The Birmingham age-herald., 1923-03-02
A Timely Editorial
The Filled Milk Bill
(New York Commercial)

AS If 1t were a matter of the most tremendous importance, the senate of the United States has spent q great deal of time Tn maneuvering to obtain or retain the place on the calendar for what is known as the filled milk bill. This is the perni- cious legislation which has come up from time to time in the various states and which has been enacted in some of them and has been be- fore congress several times and which the farm bloc seems now de- termined to pass. On the face of it it is pure food legislation; in ac- tual fact it is a trade war between two large milk concerns, which has been carried into the lawmaking bodies of the country for no other reason than to maintain trade su- premacy.
 Filled milk is a product made of skinned milk and vegetable oil, or, in other words, milk from which butter fats have been removed and which were replaced with vegetable fats. The bill declares it to be an unwholesome and adulterated pro- duct. If the bill passes it viii be legally so, but not actually. Skinned milk and vegetable oil in combination is not an unwholesome product, and being sold for actually what it is, it is not adulterated. The claim is made that it is not suitable for infant food. That is agreed to and every can of the pro- duct is so labeled. It is intended for cooking purposes only. There are great many products suitable for cooking purposes that are not suitable for infants food. No one denies that skinned milk by itself wholesome. No one denies that CO., conut oil is wholesome. In combi- nation they could only be unwholet some if by virtue of the combina- ton there should be produced some chemical change. This, of course, IS absurd. The assumption is that congress proposes 70 protect the health of the community by pre- venting the mixture of vegetable oil and skinned milk. To be consist ent, therefore, it mus; also prohibit the housewife from baking cake be- cause she mixes cooking oil (vege- table fats) with milk in her baking. II they are not unwholesome when the housewife puts them together they are not unwholesome when they are put together scientifically Tn modern milk canning plant.
 About the only argument that is raised in congress in behalf of the milk bill is that if used exclusively for infants food the infant will not have a complete diet, but as has been pointed out there are other items on the food list which if fed to infants without other foods will produce unfavorable results. It is curious that so much legislation should be necessary on behalf of in- fants when it is specifically stated that it is. not an infant food at all Only an ignorant mother would use 1t for that purpose, put if she were as ignorant as that she would prob ably feed the infant other still more unWholesome foods.
 The seriousness of the proposition lies in the fact that it is a masked effort to reduce competition pre- sumably in behalf or the dairy in- terests, thus securing the support of the farm bloc, but actually narrow irg down to the endeavor on the part of one alrge milk concern to force the product of another large milk concern off the market. Re duced to it's lowest terms it is ex- actly that and the congress of the United States is being used as a catspaw.