The midland journal. (Rising Sun, Md.) 1885-1947, 1934-02-23
WHAT WE'RE YOUR PROFITS
MIR. DAIRY FARMER?

Interstate, comes to the defense of
the policies of the Interstate. He
states, "In the early days OF my ex-
perience, we produced milk, accept
ed dealers prices, paid hauling pric-
es, etc., and felt we had no alterna-
tive but to be satisfied"
Your experience, Mr.. Martin, is
exactly the experience of all farm
ers in the Philadelphia Milk Shed
for the past five to ten years.
During these same years farmers
have been demanding fundamental
changes in the policies and set-up
of the Interstate. Instead of
changing over the organization to
conform to the demands of mem
bers, these same officers, defed the
membership and continued on in the
same old way. They had cotton
away with it for so lang, that they
felt secure in anything they wanted
to do. They had no idea that
farmers would rise up and over
throw them.
So confident were these same Of
ficers that they could continue the
abuses and rackets in the milk bus
mess, that they cooperated With the
Philadelphia Milk Exchange and
wrote a Milk Code. This IS the
Code that Mr. Martin defends and
the same Code that the majority of
farmers objected to.
Conditions and prices In the Milk
Shed up to the fall of 1882 had
steadily been getting worse. There
had been six reductions i'll the price
of milk to the farmer from 1929 to
November 1882. Milk went from
S3.7S cwt. for basic OBJ milk F. o.
B. Philadelphia, to $1.9S cwt. or
from S.13 cents a quart to AIS cents
to the farmer. The retail price was
reduced from IA cents quart to 9
cents quart. A drop of i've cents.
And right here was the wonderful
service the Interstate gave to the
farmer. They permitted the dealer
to pass on to the farmer fou" of the
five cent reduction in the retail
price.
While the farmers were compel
led to take starvation prices for
milk, in many cases being as low as
two cents a quart net, how were the
milk dealers getting alone. The
net profits of the big distributors
handling IS per cent of the milk
sold in Philadelphia have just been
released by the Secretary of Agricul-
ture of the United States These
figures are for the years 1929 to
1888, as follows:
For 1929, profits were, $685.
7S4 per cent profit, 36.21%; for
1880, profits were, $6,400,335, per
cent profit, 1888; for 1881, profits
were, $5,798,354, percent profit,
35.23; for 1882, profits were, 49,
690,S59, per cent profit, 23.22; for
1888, profits were, $9,266,140, per
cent profit, Pill. Total profits for
the five years were $24,751,972, and
the per cent profit was 1916.
How many Lancaster county da-
iirymen or dairy farmers elsewhere
made a naverage net profit OF 1915
per cent on their investment, after
paying taxes, insurance, interest,
writing off depreciation and all
other expenses, and paying them
selves $4,000 year salary for
managing their farms The milk
distributors did.
Instead, most Lancaster county
dairymen did not receive a price for
their milk that returned even the
costs of producing it.
Under the Milk Code that Inter
State and the milk dealers prepared,
the high profits of the dealers were
protected and all of the abuses were
continued and many new rackets
were introduced. Secretary Wal
lace listened to the farmers who pro-
tested against this Code, and with
drew it, along with all others.
The only way dairy farmers in
this Milk Shed can hope TO obtain a
square deal, is to replace tie Inter-
State with an organization whose
sole purpose and aim is: Justice and
fair treatment for all the dairy far
mers of this Milk Shed.
w. K. MOFFETT, Pres.
Allied Dairy Farmers Asso.
1717 Bankers Trust Bldg.