Troubled Milk

The first and second cities of the land were last week having trouble about milk --New York because upState producers were on strike, Chicago because independent dairymen were bitterly opposing the Federal Government's price-fixing program.

New York's disturbance centred in the region of the fertile Mohawk Valley which winds eastward across the State. 200 mi. north of the city. By regulation of the State Milk Control Board created last winter by the Legislature, the dairy farmers in this as in other sections of the State are paid on a sliding scale of prices, depending upon whether the milk is to be used for drinking (4 3/4 per qt.) or to go into ice cream, cheese or butter (1 1/2). Independent farmers, complaining that they received an average of only 2-c- per quart and irked by the Milk Board's refusal to allow them a better price, last week canceled their deliveries, went on strike. They demanded the abolition of the classified price system, a blanket rate of 45% of the retail price or approximately 5-c- a quart. The strikers dumped their milk into troughs and ditches, set up pickets to prevent non-strikers from making deliveries. Boonville, 27 mi. north of Utica, became the focal point of disorder which finally required the armed services of most of the State Police. Some 400 farmers with axes and clubs blocked the passage of two Dairymen's League trucks escorted by a score of police cars. The officers hurled tear-gas bombs, clubbed the farmers. Just outside Boonville three trucks carrying 285 cans of milk were stopped by strikers and the milk poured onto the ground. At Van Hornesville, 50 mi. from Boonville, the pickets seized and dumped three cans of milk from the farm of Owen D. Young. Next day the strike spread into southern and western New York where 10,000 dairy farmers, including members of the potent Rutland Co-operative Association, withheld deliveries. Alarmed, the Milk Board promised to alter its regulations, announced that, if necessary, the State would go outside its present "milkshed" (Connecticut, Pennsylvania, Massachusetts, Vermont, New York, New Jersey and Maryland) for additional supplies. New York City's Health Commissioner warned that he would extend the city inspection service as far west as Wisconsin if the milk supply was curtailed. The strikers answered that if the "milkshed" was extended they would extend the strike, 'make it nationwide. Governor Lehman in a special message to the Legislature urged an investigation to determine whether the Milk Board should be abolished. Said he: "The Legislature created the board solely with the desire to help the dairy farmers. . . . There is no use in continuing an agency at great cost to the taxpayers if it is not found to be helpful ... is fought by the very people who requested its creation."

In Chicago, the Independent Milk Dealers of Northern Illinois were last week seeking an injunction against the licensing provisions of a district milk marketing agreement which Secretary of Agriculture Wallace had drawn up and a majority of the distributors in the area had signed. This agreement fixed the minimum retail price at 10-c- per quart beginning Aug. 1. Dealers selling milk at less were made liable to revocation of their Federal licenses and subject to a fine of $1,000 a day. The Independent Dealers objected to the 10-c- minimum price on the ground that it allowed no differential between the price of delivered milk and milk sold on a cash-&-carry basis. They leveled their attack on the constitutionality of federal licensing powers under the Agricultural Adjustment Act. Their case will be heard by Federal Judge James Herbert Wilkerson who declared last week: ''I will not hesitate to throw out the milk code if it is unconstitutional, arbitrary or unfair."

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