Evening star., 1934-10-23
Consumer-P Association
Proposed to Combat ''Milk Trust

tented with small salaries. As an
illustration, the president Of widely
known consumer cooperative in
Scotland receives a salary of $38
q week as compensation for directing
the activities of an organization ham
ding over $50,000, 900 worth Of goods
annually. One great milk company
in New York City does a distributing
business of considerable less value,
but has remunerated its president
as high as S175,000 annually or ap-
proximately S3,400 week. The men
talities of these two men differ widely
one thinks in terms of service to
his fellow consumers, the other in
terms of control and profits.
The largest cooperative organiza-
tion in Great Britain does an annual
business in excess of 5000, 900, ,000-it
owns and operates shoe factories, tex
tile mills, the largest food-processing
plant in England, coal mines, steam
ship companies, insurance companies,
banks, loan societies, tea and coffee
plantations in distant lands. The
theory is to draw q direct line from
where the goods are produced or
grown to the consumer, eliminating
middle men, brokers and statesmen.
The history of these organizations
in the British Isles is indeed an in
Spiration to those whose hopes have
faded and who have resigned them
selves to the MS adjustments of our
economic and social order. A care
full study of the volumes which have
been written on the subject and
thorough analysis of them would be
most helpful to those public spirited
citizens who plan to devote their en-
ergy to the problem Of reducing the
cost Of living.
The time is undoubtedly ripe for
the formation of a true consumer
producer association in Washington
for the sole purpose of distributing
milk. 1t is feared, however, that the
proposed idea of such an association
has been too hastily brought together.
It has not been demanded by a suffl-
cient number Of serious minded citi-
zens. The most successful co-opera-
tive association was started by con-
sumers who found themselves with
their backs to the wall, deprived Of
the bare necessities of life due to the
high cost Of such items as food and
clothing, which prices were fixed by
combination and uncontrolled monop-
olies. They possessed grim detern1i-
nation to find better way OF market
ing goods and were more resolute in
seeking that objective than in inter-
rupting the existing trade practices.
There is no record Of their tossing
their problem in the laps Of govern
mental bureaucrats to solve nor did
they cry aloud for an investigation.
They set out quietly, without cere-
mony, reSorting to neither buncombe
nor bluff, and with capital of $l40
built up q consumer-producer associa-
ton which is today carrying on
business for its members that Is ex-
ceeded in value by few commercial
corporations in the world.
The ultimate success Of this par
ticular movement in Washington will
depend In no small degree on the
sponsors of the idea. If thought orig
mated in the minds of a group OF
consumers of high character, who, on
their initiative, banded themselves to-
gether, resolving to get to the core
of the present milk problem and deal
directly with the milk producer, even
though 1t may be temporarily incon-
venient, the odds favor success. On
the other hand, II sponsored by a
group who have never personally felt
the pinch of want and suffering as a
result of paying the excessive exac-
tions of the milk trust, the movement
will undoubtedly wind up as failure,
resulting in a setback to the theory.
In my humble opinion the sponsors OF
this consumer producer alliance are
working entirely on the theoretical