Vhe RURAL NEW-YORKER 
137 
Sherman J. Lowell on the School Bill ran s e<i for us by people who do not know our life. 
Past Master of the National Grange Opposes 
S. J. Lowell, Fredonia, N. Y. 
Dear Mr. Lowell: Would you tell me, privately, if 
you do not care to do so publicly, just how you stand 
regarding this proposed rural school bill? I have heard 
all sorts of reports about your position. Some are to 
the effect that you favor the bill strongly, while others 
state that you are opposed to it. It is rather hard to 
figure out just what it all means, but I should like to 
know for my own private information just how you feel 
about it. It is evidently shaking up the State as few 
other things have done, and I think that the end of it 
ah will be beneficial, for I believe that this discussion 
of school matters, no matter how it turns out, will have 
the effect of causing our people to take greater interest 
in the school. Very truly yours, 
H. W. COLLING WOOD. 
D ear MR. COLLINGWOOD.—Your letter re¬ 
ceived. I note your request for my position in 
regard to the school bill, and stating that I am said 
by some to be in favor of the bill, and by others as 
opposed to it. 
I have refrained from taking an active part in the 
discussion going on. believing that it would be better 
if we would let the Subordinate Granges thrash the 
matter over, and when the State Grange met to set¬ 
tle the matter there, as to bow the farmers stood. 
However, as I am not an officer in any Grange, I am 
at liberty to state my convictions. 
I am strongly opposed to the passage of the bill 
in its present form, for many reasons, chief of which 
is that it is nothing but a permit for the Depart¬ 
ment of Education at Albany to make any rulings it 
may desire. Said permit may be found on page 13 
of the printed form. Section 1225. line 4: “The State 
Commissioner shall adopt rules not in conflict with 
the provisions of this act for the guidance of county 
commissions in the establishment of community dis¬ 
tricts. If it stopped there it might possibly do. but 
it doesn't do it. Here is the next .sentence: “Such 
rules shall supplement the provisions of this article 
relating to the grouping of existing school districts 
in community districts and shall prescribe the prin¬ 
ciples in accordance with which such community dis¬ 
tricts are to be established.” On same page, line IS, 
begins another statement of what they may do, re¬ 
gardless of what follows, and on line 2G begins an¬ 
other statement giving the commission power to 
change the whole thing simply by stating same to 
the “several county commissions.” 
The Commissioner, in an address at Jamestown, 
before a gathering of the teachers of Chautauqua 
County, made this statement, I am told by a teacher 
who was there: “The one-room schoolhouse must 
go.” I believe Dr. Graves is an honorable man. and 
if he made the statement quoted (and T believe he 
did), lie bad grounds to base it on, so I have read 
the bill over and over, and come to the conclusion 
that I agree with him that if this law was passed 
he could do the very thing he stated at Jamestown. 
If this idea could be carried out, I believe that 
inside of 10 years at least one-third of the farms 
of our State which lie in sections remote to towns 
will be vacated. As I am. as ever, much interested 
in the welfare of the rural folk. I could not think 
of supporting this present bill. If you care to print 
this letter you may do so, but I would like you to 
print yours to me, to show why the letter was writ- 
- ten. Fraternally yours, s. j. lowell. 
At Syracuse Jan. 31 
EPRESEXTATIYE country people in the coun¬ 
ties of Orleans, Niagara, Wayne, Ontario and 
Montgomery have joined in issuing the following 
call: 
V\ e, the undersigned, representatives of the several 
counties indicated below, hereby join in this call for a 
State conference on rural school legislation recom¬ 
mended by the Committee of Twenty-one, and embodied 
m the Downing-IIutchinson bill of 1923, and hereby re¬ 
quest the rural school patrons and taxpayers and others 
interested in the several counties of New York, which 
have not heretofore taken such action, to assemble and 
select five delegates to attend a State conference at 
Syracuse, N. Y., on the 31st day of January, 1924, with 
authority to approve or disapprove any rural school 
legislation heretofore proposed, and to recommend such 
changes in taxation and administration as to such con¬ 
ference seems desirable. 
The exact hour and place for this meeting will be 
announced in due time. The R. N.-Y. urges all its 
friends who can possibly do so to attend this confer¬ 
ence. It is a sincere effort to help solve the rural 
school question fairly and work out a sympathetic 
administration of the district school. The meeting 
will be fully democratic—all are invited, but it is 
particularly desired that country people and parents 
who are personally interested in the district school 
attend. This school question is the biggest public 
Dsue which our farmers have faced since the Civil 
War. It must be settled right. We are all tired of 
having fads and experiments worked out on us. We 
are not children, to have our thoughts and plans ar- 
We must do it ourselves, and this conference at 
Syracuse will enable us to get together and learn 
bow to do it. The It. N.-Y. expects to be there, and 
we urge every man and woman interested in rural 
schools to take this matter up. Organize county 
meetings and elect delegates—and come yourself! 
Figures for Milk Prices 
(ALLOWING the reduction in the price of milk 
for January by the Dairymen’s League Co-op¬ 
erative Association, Inc., taking effect Jan. 7, repre¬ 
sentatives of the Sheffield group met in New York 
and it was decided to continue the $2.63 price pre¬ 
viously made up to and including Jan. 15. For milk 
delivered after the 15th the price was fixed at $2.35, 
all milk. The Non-Pool Association met the No. 2 
Committee of the New York Milk Conference Board 
at the same time and established the $2.35 price on 
and after Jan. 16. The pool class 1 price is now 
$2.33 per 100 lbs. 
December Milk Pool Price 
DVICES received as we are going to press indi¬ 
cate that the Dairymen's League Co-operative 
Association, Inc., will return for December to pro¬ 
ducers, in cash, $2.10 per 100 lbs. The expenses 
amount to 8 cents, and deductions for certificates of 
indebtedness will be 5 cents, the gross being $2.33. 
The League Class 1 price for December was $2.80. 
The Sheffield Farms all milk price for December was 
$2.58. The Non-Pool price for December was $2.55. 
Henry Ford and the President 
V ERY many of our readers were sincerely desir¬ 
ous of electing Henry Ford as our next Presi¬ 
dent. The It. N.-Y. never favored this plan. We 
knew that Mr. Ford did not desire such election, and 
we felt that the duties of the office are not well suit¬ 
ed to his tastes or training. Now that Mr. Ford has 
declared himself in favor of President Coolidge, we 
have had many letters asking what effect this will 
have on the campaign. We do not know. Some of 
our people say they will take Mr. Ford’s advice and 
follow him, while others object to doing so. What 
do we mean by follow him? Mr. Ford states his case 
in the Dearborn Independent as follows: 
It_ seems as certain as such affairs can be that the 
President will be nominated and elected. He is not 
without enemies by any means, but a man may be 
judged by his enemies, and it will become more and 
more apparent as time goes on that the President’s 
enemies will mostly comprise the men who have tried to 
use him and have been rebuffed. The country is very 
sensitive to the type of men permitted to surround a 
President, and thus far the wrong type has not been 
apparent in the President’s immediate circle. This has 
gone far to give the people confidence in him. 
The question is not whether all of us agree with 
everything that the President believes and suggests. 
His beliefs and suggestions are not law, and are sub¬ 
ject to the same revisions and corrections that the be¬ 
liefs and suggestions of the rest of us are. The ques¬ 
tion is this: Is the present President a capable, honest, 
efficient, sincere, righteous administrator of the chief 
executive office of this government? If he is, and the 
agreement that he is appears to be general, why inter¬ 
fere with our march back to prosperity by stopping to 
play at polities and making an unnecessary change? 
The Cost of “Service” 
ERE is another suggestive item now passing on 
through the newspapers: 
Ini bier, Ore., Jan. 11.—One hundred and fifty farmers 
tonight sat down to dinner at a meeting here, and the 
meal cost them just 16 cents each. Nearly everything 
on the tables was the product of the farm, and the cost 
a plate was computed at the price the farmer was paid 
for his products, plus the labor cost of preparing the 
food. 
The same menu then was computed at Portland res¬ 
taurant prices and amounted to $1.55 a plate—a dif¬ 
ference of $1.39 a plate between the farmers’ price and 
the Portland retail price. The affair was intended to 
furnish an object lesson in the wide divergence between 
prices to producer and the retail prices. 
For at least five years The R. N.-Y. has been ad¬ 
vocating a new plan for teaching political economy 
at our agricultural colleges. It is to be based on 
just such figures as the above, and designed to show 
the difference between farm goods at the point of 
production and the same goods after the long string 
of handlers have taken out their toll. Such things, 
repeated over and over again, and applied to all sorts 
of products, will in time be fixed permanently in the 
brains of both producer and consumer, and then 
something will be done. Not long ago we told of a 
guest in a New York hotel who ordered a small glass 
of milk. It cost him 50 cents. The hotel proprietor 
defended this price on the claim that while the glass 
of milk cost 5 cents, the 45 cents represented “ser¬ 
vice." That very handy word was supposed to cover 
the use of napkin and glass, the wages of the waiter 
(who probably received a “tip” in addition) and a 
small part of rent, “overhead,” taxes and all the 
rest. A few weeks ago we told of the great number 
of competing stores in a small area in this city— 
each competing with the other and keeping up prices, 
when 10 per cent of these stores could fully serve 
the people. Those restaurants in Portland will 
charge all they can get for this “service.” And the 
price of it varies with the habits and tastes of peo¬ 
ple. We have told how a man can take the liver of a 
lamb and cut it in two. One piece can be served as 
li\er and bacon in a Seventh Avenue restaurant for 
35 cents. The other half may be made into an imi¬ 
tation pate de foie gras and sold on Fifth Avenue 
for $2 or more. It is “service” of one form or an¬ 
other that demands and obtains the 65 cents of the 
dollar. The farmer accepts the 35 cents because he 
permits too much of this “service” when he might do 
much of it himself. 
A 48-cent Turkey Dollar 
. Out in Manvel, N. I)., William Shane scrawled hur- 
nedly on a slip of paper and tucked it inside a turkey 
which had just become extinct for the benefit of the 
great American Christmas dinner. And having writ. 
AJ r - 8hane tossed the turkey among other bound for 
the East. 
, (t< Lfi' cbu ' z , °f. Eittle Ferry, X. J., purchased a tur- 
key. \\ ithin he found what Mr. Shane had written • 
•Dear friend.” Mr. Shane had inscribed, “I sold this 
turkey for 22 cents a pound. Please write me what vou 
paid.” 
Mr. Schulz paid 46 cents a pound. He will write. 
'T'HIS item is going through the daily papers. We 
A think Mr. Shane got off pretty well as compared 
with the usual division of the consumer’s dollar. As 
we figure it he got about 48 cents of Mr. Schulz’s 
"bone,” if we may use the common name of money, 
of course it never cost anything like 24 cents a 
Pound to bring that turkey from North Dakota and 
offer it for sale, but the record shows an improve¬ 
ment over the old 35-cent dollar. But Shane and 
Schulz are still too far apart by 10 or 15 cents. No 
one claims that Shane can step over into New Jer¬ 
sey, knock at Schulz’s back door and deliver the 
turkey direct. If some of the farmers in Northern 
New Jersey could raise turkeys that might be done, 
but those of us who live in that section know that 
tui key laising is not for us. These birds must be 
produced in some more favorable location, and there 
must be a string of handlers in between Shane and 
Schulz. Perhaps we can induce Schulz to substitute 
geese or Black Jersey Giants for turkey, but in any 
event we are all interested in cutting out at least 
half of that long string of middlemen who stand be¬ 
tween Shane and Schulz and get most of the dressing 
and white meat, while the farmer is left to gnaw the 
drumstick and the neck. The big problem is how to 
get rid of the useless middlemen. We must all admit 
that some handlers are needed, but if you leave it 
to the handlers themselves, each one will point to 
himself and say, "I am the necessary link in .the 
chain.’ The useless middleman must go, and the 
faimer must have first share in culling them out. 
Both Shane and Schulz will agree to that, “Positive¬ 
ly, Mr. Gallagher; absolutely, Mr. Shean.” 
A School Meeting in Ontario County 
The Ontario County Civic Organization held its regu¬ 
lar meeting at the courthouse in Canandaigua, Tuesday, 
Jan. S. There was a very large attendance; all seals iii 
the court room were filled. The subject brought up for 
discussion was the Downing-IIutchinson school bill 
I he discussion was led by Mr. W. S. Droman of Mid- 
dleport, Niagara County. He is a school man, and well 
versed in all school matters He said all the great 
thinkers of the past had done their thinking in the 
country away from the congested centers lie said the 
country was the best place for mind development, and 
the best work was done in some of the rural schools He 
then took the bill that was before the Legislature last 
Winter, and explained as many features of the bill as 
time would permit, showing plainly ways by which con¬ 
solidation can be brought about, although the propon¬ 
ents of the bill claim if is not a consolidation measure. 
Conditions can be so made that consolidation will neces¬ 
sarily follow. There was a lady present who cited 
some of the schools in Colorado, * Arizona and other 
States as having superior advantage over the New York 
State schools. She was replied to very forcibly bv an 
elderly man, and he then called for a vote on the reso¬ 
lution before the house. She left the room before the 
vote was taken. A rising vote was taken on a resolu¬ 
tion opposing the passage of the Downing-IIutchinson 
bill, and asked that our representatives in the Legisla¬ 
ture be urged to defeat the passage of the bill by all 
Ironorable means in their power. It passed with' but 
one dissenting vote. The proponents present expressed 
dissatisfaction that none of the proponents had been 
invited to present their side of the bill. These meetings 
are always open to the public and all legislative ques¬ 
tions are open for discussion pro and con, and are al¬ 
ways settled by a majority vote of those present. The 
proponents have the same privilege of calling the peo¬ 
ple together. A motion was carried that the secretary, 
Mrs. II. D. Converse, be sent as a delegate to Albany 
at the public hearing before a joint legislative committee 
this Winter. Owing to the lateness of the hour other 
very important business was left for a meeting to be 
called later. Our Grange committee has held 17 school 
meetings in the district, with a total attendance of 
466. There has not been one dissenting vote on any res¬ 
olution opposing the bill. We have 17 delegates ready 
to go to Albany. We expect to hold more meetings. 
H. D. C. 
