The Washington times., 1913-02-03
THE PROBLEM OF OUR MILK.

were onerous and difficult. They have very gener
ally been willing, however to meet the requirements
provided all others who ship to Washington snouls
be subjected to like restrictions, just as rgorousl,
enforced. - 49, So.
The difficulty with the milk problem is that it il
become interstate affair. Washington draws mill
from Maryland, Virginia, Pennsylvania, and New
York, and not an unimportant part of cream come:
in some seasons from Ohio.
The nearby producer, being right under the eye
of District authority must live up to regulations a.
to sanitary conditions tberculn test of his stock
cleanliness, ETC. He can do this only by making hi:
milk more costly to produce; and the only way he
can be compensated is to get higher price for it.
But when it comes to getting that higher price
he finds himself in competition with the more distant
sources of supply which are not under the intimate
supervision of the Washington authorities Indeed
the claim is insistently advanced that these distant
producers raise milk under conditions which fre
quenty make their competition, despite their Longer
haul, a serious matter to the adjacent producer.
1t isn't difficult to make sanitary regulations add
cent quart to the cost of producing milk. Blu,
when that more expensive milk must be sold in com
petition with an article produced without the added
expense of complying with such regulations the
cose-at-hand producer is actually placed at a very
real disadvantage. ~
These conditions need only to be stated to make
it apparent that the milk question is essentially an
interstate one II is on all fours with meat inspec.
ton and pure food regulations State and local con.
troll in those fields proved unsatisfactory, and ma
tional authority had to be invoked in order properly
to protect the public. The situation as to milk is
similar
Recognition of this fact has led to the summon
ing of an interstate conference which will be held in
New York this week. at which commissioners named
by the governors of States all the way from Massa.
chusetts to Maryland will discuss the problem Their
effort, it is stated, will be directed toward uniform
State legislation.
With utmost respect for the prerogatives of the
States it may be worth while to observe in this con-
nection, as has been proven by experience in many
Others that uniform State legislation is an attractive
vision, an evanescent mirage of legislative future
that never is reached. There isn't any chance of
getting uniform State regulation. In the matter of
milk for instance, differences in climatic conditions
as between New Hampshire and Maryland make it
utterly impossible to place such regulations on
uniform basis. The question is altogether prac-
teal one, and has need to be considered by practical
men. Gentlemen with very firm ideas about the
tubercun test and the necessity for stiff regu-
lations enforcing cleanliness, would very gener-
ally be unsuccessful if they set out as managers of
dairy establishments. They know one side of the
problem, and don't know the other
There are few more difficult problems of the near
future in this eastern country tnan that of milk Ii
cannot be solved by the application of formulas
based the record of thermometers and test tubes
1t has got to be solved by the introduction of the
best experience of men who know all about raising
milk and earning living by it.
The interstate conference is step in the right
direction. 1t may accomplish some good. But the
fact remains that milk, like so many other practical
affairs, knows State lines, cannot be handled sat
isfactorily under State regulation and will one day
have TO be subject of interstate-o nationai-ree
ulation. The sooner that TACT is recognized and
practical effect gwen to it, the sooner conditions will
improve.
The Department of Agriculture has conducted
some very useful inquiries into the milk business in
various cities but there has been no very satisfactory
general survey and correlation of the scattered facts
thus brought together as to different cities, their
sources of supply, organizations for marketing and
distribution, etc. Such general study of the whole
field as great unity is much needed, and it should
be made by Federal authority
There are wide and, on the whole, utterly mex
cusable differences between the primary price paid
for milk at different markets The Agricultural De-
partment's recent publications about conditions in
Chicago for instance, show clearly that that city is
in tine grip of distribution trust which menaces the
city with milk famine if it is not curbed. The
trust arbitrarily dictates prices without reference to
anything save the ancient rule of what the traffic
will bear" As result producers for the Chicago
market have lately been threatening strike, just as
Boston experienced boycott a couple of years ago.
"Exclamatory" Was Right
Mrs Mason's colored washerwoman Martha, was COM
Of berh hush health