Evening star., 1934-01-14
CHICAGO AMAZED
/. ByEFFECT|VENESS
OF MILK STRIKE
Many Households Deprived
of Fluid as Farmers Re.
sort to Violence.
BY RUTHWELL DUNCAN.


Special Dispatch to The Star.
CHICAGO. January l3.-Many city
homes throughout Northern Illinois
thousands in Chicago-went milk-dry
when dairy farmers Of this State, of
Northern Indiana and Southern Wis
consin declared a strike in protest
against q threatened cut in prices.
There were wise householders, equipped
with adequate refrigeration, who laid
in q supply Of milk when the storm
signals were first hung out. Others had
to resort to substitutes. Condensed,
powdered and matted milk sales doomed.
and. it is said, beer sales mounted ap-
preciably
For a year or more the strike menace
had hung over Chicago. Whenever the
Wisconsin dairy stalwarts went on the
war path there was talk of a strike
in the milk area tributary to the ILL
nois metropolis. In that area the Pure
Milk Association, with $4,000 farmer
members, Is the dominant producing
factor. It has been a conservatively
managed organization, however, and its
leaders restrained the rank and file from
sympathetic action. Not until the big
dealers in Chicago proposed to cut the
basic price from s2.10 to s1.40 did the
leaders slip the reins, and tell the boys
TO 60 to it.
Strike Amazes Chicago.
The cut proposal was the direct re-
suit Of competitive warfare between the
organized dealers and the independents,
who sell at cut-rate prices and buy
from farmers who are not members Of
the Pure Milk Association.
Chicago was amazed at the effective
ness OF the strike, and urban dwellers
wondered at the daring ruthlessness and
lawless violence of their rural cousins.
Somebody said not long ago that Amer
lean history shows the farmers to be
more revolutionary in spirit than any
other group Of working citizens. That
point Of view got strong support from
recent happenings. Seizng milk trucks
and emptying the filled cans on country
roads or running trucks of city streets
and into the river are mild incidents
Of the past week in the Chicago region.
Pouring gasoline and carbolic acid into
milk containers standing in the barns
Of non-co-operative farmers. holding up
trains, searching them for milk and de-
stroying 1t, whether liquid or con-
densed, and, In one instance, surround
ing an airplane milk carrier and dump
ing its 60-gallon cargo, were among the
more daring deeds.
Airplanes Garry Milk.
The appearance of the airplane as
milk conveyor brought the story IF
agricultural revolt up to date. An In
planes to carry his supply In the one
instance cited, this effort literally to 20
over the heads Of the embattled farm
ers failed, when the aviator. through
engine trouble, was forced down in
corndeld.
Some observers of the situation. seek
ing to find its larger lessons, are in
clined to regard the strike as an evi-
dence of new deal folly in attempting
to apply codes in fields where they are
likely to cause more friction and con-
fusion than they are to promote the
common good Others argue that the
trouble did not lie in the regulatory
principle Of the code, but in certain
features of 1t that were Ill advised.
Some urge that the code should fix
minimum fair price for the producer,
and leave the price to the consumer
open to competitive conditions. Others
again urge that the independent deal
ers should be made to conform to dis
tribution rules and retail prices COM
mon to the whole trade
But Chicago has had demonstration
OF organized and concerted rural power,
and Of the city's dependence upon the
farmer, that, in certain of its aspects,
may not be without instructive value.
The pressing character of q funda-
mental problem has been driven home
In dramatic manner. How in a vast
country of many and varied group in
terests men and women may find a
way to live together helpfully, peace
fully and happily is the unsolved ques-
ton. The milk strike was merely one
of the more disturbing reactions in an
experimental effort to answer 1t,