Harrisburg telegraph. [volume] (Harrisburg, Pa.) 1879-1948, 1917-03-03


[ among cattle tests dairy cows. When
| q COW is found to be diseased 1t is
condemned. If worth $50 the con-
demning State official appraises 1T and
the State then sends its owner check
| for so per cent. of the appraised value.
The beautiful theory on which this
form of gift giving fiourishes at pub
lie expense is based on the idea that
the State, to save the animal industry
from the ravages of disease, should
Gull out and kill the tubercular cow
and at once encourage it's owner to
buy a healthy cow in it's place by hand
| ing him a generous donation from the
State treasury.
For many years the Department of
Agriculture of New York State has
been playing this role of fairy god
mother to the farmer" But since
| 1910 less than per cent. of the cows
of the State have been tested. OF
this small number tested so many
have been condemned that the State
has found it necessary to pay to the
farmer" $SS9,000.
From the 95 per cent. untested
| thousands of diseased cows are ship
ped annually into Connecticut, New
Jersey, Pennsylvania, and as far west
as the Pacific coast, thus spreading
and west.
My readers know that thousands of
these cows that should have been con-
demned found their way to slaughter
houses, where, in Brooklyn alone, in
1916, $1,000 such animals were pre-
pared, with the help of corrupt offic-
ials, for food purposes.
The facts should alarm every State
, in the Union. In seven years $4,000
cows have been tested in New York,
weeded out, and theoretically made
safe. But /, ,425,000 cows go right on
with their spreaders of disease uni
detified and uncontrolled.
1t may enlighten the average anna
teur, who suspects little and knows
less concerning the operations of in
visible government, to learn that in
New York State the $SS9,000 distrib-
uted for the purpose of encouraging
the farmer to build up healthy herds
did not go to the farmer at all, but
to politicians, influential lawyers,
bankers, and cattle dealers with po-
litical pull.
Had the States beautiful theory
been applied to the real farmer in
stead of to few favored politicians,
twenty times this sum, or $17,7S0,000,
would have been necessary in order
to reimburse the owners of danger
and thus enable them to clean up
their dairy herds.
These unclean dairy herds are now
supplying the milk of the country and
thus constitute an issue which vitality
concerns every inhabitant of the
United States.
If twenty sewers were pouring their
infection into a stream of drinking
water and the people spent $3.50 to
plug up one of the injecting sewers,
leaving nineteen of them to continue
their work of contamination, it could
be said of such performance, This is
deadly and expensive joke"
Yet the situations are parallel.
Every dollar of money spent in tu-
berculosis indemnities has been squan-
dered by reason of the fact that it
has been spent in plugging up but
one-twentieth of the sources of infec-
ton, leaving nineteen similar sources
to continue undisturbed their work of
defilement.
The farmer, believing himself to be
the beneficiary of the distribution of
these indemnifying moneys, makes no
complaint against the system on which
they are based.
The taxpayer, who does not bother
his head about the affair, makes no
complaint.
1t may be possible, however, when
I
sums of money, which are supposed
to be utilized in lettering the condi-
| ton of his animal industry are in
reality divided among a few influen-
| tial persons who are not farmers at
all, he may be moved at last to ask
his official friends, advisers, and lead
ers why their oratory ignores, the
truth. ,
The criminal aspect of this sort of
folly is found in the fact that the
State officials who distribute the in
IDENTITIES have for years accepted the
certificates of veterinarians who are
not only not licensed, but who are
known by the officials not to be Ii
censed.
The country is full of such prac-
titioners. There are nearly a hundred
of them operating in New York City
alone, where thousands of dollars of
State money reach the owners of glan-
dered horses every year.
Twenty of these illegal operators
! through private effort have been pros
ecuted and convicted, but the officials
go on braZenly in accepting the certi-
! ficates of the remainder.
Thus have been developed groups of
privileged dealers who buy up re-
jected animals for a song, obtain their
official condemnation, have them Off
| cially appraised and then collect the
| taxpayers cash through the indemni-
ties provided by law.