New-York tribune., 1912-01-28


DON'T know just who II was that I'D
Grated the above bit of profound Wis
Z dom but that isn't the present ques-
ton, anyhow There are few among US
that could afford to resort 10 butter stran-
gulation If it became necessary to execute
household pets as long as the price Of the
breadspread remains up yonder where II
Is II would be almost as uneconomical to
have the family diamonds ground into fine
dust hold il to the doomed animals nose
and let him sneeze himself ecstatically into
eternity.
The retail price has been enjoying the
rareied air up around the 5O-cent-a-pound
mark in New York City. In the suffering
suburbs that cling to the skirts of our city
It has even been three and four cents
higher.
And that isn't half ALL" add the dealers
serenely Butter is going right on up
This is merely the first step. 1t is out for
an altitude record. You may expect to
see it and eat it at 65 cents before the
outdoor roses blossom again
But as TO the dealers having any hand
or profit in the Installations
The answer doesn't half satisfy the in
dignant women of New York who have be-
gun the great butter boycott Some butter
bsron-doesn't the word lend itself grace
fully TO allteration?--is trying to do the
pstten act to the defenceless market ii is
being nanhandled and manipulated guam
titles of the popular wheat cake lubricant
is being held behind the Close-mouthed
doors of local frigidity plants. That docile
worm, the Ultimate Consumer, has turned
again. He's becoming vicious of late.
As to whether the boycott will succeed
in bringing back the kiting butter prices
TO solid earth time alone will tell Ana
time is mighty good at keeping secrets.
You NAV recall that a few years hence
sudden aero tendency Of meat prices irri-
tated the aforementioned worm into a
similar boycott outbreak. But it passed
without causing any Of the Chicago pork
nobility to mortgage their bizarre palaces
on the Lake Shore Drive.
Mrs Julian Heath. of No. West 91st
street launched the New York butter boy
colt last week. Mrs. Heath is president
OF the Housewives League a movement
not a club mind you-a movement to
uphold the enforcement Of the pure food
laws and to do everything possible to put
a brake on the runaway cost Of living.
The butter boycott was the first move Of
the league which was organized only two
months ago. In Pittsburgh, a prominent
steel and millionaire centre of the Middle
West. a butter boycott was started at
about the same time. The Pittsburgh
women have called mass meeting, which
will hurl the usual resolutions Of protest
against the prchibitive price of contem-
porary butter If it hurts like that in the
city of spectacular spenders, you may
easily realize that it is time to get exceed
ingly busy here in New York, where the
millionaires are fewer per capita
New York commission men declare that
they have fractured none of the sacred
provisions OF the Jaw of supply and de-
mand The rise in the price of butter is
Just as natural, considering conditions, as
the habit sparks have of flying upward.
There is butter famine, they say. Even
the loafers who hang around West street
saloons hoping not to find work can tell
you that. Any chance passer along Har-
rison street can explain il all TO you and
cite kilometres of armor-plated statistics
to prove it.
Harrison street and its clattering vicinity
is the home Of the butter and egg trade
Of New York 1t is district whose air
is pleasantly tainted with a strong smell
of wholesale coffee and where sidewalks
are impossible to everything but crates,
barrels and wagons. 1t Is here that
the yellow output Of a million scattered
churns is gathered and distributed to the
hot rolls of the city.
Here you will find the deadly middleman
the much-attacked middleman who is TO
blame for many Of the evils that cramp
the range of the shrunken dollar. He gets
the blame for about everything from zero
weather TO the prevalence of the unholy
turkey trot." To the naked eye, however,
he appears as human as the rest of US
ne has the same number Of eyes, ears.
feet and everything His frank opinion
OF the Great Butter Boycott, in nutshell
form, is:
Pooh pooh!'
Boycott exclaimed J. r. Pratt, one
Of the Harrison street commission mer-
chants That won't help or hurt prices.
People aren't going to forego butter as
long as they want it and can afford it."
But the wholesale price is off a couple
OF cents to-day" It was respectfully sug-
gested.
That's because the receipts were a little
stronger than usual. There is nothing 10
the charge that some plunger is operating
the butter market to get corner on 1t;
butter is TOO slippery a product 10 lend
itself TO speculation anyhow. Here are
few figures that will show the sky-high
prices are due solely to a shortage"
He produced weekly paper that devOtes
two pages TO produce and vegetables. II
showed that i'm thirty-eight storage houses
to the east of Chicago the receipts since
May were 3.57S,64O pounds less than for
the same time last year. A considerable
bit of butter, my countrymen! 1t would
butter shaft Of buckwheat cakes as high
as the Metropolitan Tower, and there
would be enough over to soften a chain of
morning toast from the Battery to Boston
IL you prefer an exciting illustration or
your butter statistics.
And also. continued the Ananias-proof
figures, l,2S7.l4O more pounds of the So
called golden edible had been exported to
Europe since May than had ridden across
during corresponding period the year
before Added 10 this were some 1852
pounds sent TO other short-o butter con-