The Telegraph-courier. [volume] (Kenosha, Wis.) 1888-1946, 1909-05-06
Last Of Milk Dealers in kenosha
County Have Signed Contracts
With Chicago Companies
BRISTOL LAST TO CAPITULATE4
Farmers Sign Contracts at Lower
Rate Than Formerly Offered to
Them by the Borden Com
pany This Season


The fight Of the Milk Producers
Union against the big Chicago milk
companies is at an end and it has been
a losing fight for the newly formed
Milk Producers Union. It is an
nounced today that the Borden Com
pany on Friday closed up the last CON
tracts with the milk shippers of Bristol
and as a result the victory is entirely
with the big Chicago companies. The
future of the Union is in doubt as the
first fight has been lost and it is
probable that in the future the milk
shippers among the farmers will fight
a little shy Of any organization until
it can be shown that this organization
can make good. The Union still has
it's organization, but the leaders of the
move in Kenosha county, many if not
all Of whom have signed the contracts
offered by the Borden and the Bowman
milk companies, admit that its useful
ness is at an end.
The milk shippers of Bristol proved
that they had more stamina than any
of the other dealers who went into the
Union and it should be said for their
credit that they were the last to capitu-
late to the big chicago companies. The
shippers in Bristol held out for over a
month after contracts had been signed
by nearly all of the shippers in the
county outside of that town and now
they have realized that it is useless to
make further fight and they have sign
ed up contracts for the coming six
months The contracts call for the
companies to pay an average price of
$1.182-3 per hundred pounds for the
next six months.
This is the original proposition made
| to the farmers by the representatives
Of the Bowman and Borden companies
but the contracts which have been sign
ed within the last few days provide
that the farmers must take back the
skinned milk at door weight at the
rate of II cents per hundred pounds
This provision was not made in the
original contracts offered by the Chi
cage companies and while the farmers
claim that the skinned milk is worth
many Of them have no use for it and
for this reason their average price for
| 1t is said that two or three of the
milk shippers of the town of Bristol
are still holding to the Union principles
and the Union scale and these men have
declared that they will retire from the
milk business rather than sign the con
tracts now offered. AS the Chicago
companies are getting all the milk
they can handle at the price they die
tated it is not probable that any effort
will be made to get these other con
tracts.
The failure of the Producers Union
has come as a great disappointment to
the farmer milk shippers in this coun
ty. 1t was thought that the organiza
ton was so thorough that it could not
fail to attain the ends desired and Sc
cure an increase in the price of milk
but when it came to- the crisis the
Union could not take care of it's mem
bers. 1t was found impossible to dis
pose of the milk and the producers
faced a big loss which they could not
afford. A large proportion of the men
in the Union were forced to depend on
the sale of their milk for running ex
penses and these men found it impossi
BILE to get anything out of the promises
of the Union leaders. They were sim
ply forced in order to get money to live
on to sign contracts with the Chicago
companies.
It is said that new effort will
be made at the expiration of the pres
ent contracts to secure an increase In
price, but that at that time the matter
will be taken up with the companies
by the individual shippers rather than
by an organized Union.