1793 
Stirring Up the Milk Question 
Last week the Community Councils of New York 
City organized a three-day strike in protest against 
the November advance in the price of milk, and on 
Sunday night held a mass meeting to which all sides 
were invited and requested to present their views. 
Arthur Williams of the Federal Food Commission 
presided. The officials who spoke were Governor 
Smith, Health Commissioner Copeland, and Jonathan 
Day of the City Market Commission and vice-presi¬ 
dent of the Council of Farms and Markets. Loton 
Horton of Sheffield Farms, and P. J. Fox of Borden’s 
Farm Products Company represented the dealers. 
John D. Miller of the Dairymen’s League, and John 
J. Dillon spoke for the producers. 
The Borden’s Company claimed that they were 
paying producers practically eight cents a quart in 
November, which would be an average of more than 
4 per cent milk for all the milk they buy, so that 
producers may expect high fat tests this month. 
They proved to their own satisfaction at least that it 
cost about 10c to deliver a quart of milk in New 
York, but their city patrons were not convinced. Tf 
the cost of producing a quart of milk were figured on 
the same basis, by charging a fraction of a cent on 
each quart every time a hired man turned around, 
milk would cost a dollar a quart at the barn. Mr. 
Horton made the hit of the evening when he tried to 
explain that he prevented waste in milk as com¬ 
pared with fruit and vegetables by saying that he 
“brought it to the city and got the most out. of it.” 
They all agreed that he did. 
Dr. Copeland said he had made a survey of the 
schools, and found 70 per cent of the children in one 
school ill-nourished, and 30 j r cent of all the chil¬ 
dren in the schools suffering from malnutrition for 
want of milk, and demanded that dealers must find 
a way to reduce the cost. He said he believed with 
Mr. Dillon that farmers were not getting enough 
now. or at least not too much, but that distribution 
cost must come down. He referred to Philadelphia 
where farmers get moi’e and consumers pay from 
three to four cents less than in New York. 
Governor Smith, assuming Dr. Copeland’s esti¬ 
mate to be correct, said that under such circum¬ 
stances milk ceased to be an economic problem, but 
became a public health problem, and that it is the 
duty, of the State, when the health of its people is 
involved, to exercise its sovereign power and regu¬ 
late the price of milk, and besides this temporary 
need he would recommend to the Legislature that it 
declare milk a public utility and authorize the city 
to take over the distribution of it and provide for 
the fixing of prices of it. A resolution was passed 
approving this program and promising it support. 
A Strike of City Milk Consumers 
They Get Straight and Square Advice 
[Last week a city council of consumers organized a 
strike in protest against the price of milk. A meeting 
was held Sunday night, and speakers were invited to 
represent producers, consumers, dealers and officials. 
John .T. Dillon was invited to speak for farmers, and 
the following is his address:] 
From my well-known habit of plain speech I as¬ 
sume you expect and invite plain talk from me on 
this milk problem, and I need make no apology for 
frank expression. According to my brand of eco¬ 
nomics. anyone who discourages the production of 
food is an enemy of the consumers of food. If you 
accept that principle you must admit that a strike 
against the use of milk puts the aggressors in the 
position of enemies to themselves and to their chil¬ 
dren. I admit that when milk costs more to de¬ 
liver after it reaches the city than it cost to produce 
and bring to the city, you have a just grievance, but 
I insist that you cannot reduce the price of milk by 
kicking over the milkpails. You have simply been 
driven by the desperation of helplessness to a move¬ 
ment which defeats your own purposes and which 
cannot bring you permanent relief. 
Your first concern is the production of a full sup¬ 
ply of milk. It must come from the farms. You can 
get it nowhere else The production of milk is the 
most slavish occupation and the most hazardous 
business in the world. The heavy work of the dairy 
farm goes on in rain or shine, hot or cold. Sunday 
and Monday, from before daylight until after dark. 
There is no 44-hour week for the dairyman. The 
day is never long enough for him. Father and son, 
and oftentimes the wife and daughter, take their 
part in the work. 
It takes three years to raise a milch cow. Four 
to five years is her average time of production. In 
the meantime any one of a score or more of acci¬ 
dents may befall her and disqualify her for produc¬ 
tion. Frost or storm, heat or cold, drought or floods, 
blight or insects may destroy the prudent provisions 
The RURAL NEW-YORKER 
made to feed her. The milk producer takes all the 
chances, assumes all the hazard. 
I would not have you value this simple, honest toil, 
too lightly. Here in this great city you grow proud 
of your wealth, and your streets, and your buildings, 
and your flourishing business and prosperous in¬ 
stitutions. Some of you may not hold in much es¬ 
teem the simple life and modest institutions of the 
country; but let the farmers take one Sunday off and 
practically every breakfast table in the city would 
be disturbed on Monday morning. If they took a 
month’s vacation we would have famine in the city. 
Let them stay six months and moss would accumu¬ 
late on the marble steps of your counting houses, and 
grass would grow in your city streets. 
You refuse to take the farmer’s milk. Do you 
want him to sell the cows? Would you have him 
send the calves to the butcher? Do you want him to 
discharge the hired man and send the boys to city 
jobs? Would you have him cultivate the habit of 
the eight-hour day and the 44-hour week? Do you 
want to discourage him in the production of milk 
entirely? If so, where will you go for your supply 
when he quits? If he reduces his supply one-half or 
a fourth, will that make milk cheaper? I know your 
protest is not against the producer, but against the 
trust system of distribution. I join you in that pro¬ 
test. When a boy the milk trust kept me many a 
day behind the plow and in the frosted stubbles in 
my bare feet. For 50 years I have fought to correct 
the milk trust system. I welcome you to the contest, 
but I want more milk, not less; more cows, not fewer 
cows; more boys and girls on the farms and less of 
them driven to the city for opportunities of life and 
fortune. I want to build up the dairy farms and 
develop the dairy industry of the State. Help us do 
this and you will have milk at a fair price. Stop 
the production of it and you will pay more, not less. 
Is there, then, any escape from the milk trust? 
Let us see. There are three interests concerned—the 
consumer, producer and distributor. You come first, 
because you must have milk to live in the city and 
bring up a family. Milk is a necessity to you, and a 
full supply is your greatest concern. The farmer 
could turn to grain, and pigs, and chickens, and fruit. 
The dealers could do something else, but you must 
have milk, at least for the children. The dealer can 
hold out in this strike longer than you can. At the 
price he pays for the milk he can make butter or 
cheese without loss, and condensed milk at a great 
big profit, and he will powder his skimmed milk and 
sell you these manufactured products at a much big¬ 
ger price than he asks you for the liquid milk. 
Your price for milk is made up of the price to the 
producer and the cost of distribution. The farmer 
does not get the cost of production now. Other 
things the same, you will pay the farmer more in 
the future than he gets just now. But with him you 
are safe. You can never pay him too much. If for 
a time you were to pay him moi’e than a reasonable 
profit, the supply would soon increase and the sur¬ 
plus would reduce the price even below the cost of 
production, and you would benefit more than you lost 
in the temporary rise. Farmers are quitting the 
business at the present prices, and there is no hope 
under such circumstances that you can get any 
cheaper milk from him. The saving, if any. must be 
between the farmer’s wagon and your door. 
Build up a system of delivery through the stores in 
both bulk and bottled milk and cream. Small deal¬ 
ers will deliver it to the stores for ^c a quart and 
get rich. We ought to have several thousand of 
them. The stores are anxious to sell it for a cent a 
quart profit and they will probably deliver the bot¬ 
tled milk free as they do other goods. This month 
you could sell bulk milk for 10c and bottled milk 
for 13c. You pay from 17 to 30c for bottled milk 
and 13 to 14c for bulk milk. The farmer gets a scant 
7 1 l.e. This system for the delivery of all milk and 
cream and bulk condensed milk and buttermilk fig¬ 
ures out a saving of over $100,000 a day in New 
York: $3,000,000 a month, and nearly $40,000,000 a 
year. Since New York sets the price for other cities, 
$50,000,000 annual saving is conservative. You could 
spare the producer a little out of this. 
If any family still wants milk delivered in a 
wagon at the door by a powdered footman, by all 
means let them have it so; but do not force on poor 
and frugal people a system to satisfy the luxury and 
vanity of the few who need not count the cost. 
Your city government could put this plan in opera¬ 
tion and solve the milk problem in a month. The 
State government could do it in the same time. So 
could the Federal administration. The city has 
neglected it. and the State has defeated it for five 
years. You may just as well know the whole truth. 
Your city and State governments are opposed to a 
plan that offers you cheaper milk over the head of 
the milk trust, because the members of the milk trust 
furnish campaign funds for politicians, and the bar¬ 
gain is that the contributors get their money back 
through a tax on milk and other food products that 
pass through their hands. Successful politicians live 
up to their bargains. It would not be true to say 
that every man in public life is directly subject to 
this influence. Most of them know nothing about it. 
It is riot necessary, nor economic, and the trust 
wants the full value of its money. It is enough for 
them to control the leaders. You have had protests 
and riots and strikes against the cost of food. You 
have had investigations and commissions, new laws 
and liberal appropriations with promises of speedy 
relief. You have even had indictments, fines and im¬ 
prisonment of offenders. The files of the city and 
State bulge with the records, but you have had no 
relief from the middleman’s demands. Is the reason 
now plain? Your committees and your organizations 
have only a fraction of the strength of the State. 
The whole State is stronger than any of its parts, 
and whether Republicans or Democrats are in con¬ 
trol, the State is against you and defeats you. 
Do not be longer misled. Formulate a plan and a 
policy for an economic distribution of food. See that 
your candidates for the Legislature and Governor 
pledge themselves to these plants in writing before 
you nominate them, and elect the men who are 
pledge themselves to these plans in writing before 
the State is against you. you will lose. Get it on 
your side and you will win. If 3 'ou approach the 
work on the square, farmers will help you, because 
they have suffered longer than you have from the 
prevailing system, and they have a common interest 
with you in the economic distribution of milk. 
Going the Betts Election One Better 
At a meeting of Wolcott Grange November 15, the 
following resolution was adopted, and the secretary di¬ 
rected to mail a copy to every Grange in Wayne County, 
New York. 
Whereas, in the election just past, notwithstanding 
some wavering on the part of some of our members 
who were apparently unwilling to sever political affilia* 
tions, even though by adhering to party they acted 
adversely to their own interests and the interests of 
all farmers and Grangers, it was demonstrated that the 
farmers and Grangers, by standing and voting together, 
could have procured the election of one of their own 
number to represent them in the State Legislature, 
Be it resolved that we urge all farmers and Grangers 
to disregard political affiliations in the future and to 
unite, act and vote together for the advancement and 
protection of their own interests, financial and other¬ 
wise. 
If those of us who wavered, whose devotion to boss 
ruled political parties blinded them to their own in¬ 
terests. and those of us who believed that the bosses’ 
hold on this county was too strong to be broken and 
did not vote, had joined us. we would have been vic¬ 
torious, and boss rule in this county would have 
been ended. 
At the 1920 election there are to be filled in this 
county the offices of county judge, county clerk- sheriff, 
coroner and member of Assembly, and in the districts 
member of Congress and State Senator. 
We are a Granger county and a Granger Congres¬ 
sional and Senatorial district, and we have in the 
Grange many able and upright men. competent to fill 
these offices, and we have the numbers to elect these 
men to office if we stand and vote together. Why 
should we allow a few men to get together in secret 
and farm out the public offices, and say who shall 
represent us and for whom we shall vote? We have 
the votes that elect men to office, why should we not 
choose the men for whom we are to vote? 
Think it over. MRS. judd clark, 
_ Secretary. 
The National .Grange Meeting 
The National Grange closed its session Nov. 2. after 
a 10 days’ session which in some respects has been the 
most momentous in the history of this 53-years-old 
farmers’ fraternity. The election of S. J. Lowell of 
New York for National Master, the decision to return 
a flat declination to the invitation of Samuel Gompers 
to join in a semi-political conference with laboi’. and 
the decision to refuse to join the National Board of 
Farm Organizations, and remain in its own legisla¬ 
tive office, separate and independent, were the out¬ 
standing features of the session. 
Toward the close of the meeting, several strong reso¬ 
lutions were adopted. One of these aproved the prin¬ 
ciples of national construction of a national system of 
highways. Another disapproved the continued Govern¬ 
ment ownership or operation of merchant marine and 
the railroads. Another stated decisively the opposi¬ 
tion of the Grange to the exploitation of public re¬ 
sources in private hands, and for leasing on terms not 
to exceed 25 years. Another declared for forestation 
of all public domain suitable, and demanded enforce¬ 
ment of lumbering regulations to protect timber growth. 
Still another resolution pointed out the diversion of 
Smith-Lever funds away from agricultural education, 
toward city vocations, and urged action which would 
give one-room country schools some benefit both in 
agricultural and home economics. 
A single strong resolution adopted near the close 
of the session set down the Grange economic dictum, 
that the place where the farmer must make his stand 
for ecouomic justice is at the point where lie sells the 
product of his labor—that the farmer’s price for his 
products must be cost of production as evidenced by 
the general average of such cost, plus a fair profit. 
Officers were installed Nov. 7. Increased financial 
support was secured by a new financial program, and 
arrangements perfected to continue the Washington 
office with increased support. Worthy Master S. J. 
Lowell has pledged himself to the most active cam¬ 
paign for the extension of the order, and membership 
drives in many Grange States. The watchword for 
the coming year is to be “The vision of a doubled 
membership.” A . , 
