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THE ATLANTA SEMI-WEEKLY JOURNAL, ATLANTA, GA., TUESDAY, SEPTEMBER 16, 1913.
THE SEMI-WEEKLY JOURNAL
ATLANTA, GA., 5 NORTH TOBBYTH ST.
Entered at the Atlanta Postoffice as Mall Matter ot
the Second Class.
JAMES R. GRAY,
President and Editor.
SUBSCRIPTION PRICE
v
Twelve months 75e
Six months 10c
Three months 25o
The Semi-Weekly Journal Is published on Tuesday
and Friday, and is mailed by the shortest routes for
early delivery.
It contains news from all over the world, brought
by special leased wires Into our office. It has a staff
of distinguished contributors, with strong department*
of special value to the home and the farm.
Agents war ted «t every postoffioe. Liberal cons*
mission allowed. Outfit free. Write R. R- BRAD
LEY, Circulation Manager.
The only traveling representatives we have are
J. A. Bryan, R. F. Bolton. C. C. Coyle, L. H. Kim
brough and C. T. Yates. We will be responsible only
for money paid to the above named traveling repre
sentatives.
Through this council, the bankers can exercise a use
ful influence in the administration of the new sys
tem. The Government, we may be sure, will not be
slow to avail itself of their experience nor to profit
by good disinterestedly offered.
The important and essential feature of the new
system will be its freedom from the control of any
special interest and, hence, its ability to serve the
I common interests of the United States. And that
| is the one great requisite of a banking and -currency
t plan that will meet the financial needs of this day,
j that will be at once secure and responsive, that will
guarantee business freedom and business stability.
The Glass-0 wen bill makes no pretense to perfection.
In matters of detail it has already been amended to
advantage; it will perhaps undergo other changes
before its final enactjnent; and after it is a law, it
will be readjusted as occasion may demand or expe
rience warrant. Uut the basic principle of the bill,
that of public instead of private control, must stand
for the reason that it is wise and right.
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partment to THE SEMI-WEEKLY JOURNAL,
Atlanta, Ga.
The Basic Principle
Of the Currency Bill.
T HE overshadowing issue of the hanking and
currency bill now before Congress is whether
-control of the nation’s monetary resources
shall be private or public, whether it shall bn left
with particular groups of financiers or shall be
vested in the Government itself to the end that
banks may be “the instruments, not the masters of
business.” Other questions of more or less moment
are involved but this is the one great principle em
bedded in the pending bill; and on no other basis
may financial interests expect to secure a new sys
tem of banking and currency, better suited to their
own and the common country’s needs than the crude,
outworn system which now prevails.
The need of prompt reform is universally recog
nized. The bankers themselves have been most in
sistent upon a change. They realize more- keenly,
perhaps, than anyone else how essential is such leg
islation to the security and progress of business.
Yet, when the opportunity for constructive reform is
ripe some of them are urging delay and are holding
out for impossible compromises. Some of them, in
deed, seem to forget that laws must be framed not
for the benefit of particular interests but for the peo
ple’s common good.
No one doubts that under the system proposed
by the Giass-Owen currency bill certain banking in
terests will be far less powerful than now, but every
one who views the measure with ai. open mind be
lieves that the business of the country as a whole
will be far more stable and free. That, indeed, is the
prime purpose of the administration measure. Were
it designed to serve bankers alone, if would be un
worthy a moment’s thought from Congress and cer
tainly it would not receive a moment’s support from
the rank and file of the people. Whatever its details
may be, any bill that passes the Democratic Congress
and receives President Wilson’s approval must em
body the one essential principle of Government in
stead of private control for the new system.
This provision is as wise, from an economic stand
point as it is necessary from a political standpoint.
The fatal weakness of our present Danking and cur
rency system lies largely in the fact that it lias no
responsible or trustworthy control. It is under the
dominion of particular groups of men and particular
centers of finance but there is no central force by
which its complex machinery may be driven to serve
the nation’s common needs. It works smoothly
enough for a favored few but it scarcely works at
all for the great mass of.interests on which steady,
enduring prosperity depends. '
The fact is our banking affairs have been left
virtually ungoverned; for certainly a regime that
places the country’s commerce and industry and en
terprise at the mercy of small coteries of financiers
who can dictate terms of credit to suit themselves
and who, were they so minded, could even create a
panic—certainly such a regime is not government,
rather, it is anarchy and chaos. And in times of
storm or stress, it leaves the average business In
terest, whether a bank, a store, a factory or a farm,
without refuge or protection. The unrestrained will
of individuals is the very antithesis of government,
and the gravest menace to freedom that can be con
ceived.
Yet, this is the condition that will continue so
long as banking and currency affairs remain under
private control. It is to remedy this great evil
and to avert consequent disasters that the measure
' now before Congress is designed. The bill provides,
among other things, for the establishment of twelve
so-called regional reserve banks in different parts of
the country and for a supervisory federal board
through which the Government itself will exercise
competent control over the workings of the new
system.
It has been objected that such a board would be
partisan and political in character and would pos
sess undue power, and furthermore that active bank
ers are to be excluded from its membership. The
power of this board in its particular sphere would be
no greater than that of the Interstate Commerce
Commission over the country’s transportation busi
ness. Time was when interstate commerce was com
paratively without Government supervision, but today
the railroads themselves realize that the federal
commission is helpful to them as well as to the pub
lic. It has established certainty and order where un
certainty and dangerous confusion once existed and
not once has it been tainted with anything like par
tisanship or abuse of authority.
The exclusion of active bankers from the proposed
board is so obviously proper that it leaves little room
for discussion. The fact that a man is experienced
in banking would in no wise disqualify him for
service on the federal board; but if he were identified
with some particular banking institution, he would
then be clearly incapacitated for public duties of
this kind. He would have to sever private connec-
tions 3 before assuming a public trust. The very essencs
of efficient service on such a board would be disin
terestedness. It should be noted, too, that the pend
ing bill as amended provides for an advisory coun
cil of bankers elected by the bankers of all sections.
Nationl Aiad For
Agricultural Needs.
Several important measures looking to the devel
opment of a national system of modern agriculture
are pending in Congress. Those of especial note are
the bills introduced by Senator Hoke Smith, Senator
Page, of Vermont, and Representative Lever, of South
Carolina. ,
Though differing somewhat in matters of detail,
the common purpose of all these bills is to secure
legislation that will enrich rural life, that will
make the soil more productive and farm management
more efficient and, what is particuarly essential,
carry the advantages of agricultural research and
education more directly to a larger number of
people.
These measures have been held temporarily in.
abeyance because of the pressure of tariff and cur
rency legislation; but at the regular session of Con
gress the coming winter they will demand much at
tention and definite action. It is, therefore, gratify
ing to note that the House committee on education
and labor, of which Representative Hughes, of Geor
gia, is chairman, has favorably reported a resolution
which provides that a commission be appointed to
study in, its entirety the subject of all these bills and
report some comprehensive plan in December.
This method will greatly expedite agricultural
legislation by enabling all the supporters of this
great cause to rally around a single proposition. No
work of Congress could he more constructive or more
practical.
The time has come when the best thought and
energies of government, both federal and State, must
be applied to the country’s agricultural problems.
Our food production is far behind the increase in
population, and that is one of the prime causes of
the high cost of living. Our soil is not producing
anything like as much to the acre as the soil of Eu
ropean countries. Our farmers are handicapped by
the lack of adequate marketing facilities and the
lack of a satisfactory system of rural- credits. All
these matters vitally concern the people as a whole;
.in the long run, they are as important to the mer
chant, the banker and the manufacturer as to the
farmer himself.
Our State colleges of agriculture are doing excel
lent work and the federal department of agriculture
is serving very useful ends. But there is manifest
need of reaching the rank and file of farmers more
directly and more continually. This is one of the
chief aims of the bill by Senator Hoke Smith which
purposes for one thing, to “carry to the farmer the'
best methods and practices that have been deter
mined at the agricultural colleges and experiment
stations by maintaining in each agricultural county
a skilled farm demonstrator who will be the repre
sentative of the extension department of the State
college of agriculture, the expense to be shared by
the State and the federal government.”
Kill the Cottqn Tax.
So admirable a work of legislation as the Demo
cratic tariff bill, designed as it is to encourage in
dividual enterprise and to promote the common wel
fare of the American people, should not be tainted
with an amendment which in effect will foster a new
and dangerous monopoly aftd bring irreparable hard
ship upon hundreds of thousands of our citizens.
That is the character of the so-called Clarke
amendment which proposes to tax, at the rate of
fifty cents a bale, all cotton sold for future delivery.
The Senate has ill-advisedly allowed this pernicious
clause to creep into the tariff measure. The Demo
crats of the House should now insist unswervingly
that it be eliminated. It is foreign to the entire pur
pose and spirit of true tariff reform. It is at va
riance with all those liberal policies for which the
Wilson administration stands. It is un-Democratic,
unwise and unjust.
The public is so familiar with the general merits
of this issue that they need not now he discussed in
detail. Suffice it to say that the proposed tax, by de
priving cotton merchants of the so-called "hedge”
protection, would force out of the market the rank
and file of small buyers and thereby concentrate the
power of merchandising cotton in the hands of a
few large interests. The effect of this upon the cot
ton producer is easily foreseen. Even should a con
siderable number of buyers remain in business and
pay the almost prohibitive tax on future contracts,
they would naturally discount the price they hereto
fore have paid the farmer and thus at the farmer’s ex
pense insure themselves against loss.
In any event, it would be the cotton grower who
would bear the brunt -of this unjust tax. It would
be from his labor, his earnings that the tribute
would ultimately be drawn. Cotton interests as a
whole would suffer. The average merchant and manu
facturer would be damaged but the heaviest injury
of all would be visited upon the Southern farmer.
Though the avowed purpose of the Clarke amend
ment is to prevent gambling in futures, it is palpably
insincere, for while prescribing a prohibitive tax for
cotton futures, it takes no account whatsoever of
hedging in com and wheat and other commodities.
Were the proposed amendments at all consistent it
would apply alike to every commodity in which con
tracts for future delivery are made. Instead, how
ever, it singles out for penalty the one staple which
above all others is most subject to continual and vio
lent fluctuations In price and i» which the hedge pro
tection is most necessary.
The Senate recognizee) the danger of such a
scheme when it provided that the proposed tax
should not become operative until September, 1914; at
the final moment the Senate became cautious, though
it is to be regretted that it did not fully accede to
the logical pleas of leading Southern Senators and
kill the amendment outright. That, however, is now
clearly the duty of the House Democrats. Let them
stand firmly against the Clarke amendment and it
will die a natural and deserved death.
The Treasures of Georgia Clay.
Among the most inviting, though as yet undevel
oped, industries in Georgia is that of pottery. State
Geologist McCallie calls timely attention to the fact
that Georgia clay is now being shipped to Ohio and
there manufactured into the finest and costliest
china. At a recent meeting of the geological board
he exhibited several specimens of this ware which
had been made of kaolin taken from beds in Twiggs
county, a short Astg.nce below Macon; and he also
read letters from the manufacturers themselves who
testify that the Georgia clay has all the qualities es
sential to the production of the best grades of china.
This does not mean, of course, that every clod
of mud in the State can be transformed into a rare
and beautiful cup, but it does mean that a targe area
of kaolin, deposits which are now unutilized or are
sold in the crude state for comparatively little could
to turned to highly profitable account. This clay
when shipped to distant manufacturing centers brings
only about seven dollars a ton; If it were worked in
Georgia potteries, its potential value would be nearer
seven hundred or seven thousand dollars a ton.
It is to be hoped that Mr. McCallie’s wise sugges
tions in this regard will commend themselves to
thoughtful business men and also to our educational
institutions. Scnools like the Georgia Tech can do
a vast deal toward stimulating practical interest in
such enterprises by establishing courses of study
along this line. Boards of trade or chambers of com
merce in towns that are adjacent to kaolin beds
would do well to exploit these resources. The State
Chamber of Commerce* whose organization Is soon
to he perfected in a meeting at Macon could under
take no more seasonable work than that of encourag
ing the development of pottery industries.
The fact is the entire. South should awake to the
importance of using its clays. The Manufacturers
Record states that last year the value of all the
clay products in the country amounted to $172,811,275,
to which the South contributed only $31,285,039, or
less than one-fifth. “The value of the country’s out
put of brick and tile,” the same authority tells us,
“$136,307,111, the South's share being $27,199,029.”
“It is suggestive of the South’s opportunity,
with its abu/ndanec of clays of many kinds, to
note that two States, Ohio and Pennsylvania,
had in 1912 brick and tile to the value of $28,-
711,454, or $1,512,428 greater than the value of
brick and tile made in thz South; and that the
value of clay products in Ohio alone was $8,256,-
469 greater than the value of such products in the
^ South. Ohio led in the value of pottery with
$15,508,735.”
In the manufacture of brick and tile, Georgia
holds a leading place among her neighbor States.
Her products of this kind for the past year are valued
at $2,787,484, a record far ahead of Alabama’s, Flor
ida’s, North and South Carolina’s, Tennessee’s and
Virginia’s and somewhat better than that Gf Kentucky
and Texas.
It should be noted, however, that while the value
of Georgia’s brick and tile is $2,787,484, the value of
all its clay products is only $2,806,541, a comparison
which shows that the manufacture of its clays into
the rarer and costlier wares is being sadly neglected.
This is but one among many of the State’s re
sources which remain to be developed. That its pos
sibilities will be realized in the near future, can
scarcely be doubted. It was comparatively a few years
ago that the peach or the pecan industry was seri
ously undertaken in Georgia; but today they are
of far-reaching importance. With the aid of science,
capital will yet turn Georgia clay to wonderfully
profitable uses.
New York Politics Simplified.
The sudden death of Mayor Gaynor simplifies and"
yet, in a measure, complicates the political situation
in New York City. Three tickets for the approaching
municipal election were in the field, one of them
headed by Edward E. McCall, Tammany’s nominee,
another by John Purroy Mitchell, candidate of the
so-called Fusion movement which was organized to
prevent the election of a mayor controlled by Boss
Murphy and a third headed by Mayor Gaynor, who
was the choice of an independent element opposed
equally to the Democratic machine and the Fu-
sionists.
It was expected that Mayor Gaynor would draw
heavily from the strength of Mr. Mitchell, though
his campaign for re-election was launched a few
days chiefly on a basis of opposition to Tammany.
Whether his followers will attempt: to nominate an
other candidate in his place is as yet problematical,
though it is hardly likely that they will do so, for
they depended upon the Mayor’s popularity and his
fighting genius. That he would have received a
considerable vote, if not a large or victorious one,
was never doubted. The question of the hour is to
whom this vote will now fall, whether to Tammany
or to the anti-Tammany forces. The leaders of the
Gaynor campaign can scarcely be reconciled to those
of the Fusionist movement. 4 Mr. Mitchell has at
tacked them unsparingly and they have fought him
in like manner.
It would seem, however, that the elimination of
the third candidate, if no future entanglements de
velop, will result in the defeat of Tammany, an end
which thd great majority of good citizens in New
York and the nation over-devoutly wish. In the last
mayoralty election, the Tammany nominee, who then
was Mayor Gaynor, received two hundred and fifty
thousand, three hundred and eighty-seven votes.
Against him, there were polled mere than three hun
dred and thirty-one thousand votes but these were
divided between two candidates, so that the Tam
many nominee was elected.
The present Fusion ticket represents an alliance
among independent Democrats, "Progressives” and
Republicans. If the issue is drawn squarely between
them and the Murphy machine, without the interven
tion of a third candidate, the effort to overthrow
Tammany will be relatively simple and have a fair
prospect of success.
Editorials in Brief
The American Motorist expresses the opinion that
macadam is obsolete, and says that the road of the
future must be not only superior to macadam in
wearing quality, but also strong enough to hold the
weight of loaded trucks weighing eight to ten tons.
New macadam construction has been practically
“eliminated from consideration by traffic requirements
upon the principal highways,” in the view of the
most prominent highway engineers, says the Amer
ican Motorist. Concrete with a bituminous surface
is high in favor as its successor.—Louisville Courier
Journal.
How a man does enjoy spending money if he
can’t afford ltl
NEW YORK IN A. D. 2013
BY DR. FRANK CRANE.
(Copyright, 1913, by Frank Crane.)
This year of grace 1913 the city of New York will
overtake and pass London in respect to population and
become the largest city in the world.
Nowhere since time began has there been so vast
and so heterogeneous an aggregation of people as that
now embraced in Greater New York and its suburbs.
Now that we are at the head of the class it is
time we recommenced having a little self-respect. It is
time we realized our cityness.
The city ought to be more beautiful than the coun
try, being nature plus the craft of man. Instead of
which all cities are ugly.
The reason they are ugly is to be found in the
rampant individualism hitherto. Every man builds as
he pleases. Beside a marble palace is a rambling
shack, covered with red advertisements.
We have no civic beauty because we have no civic
consciousness.
There have been occasional, feeble, sporadic at
tempts among the cities of the world to adopt some
sort of plan and reconstruct the city toward it. Paris,
under Napoleon the Little, cut avenues thorugh solid
blocks of buildings for the sake of symmetry, and has
now purenased from the general govenrment the
old city fortifications, twenty-one miles in extent and
five hundred yards wide, to convert them into parks.
Berlin has spent millions and is preparing to spend
millions more rearranging herself.
Chicago has a bold ideal, a plan toward which the
young city proposes to work, so that in a hundred
years from now the metropolis by Lake Michigan shall
appear a harmonious unit.
What New York needs is some such ideal. There
should be some sort of uniformity in office buildings;
not monotony, but artistic cohereno/e. Individual
caprice should be subject to communal taste.
Our city symbolizes our civilization, slap-bang in
dividualism, every fellow for himself and devil take
the city.
Just to look at a town where every man builds
what is right in his own eyes, where any architectural
crime is allowed, here personal liberty is inflamed to
destroy all social solidarity; just to look at its rows
of hideous tenements, its ragged unimproved lots held
by speculators until other people shall raise the value
of their property, its edifices a hodge-podge of styles,
Greek, Gothic, Renaissance, Colonial, English, having
no style of its own no self-expression; just to ride
through it and observe is to see why its government
is smitten with graft and public service is inefficient.
It is the materialism of public indifference and pri
vate greed.
It is time now to begin rebuilding New York for
the year 2013. Far-reaching plans should be made.
The city soul should awake and assert itself.
The twenty-first century should see its mightiest
city, its world capital of activity, intelligent in its
self-government, beautiful in its self-esteem, a world-
example of organized democracy, a world-flower of
civic consciousness, a world-model of good taste.
How Old Is Dentistry?
Tooth-pulling is doubtless as ancient a surgical
operation, if so it may be called, as is known to man
kind, but tooth-filling has been supposed to be a mod
ern invention. Herodotus, and, of course, Galen,
knew something about dentistry, but apparently not
about fillings. But as early as the sixteenth century
there is found printed evidence that the use of gold
leaves to fill cavities had long been known, if not
generally practiced.
The assertion that Egyptian mummies have been
found with gold-filled teeth is now generally thought
to b e an error arising out of the fact that the Egyp
tians often gilded the teeth of mummies for ornament.
The question comes up in connection with the ex
plorations of Prof. Saville, of Columbia,' in Ecuador.
He found many p*'e-Aztec skulls* perhaps 1,000 years
old, of a type superior to the Aztetss, and what was
especially remarkable was that their teeth showed
both gold and cement filling. The New York Sun, in
describing this find, says:
“The gold-filled teeth struck him as the most
unusual feature of his finds. In Mexico he had dug
np skulls with teeth filled or ornamented with stone,
but he had never before seen gold fillings in a pre
historic skull. The gold was on the edges of the
teeth, and had been applied from the inside. It
showed little on the outside, so the purpose appeared
to be less for ornamentation than for utility.
“Some of the teeth were filled with cement. In all
cases, whether the fillings were gold or cement, the
borings indicated that a tool had been used that did
the work possibly as well as the instruments of the
modern dentist. Some of the teeth that apparently
had been loosened were held together by gold banos.
• • * Prof. Saville said that the residents, or na
tives, of that part of Ecuador where he found the
skulls and the pottery, just north of the equator, ap
parently were the only primitive people who under
stood the art of using jewels and platinum in decora
tive art. One of the objects of using gold in the
teeth doubtless was ornamentation, but the chief pur
pose seemed to be to preserve the teeth.”—The Out
look,
Bebel's Tremendous Sincerity
“Th© end is nothing, the cause is everything"—this
was one of the late August Bebel’s most striking ut
terances, forged out of his innermost political convic
tions. Now that he is gone it is more clear than ever
that his great power over the masses lay in his ex
traordinarily earnest temperament. Not even oppo
nents could listen to the ardor of his speech without
feeling the intense sincerity of the man. But some
times that very passion of conviction ran away with
him, and he said things which he afterwards regretted.
He once laughingly declared: “If one had to account
for everything that one has said in the heat of battle,
the devil would long ago have, carried one off.” xet
to hear him even when it was apparent that his tem
peramental fire was leading him into exaggerations of
statement and belief was ever an intellectual treat,
for every art of the great orator was at his service.
Old age, sickness and many a buffet of fortune ren
dered him personally milder and more resigned, com
placent he never was with the status of society; yet
when he came to recognize that his ideal state was
not to be brought about overnight, or in his lifetime,
as he had fondly hoped, it did not embitter him; and
at the end he was a genial, kindly, warm-hearted,
clear-minded old gentleman, who bore but little re
semblance to the wild revolutionst demanding the
overturn of almost every custom of society, who ap
peared in the old parliament of the North German
Confederation and at the first session of the present
reichstag.—New York Evening Post.
How to Cut a Cantaloupe
The common way of dividing a cantaloupe Into
halves Is by cutting it from pole to pole, running the
knife along in the creases or depressions between the
melon's longitudinal rounded ridges; but her e were
melons that had s been cut just the other way, not
longitudinally but f through their equator, as you
might say.
The result was that each half presented around its
upper outer edge a scalloped effect; produced simply
by cutting the melon not lengthwise, between the
ridges, but crosswise of them at the middle, each half
now showing all those ridges in outline, running uni
formly around and at their greatest cross section.
Perhaps it is only melons somewhat flattened at
the poles that can~advantageously be cut in this fash
ion; but a cantaloupe so cut tastes as well as any oth
er, while that scalloped effect around the edges is not
unpleasing.
THE CLEAN MILK CRUSADE
I.—CONDITIONS THAT DEMAND REMEDY.
BY FREDERIC J. HASKIN.
In 1907 there was established in the city of New
York a committee known as the New York Milk com
mittee. It was organized by the Association for the
Improvement of the Condition ot
the Poor, and started out mainly
to improve the character of thf
milk fed to babies of the me
tropolis. Immediately after tak
ing ap its work the committee
found that a larger and more
far-reaching problem confronted
It—that of improving the na
tion’s supply of milk. The work
It has accomplished in that di
rection constitutes one of the
most inspiring achievements In
sanitary progress the country
lias witnessed.
* • •
The first step taken by the
milk conlmittee was to demonstrate the value of sup
plying wholesome milk and education in the care of
babies to mothers through milk stations. To this
end it organized the Committee for the Reduction of
Infant Mortality, for the purpose of uniting all the
babies’ welfare activities in New York City. Through
its efforts the 150 agencies dealing with babies’ inter
ests in New York were given a clearing house for their,
labors, and a half million pieces of educational litera-
tupre a year are now being distributed to tenement
mothers. Out of 1,350 babies born alive and assisted
through the first month of their lives by the nurses
and doctors of th e committee only thirty-seven died,
which is less than one-third as many as died in the'
homes of the unassisted.
• • •
4
As soon as the work of demontrating the posibili-
ties of a proper baby-saving campaign was well on its
feet, the milk committee took up another line of en
deavor. It had already proved the value of a proper
milk supply, and now it wanted to prove that such a
milk supply was possible. To this end it decided to
show the farmer how he could produce good milk at
little or no increase in cost So the Dairy Demon
stration company was organized. A dairy at Hoiqer,
N. Y., was purchased and rehabilitated for handling
the milk supplied by the farmers of that vicinity.
They were paid a half^ cent more a quart for milk
from tuberculin-tested cows, a fourth of a cent more
for milk having a low number of bacteria to the drop,
and a fourth of a cent more for milk rich in butter
fat. The farmers were assured that good methods
were more important than high-priced equipment. All
pails and cans were sterilized at the dairy for the
farmers, and all they had to do was to put the milk
into them and bring it to the dairy. The result of
this attempt at scientific dairying was that thirty-five
farmers were converted from skeptics into enthuslastiq
supporters of the dean milk crusade.
• • •
Having proved the possibilities of clean milk In the
care of babies and the ease with which the co-opera
tion of farmers in producing clean milk may be en
listed, the next step was to create a commission mads
up of the best authorities on milk in the United States^
whose duty it would be to fix a standard of milk torf.
such states and municipalities as might see fit to ac
cept it. This commission wAs organized In 1911, and
has had five meetings. In making up its membership
the names of over 200 men of prominence in medicine,
sanitation, public health and laboratory work, especially
those having a national reputation in milk matters,
were considered. Among the seventeen commission
ers finally secured to serve are Dr. vV A. Evans, pro
fessor of preventive medicine in Northwestern univer
sity; Dr. John F. Anderson, director hygienic labora
tory United States public health service; Dr. A.* D.f
Melvin, chief United States bureau of animal industry,
and Dr. John S. Fulton, secretary of the International-
Congress of Hygiene and Demography.
• • •
The commission holds that milk should be graded'
according to intelligent standards, just as are wheat,
com, oats, cattle and other commodities. The poet.
Lamb, was asked upon one occasion what was neces
sary tq the enjoyment of salisages, and he replied^ ,
“Confidence.” The milk commission holds that confi
dence is an asset of the highest value in *kh* milk
business.
• » •
The milk produced in this country for market pur-* r
poses is divided into three grades by the commission.
Grade “A” from cows free from disease as determined
by tuberculin tests and physical examinations made
by qualified veterinarians, handled by persons freej
from disease as determined by a qualified physician,
and produced under sanitary conditions such that the
bacterial count shall not exceed 200,000 to the cable
centimeter. If Pasteurized, the tuberculin test and
medical inspection may be omitted. Grade “B” milk, *
raw, must come from healthy cows, and must not contain
more than 1,000,000 bacteria to the cubic centimeter*
Grade “C” milk includes all that has more than 1,000,-
OOo bacteria to the cubic centimeter, and is to be used
only for cooking purposes.
• • •
Pasteurized milk must be heatefc to a minimum
temperature of 140 degrees, Fahrenheit, for at least
twenty minutes, and the commission recommends that
automatic recording instruments should be required for
making record sheets for the health officers. It is rec
ommended that all milk shall be dated so that the
consumer may know tfie day it left the cow’s udder.
• • ■
The bacterial count method of standardizing milk
is used because it furnishes a good check on the pres
ence of dirt, underrefrigeration and age. It has not
been found, however, that this determines the danger
of milk in every instance. To illustrate: Here Is a
pail of milk that shows 1,000,000 bacteria to the cubic
centimeter, and here is another that shows only 10,000.
But the former may be only the result of careless
handling, while the latter may consist largely of ty
phoid germs, arising from the use of water containing
these germs for washing milk containers. Medical
and sanitary inspection and Pasteurization are the
best methods of protection against human contagion-
in milk.
• • •
The full report of the commission is a most inter-,
esting one and lays down the rules whereby the milk
supply of a community may be protected and the health
of the urban population of the nation thereby material
ly enhanced. A list of requirements has been adopted
which the commission unanimously considers abso
lutely essential to a proper regulation of a municipal
milk supply. Then there is also a list of recommenda
tions which sets forth the things which it is advisa
ble to do, but which depend principally upon the pub
lic sentiment of the community as to whether or not
they'shall be made law.
• * •
Altogether, the report of the commission consti
tutes the most advanced step toward a wholesome na
tional milk supply that has yet been taken. It has
been received with approval , by sanitarians every
where, and it will undoubtedly prove the basis upon
which the laws and ordinances of the states and mu
nicipalities of the future will be enacted.
• * *
Few people realize the importance of a wholesome
milk supply. One-sixth of all the food the average
man <?ats Is milk or its derivatives. Nothing that
passes his lips Is so susceptible to contagion and dirt
as the milk he uses. The contagion usually come*
from the human intestinal tract, while the dirt ia
made up mainly of tiny particles of cow manure. The
major portion of the milk supply of the country comes
from the small farm where the milk business is mere
ly a by-product, and the problem of getting good milk
is largely one of paying more for clean milk than tot
unclean milk. The e'ffect of the milk commission has
been to frame regulations that will not drive the small
milk seller out of business, but which will, neverthe
less, teach him to regard the welfare of the people In*
the city to whom his milk goes. It is realized that all
this means most of all a campaign of education.