Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1916-09-23
city life II every family tried to op
its own street car.
Farmers Are Praised.

OF dealing with his problems. The
farmer who digs even a respectable liv-
ing out of the soil must be, although he
| himself may not quite realize the fact,
| specialist in hundred directions. He
must be enough of an engineer to I'M
derstand' the drainage of soils, to build
/ roads; he. must understand soil and
climate and plant life; he must know
something about breeding his live
stock, must be a good deal. more than
an amateur machinist to handle his. i'm
PIGMENTS and unless he Is good deal
better business man than the average
resident of the city is willing to con-
cede, he will finally starve to death
| In spite of himself. He lives. like his
city cousin, under the eight-hour labor
that, as my good old father used to say,
the farmers rule is the rule OF eight
hours work before dinner and eient
after!
The thought of the country is to-
day turned as it never was before 70
the problem of the higher cost OF NV
ing. Those problems are going to COM
mand more and more attention, more
and more intensive effort "a at t1sl
wastes that the world is sustaining py
| reason of the war in Europe the "oria
IS learning lessons In cooperation anu
efficiency; Proposals that three years s
ago would have. looked visionary ana
hopefessly chimerical, Will seem nve
years hence to be the essence of Bour-
bon conservatism. ;.
I'VE are assured by the municipal and
also the federal authorities that there
is a very earnest desire to work with
us in the effort to establish mere IN
Washington a model system or nan
ding this problem of milk: The same
prob lem that confronts alike the pro-
Queer and the dealer here. in Wash
irgton, faces the dealer and the pro
Queer in every large city in America
Everywhere men are cropping for. a
solution of it.. Your committee Is con
WINGED that the solution lies along the
lines of municipal and unified control,
closely co-ordinated with an effect1ve
and Intelligent cooperation of the pro-
ducing community. 1t Is along these
Where Both Are Right.
1.-The milk dealers with whom we have
conferred expressed thet view that pro-
ducers7 would not be required to sign
new contracts for the winter season,
if they don't want, to sign. A large
share of milk is marketed without the
formally of contracts apparently as
satisfactory s when contracts are sign =.
ed. The producers seem to doubt II
contract has any particular advantage,
and the dealers insist that 1t has no
force that advantages them. The CON-
mittee concluded tnaL DOtn OedieTS anu
consumers were right.
at is the belief of the committee that
an effort at milk strike would be
| inadvisa BILE, unfortunate and Injurious
Ito producers and public alike. The
dealers smiled rather cynically when
| asked what they would do If this con-
] vention should resolve and agree not to
! ship after October l. except at price
! of "a cents They said they would get
| their milk from most producers, just
] = ~ Hr,n Gar va~ 70 he
| of 80 per cent of his receipts; none
feared a serious reduction. The COM
mittee does not believe that strike
would succeed, nor that II it did sue
| coed it would ultimately better condi-
| lions. It would array public; opinion
| against the producers, would invite i'm
| portation of milk from long distances.
and give opportunity for the condensed
milk and powdered milk people to in
| wade this market. Il "a
| ION the other hand your committee is
convinced that the state of the milk in
| dustry is bad, and that improvement is
| going to be slow. 1t believes that every
| farmer who. after careful considera-
| he can do SO without an immediate and
| serious sacrifice, should quit raising
| milk for the market.
TT should be done deliberately, every
| farmer acting for himself. Cooperative
creameries could be esta biished in
many neighborhoods to produce butter,
! on which the price has advanced. The
| farmer would have his skim left to feed
| hogs, which recently touched prices
| higher than ever before since the. civil
| war. Grains, hogs, sheep. beef. all offer
| opportunities more attractive today,
and likely to be more satisfactory for a
| long time in the future. than milk pro-
, duction There Isl too much competi-
ton among the farmers In milk pro-
| duetion. They are losing money on it,
but they keep on producing: The deal
ers expressed the opinfon7 thIt by Christ
| mas more milk womd. be coming to
Washing on than ti1e'market would de-
| mand. Your committee unanimously
opposes anything like coercion; it most
earnestly recommend determined
sincere. persistent effort to substitute
other and more profitable staples for
milk. II you raise hogs or steers or
wheat, you have the stable, organized
and sure market of a whole world that
was never. SO, hungry as it is today. If