Norwich bulletin., 1916-06-17
HOW TO BEAT THE COMMERCIAL ovERLoRDs

Cwritten Specially for The BuIletin.)
 As I have said many times, am not a cattle man. keep but one COW and sell no milk, unless now and then a quart or two to help out tempor- arfly wanting neighbor. have found that, with my conditions and sur roundings. considering the price of grain and the quantity I should have to buy, milk at even five cents a quart leaves me but a small margin of profit mot enough to insure against acci- dental shortages and unexpected losses.
 Of course, this does not mean that no farmer can produce milk at fair profit. Conditions are not identical and some neighbor might very likely have a farm so made up that it would enable his dairy herd to pay well at such price for its output.
 But two cents and seYen-tenths .
 That's the price which the milk lords of Chicago offered their vassals On the 13000 milk farms supplying Chicago for this summers milk, de- livered to them.
 Then they sold it to their other vas sals of the tenement districts for eight cents a quart, or five cents a pint.
 The very statement of those two facts makes me almost red-hot. The Illinois farmer bears all the cost and takes all the risks of production; fur nishes all the plant and all the sup stables and silos: raises the crops; buys the extra grain needed; feeds and cares for and milks the cows; puts the milk into his own cans and hauls 1t with his own team to the rail- road or the city. In other words, he al "a wal 1rta fc fyo ,o product.
 And he is offered two and seven tenths of a cent a quart for it.
 Then the milk lord takes it to your door and pours it out of his can into yours and gets eight cents a quart ten cents if you're so hard up that you can afford only a pint at a time.
 That is, you pay two and seven tenths cents for your quart of milk and five and three tenths cents quart for having it handed to you. This is very much like going into a restaurant ordering a twenty five cent lunch. and paying the waiter a dollar tip. for bringing it to you from the
 Such performance would be quite sas sensible.
 By a widespread and concerted TO- volt the Chicago Milk Producers have recently succeeded in forcing their 'over-lords of the milk peerage to pay them something like haIf-a-cent more per quart. The story of their fight is told by their president in The Rural New Yorker, and it is mighty inter- estin' readin'.
 As an illustration of the unprofta- bleness of dairying at the prices of fered, he says conditions were so bad that land held at S1T5 an acre could be rented for only $4 an acre. Even at that rate of rent "only farmers with large families of working children liv- ing most of the day in the COW barns and with mothers who were equal to men in milking and cleaning out sta 'hles could make ends meet and pay rent even when they labored 14 cents day"
 When at last revolt broke out against this unbearable state of af- fairs one simply horrible condition was found to exist in some places Says President Swift: I've found places where the dairymen were afraid They were without spirit and like whipped CUTS. They had been punish ed at the milk plants when they show. ed any independence by having theil milk refused, and without means oi obtaining a market elsewhere the mill became almost loss. When they were sufficiently humbled they were z taken back and the way they bowed and lifted their hats to the manager. of those plants would remind you o. some town in a despotic country wher an official was passing. It did no seem that such conditions could b, possible in America"
 say, brother farmer. can you req,