New-York tribune. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1866-1924, 1917-08-07
Representatives Of 400 Or.
carnations Denounce
Measure
To Support Governor
Committee Will Go to AL.
bany To-day to Oppose
Bill at Hearing

One hundred clubwomen Of this city
held an Indignation meeting in the City
Hall yesterday. The women represent
cd nearly 400 organizations, and assem-
hled in response to a call from the
Mayors Food Aid Committee 10 discuss
the Brown food bill pending before the
special session OF the Legislature. The
Brown bill was denounced as sham
by George W. Perkins, who presided
and the women agreed with him. A
committee will go TO Albany to-day to
attend the first public hearing on the
Brown bill and oppose IT, The women
pledged all their organizations to sup
port Governor Whitman in his fight for
effective food control legislation.
Demand Full Food Control
The Food Aid Committee held q
meeting prior to the afternoon session
of the clubwomen, and passed the fol-
lowing resolution, which was also
adopted at the afternoon meeting:
Resolved, That it is the sense Of
this meeting that the bill now being
considered by the Legislature will be
wholly ineffective in bringing about re-
lief Of conditions caused by high prices
Of food; that we demand such leg,sla-
tion as will give full authority, without
qualification. TO a commission to buy
and sell food in such quantity as will
reduce and stabilize prices; that we
demand legislation that shall give full
authority to commission TO establish
storage plants and markets; that we
request our respective members OF the
Legislature TO vote for such legislation
as will give this authority"
The resolution was signed by the
members of the advisory committee Of
the Food Aid Committee and fifty dis
trict organizers of the committee
throughout the city.
Mr.. Perkins told the women that they
should get back of the Governor in his
fight against the "old guard" food bill
introduced in the Legislature. They
should concentrate their energies to
bring about two things principally. he
said. First, to get POWER from the Leg
islature to buy food and. sell it to the
consumer when the occasion requires
it, and, second, TO provide the people
with cold and dry storage warehouses,
in which foodstufs may be carried over
70 times when they are not plentiful.
lie said it was also very desirable to
have better terminal facilities and to
establish public markets.
Calls Bill Scrap Of Paper
Mr.. Perkins declared the Brown bill
was mere scrap of paper, which
should be thrown into the waste basket
10 make way for something real. Copies
OF Section il of the pending bill, which
gives municipalities power to buy and
sell food only in time of famine or eX-
treme deprivation, were distributed to
the women, as well as list OF the
names of the members of both houses
from New York City. Referring to the
naming of Colonel Roosevelt, Judge
Morgan J. O'Brien and James W. Wads-
worth as the three state food commits
sioners by the war committee of the
Legislature. Mr.. Perkins declared it had
been done for blind"
"They put these .hree names into the
bill" he said, "as blind, trying to
make it appear that with men of that
character things would be in the best
possible hands. Colonel Roosevelt has
politely declined TO serve. The two
others were members of a constitu-
tional convention which recommended
a constitution that would have pre-
vented the state from having any mar
ket departments at all. If these two
men had had their way we would have
been unable to do anything in such a
crisis as confronts Us now"