance to the consumer. 
It is very evident from the policies pursued by the 
dealers and their allies through the last three or 
four months that they would be willing to allow 
producers an occasional advance if they could put 
that advance over on the consumer. In this they 
figure that the increased price to the farmer would 
increase production, and that the increased cost to 
the housewife w'ould decrease consumption, and 
both acting together would create a surplus, and 
in that situation without lo.sing any money them¬ 
selves by the operation, they would, when the farm¬ 
ers had increased their cows and production, be in 
a position to smash the League. To make the way 
easy in the meantime they set out deliberately with 
Avell-considered plans to destroy the Department of 
Foods and Markets, which they recognized from the 
first as the strongest factor without regard to its 
leadership that they had to fight, so long as it 
was lined up under any efficient leadership on the 
side of the producer. They have stood firmly be¬ 
hind it, and the men who piit bills in the Legisla¬ 
ture to destroy it never dared follow them up when 
the farmers spoke. Their plan of late has been to 
attempt deliberately to alienate farmers from the 
Department by sinister suggestions and accusations. 
Til the lobbies of the Capitol at the first hearing on 
the AATcks bill these allies of the milk dealers went 
among the people saying that the •Department had 
nothing whatever to do with the success of the milk 
fight in October; that the farmers had been fooled 
into believing that it had helped in the cause, but 
now they were getting wise to the deception and 
would drop the Department and Dillon. If they 
made an impression on anyone the illusion must 
have been dispelled when the hearing began. The 
farmers present left no illusions as to -what they 
thought and felt about the proposition. 
As a part of their plan to mould country senti¬ 
ment they get an occasional letter in a local papei*, 
make insinuations, and they are begging to introduce 
apparently harmless and proper resolutions in local 
meetings, but which, Avhen analyzed and inter¬ 
preted, contain some obscure meaning that can be 
made to appear as a justification or corroboration 
of their assertions. It is a desperate game. It will 
never stand air and sunlight, but it .shows the 
determined purpose in this milk fight. The papers 
that Avere either indifferent to the League in Oc¬ 
tober, or fighting it, haA’e, of course, as allies to the 
big dealers, helped in this con.spiracy to the extent 
of their ability, and seized eA^ery opportunity to lead- 
and encourage the League Committee in error, es¬ 
pecially Avhen that course Avas at variance Avith the 
policy and counsel of the Department. 
The announcement by the Committee of its en¬ 
dorsement of the Towner-Smith bill places the 
League on solid grounds. It must be disappointing 
to the conspirators Avho have hoped to kill the 
Towner bill and embarrass the Department by pre¬ 
venting such endorsement. They well knew that the 
friendship and sympathy of the city consumer was 
the best asset of the League. If they could make 
it appear that the farmer was willing to allow the 
dealers to charge any price they liked to the con¬ 
sumer, so long as the farmer got a small part of 
the advance for himself, they could then alienate 
the sympathy of the consumer toAvard the farmer 
and this would remove one of their serious embai*- 
rassments. 
The average fat content of milk now delivered in 
the City of New York is about 3.4 per cent butter 
fat. The neAV schedule of prices for at least four 
months gh'es the producer an average of 4y^c per 
quart, and there is no reason Avhy the dealer .should 
not deliver this milk to the home of the consumer at 
9c a quart or 10c at the outside. They ai*e charging 
lie and are threatening to increase the price still 
further. So long as the League Avas appearing to 
ju.stify this adA'ance to the con.sumer, it Avas hurting 
its own cause. It has strengthened its position by 
the demand of a square deal for the consumer as 
well as for its own members. 
With the facilities in the city that the Towner- 
Smith bill would gi\-e, the Department Avill be able 
to demonstrate that this price can be paid the farm¬ 
er and pasteurized milk delivered to the doors of 
families at 8e per quai't for the next four months, 
and at not to exceed lOc for any months in the 
year. Milk sold on this basis Avill greatly increase 
consumption and Avill encourage the production of 
milk to the full capacity of the farms. Economic 
delivery is the solution of the milk problem, and 
if the Department is .supported in its plans, eco¬ 
nomic delivery will be the system. Dairymen should 
.see that their representatives in Albany vote for 
and work for the ToAvner-Smith bill. Do not neglect 
or delay this work. Next week we will giA^e Albany 
representatives a chance to line up for or against 
it. See that your men are on the right side. 
A Substitute for the Wicks Bill 
A further hearing on the Wicks bill is called for 
March 20th. W’e go to press before the hearing, 
but everybody, including its authors, admits that it 
is dead. The only purpose there could be of a 
hearing noAv is to consider a substitute for it. 
Senator Wicks has noAv requested Mr. Dillon to 
prepare a substitute bill that would OA^ercome the 
objectionable features of the original bill, and meet 
the requirements of the producers and consumers of 
the State. This has been done, and the details are 
being considered in a conference at Albany as we 
go to press. 
Next week we can give a full description of the 
ncAv measure. It is enough now to note that two 
fundamental principles are involved. First is the 
proposition of the Wicks (Continued on page 469) 
