Mr. SCHULTE. Is that all you wish to say? Mr. RUTLEDGE. That is all. Mr. SCHULTE. Now, will you state your name and residence, Mr. 'O'Neal? STATEMENT OF JOHN R. O'NEAL, WASHINGTON, D. C. Mr. O'NEAL. My name is John R. O'Neal. I live at 4420 Fourteenth Street NW. I am a retired farmer. I was in the dairy business about 6 years of my life. Now I am a Washington consumer. I cannot support your bill, Mr. Congressman, because I think it would just be a makeshift. It seems that surplus does not appease hunger. It just makes more hunger and misery in this country. That is what it has proved in the last year. In 1932, when we had the most surplus in this country, we had the most misery and heartaches and breaking up on the farms and the banks and everything else in this country. I am in full accord with you; I think legislation should be passed that the Government should handle the milk question as a public utility. I have advocated that in the milk meeting in July 1936 that was called at the Department of Agriculture. I went there as a consumer and stood shoulder to shoulder with Derrick to give the farmers a 4-cent raise, on their milk, because I thought they deserved it, until that drought. But from what I learn in these meetings, I find that the farmer has practically lost that 4 cents, and still we are paying 14 cents a quart for milk. Now, you talk about this powerful organization, the MarylandVirginia Milk Producers Association, I told a few farmers the other day that I thought some day—and I hope it will be a long time off— that the farmers of Maryland and Virginia would build a monument to Derrick. I believe if you had a few human Derricks in your Middle West it would be an advantage, because I think they have fought the Milk Trust-and we have it in Washington City. Mr. SCHULTE. Do you think the consumer would build a monument to him? Mr. O'NEAL. I think the farmers ought to, at least. When I was in the dairy business at Woodstock, Va., during the war, the farmers in this country were getting 45 cents a gallon for their milk. We were not organized in Shenandoah County and we got 23 cents a gallon for that milk. We did not have to have any specifications about our barn. We could bring it in from any kind of a barn, just so it was 4 percent butterfat. And we talk about "bootlegging"-I do not like to use the word, because it made my mouth sour when we had it on prohibition, and I am a teetotaler. Mr. SCHULTE. You have got a lot of company. You are looking at one right now. Mr. O'NEAL. I am glad to hear it. Well, we sold that milk there and it came right into the Washington market. I think it was used in fluid milk use. We had a strike in Woodstock, the farmers did, and there was a firm by the name of Chapin & Sachs, now the Southern Dairies. The farmers struck and quit bringing milk in, part of them did. Of course, we had scabs like they have got in Harlan, Ky., now. They did bring it in, but we had a strike, and Chapin came up there to meet us farmers and made us a talk, telling us what angels they were in the dairy business, and I got up and I said: "Mr. Chapin, we are furnishing the boys down there in Virginia at the camp through the valley here; we are also furnishing milk to you here at 23 cents a gallon and the Washington people are getting 45 cents and you are selling it for 64 cents down at the Federal camp for our soldiers. And I know that for a fact." He says, "Yes; that is a fact. We are selling it for 64 cents, and if we did not get a better profit out of our ice cream than we get out of our milk, we would have to close our business up." Now, I asked one of your doctors here the other day what was the difference in food value in a nickel's worth of ice cream on the street here or in the store, or the food value of a 5-cent bottle of grade A milk. He said he could not tell me. Now, I think that this milk bill of 1925 is an insult to the consumers of Washington City, the consumers of dairy products. We have as good fluid milk, I reckon, in Washington City as they have in any city in the United States, but we just knocked Pasteur in the head when we say that. I went to Dr. Ruhland's office in 1936 with Mrs. Boyle, Father O'Ryan, and a lady by the name of Mrs. Biddle-I belong to the Consumers: Council, but I am not here representing the council; I am here as an individual-and Dr. Ruhland made us a talk on the fluid-milk purity in our city, and after he got through he left himself open for questions, and I says, "Doctor, what difference does it make if a baby gets a germ in a cone of ice cream or a germ in fluid milk?" He said, "Mr. O'Neal, we doctors do not advise ice cream for babies." I would not let him off with that, and I said: "Neither would I, but whether it is children or adults, what is the difference whether they get the germ in ice cream or in fluid milk?" Well, the doctor, of course, is ashamed of your law, and so am I, and he says: "Well, Mr. O'Neal, they passed that law before I came here. That was in 1925. I have just been here a few years." I remember when the bill was passed and when he came here. He made his excuse in that way. The other day when he was on the witness stand before your committee, when he told about dropping down the death rate in babies under a year old, I asked him the question, to tell us about the death rate from TB in the city of Washington, and he refused to answer the question. I did not just understand what he said, but I think he said it would be opening it up too much. But the dear old doctor went down before the committee the other day to get a new building for Washington, and I only put into the record his statement down there about the death rate from TB in your city, and he said that, of course, when you come with the death rate from TB, the first thing you get from the table is the high Negro population of Washington City, about 27 percent, but he said just what I thought, the Negroes, of course, do die about 4 to 1 of the whites from TB, but the whites are not as poor a class of people, and Dr. Ruhland went on to say the Negroes were not any more subject to TB than the white race or any other race; it was the conditions they were under, and I think the white race is partly responsible for the TB death rate among the darkies, because they are imposed upon. I made the statement the other day that I thought in Washington City there were more people died from lack of milk than there were from germs in milk. Now, a law that will tell the farmer out here in Maryland or Virginia that from milk from any kind of a barn, without any inspection at all, he can churn butter on the farm and bring it into Washington City and sell it and say you cannot bring that buttermilk in and sell it, that is not horse sense. And that is just your law. I investigated that for a Maryland farmer. I was not satisfied, and I asked Mr. Steele, in this meeting, if it was not a fact, and he said it was, and he said it was a fact that it is an insult to the intelligence of the people of Washington City. I cannot agree that bringing milk in from the Middle West will help the consumer. The best proof of that we have got a surplus that does not do us any good. We had a surplus last year of about 300,000,000 bushels of wheat. Did the consumers of bread in Washington City benefit by it? No; it was a disadvantage to the consumer. It was a disadvantage to the farmer. I will tell you why it was a disadvantage to the consumer. He paid the same for bread as he did the year before, and then to get shut of some of this surplus we are subsidizing him, and that comes out of the consumer. And it is all wrong, gentlemen. I have been in favor of having the Government handle this, make it a public utility. I advocated that down before the milk meeting; I advocated it on the farmers' bill over here in the Senate a few weeks ago, the Frazier-Lemke bill when the milk question came up, and, Congressman, I am ready to take your hand and make a fight for the Government to handle the milk question in America as a public utiltiy, and I also am in favor of passing a bill that the Government will lend the money through the R. F. C. to any locality in the United States that wants to borrow the money from the R. F. C., not through the banks, at the lowest rates that they lend to anybody else, and give the consumer a chance to borrow that money and run their own creameries, and we will find out what it can be done for and start it right here in this great city of Washington. And I am not satisfied. I think Mr. Derrick has to have a basic price or something to handle the surplus milk, but I do not agree with him all the way through. Mr. SCHULTE. You were just getting ready to build a monument to Mr. Derrick? Mr. O'NEAL. Yes, sir. Mr. SCHULTE. In the event I can cut down the price of milk to the consumer 2 cents a quart, will you advocate a monument to Schulte? [Laughter.] Mr. O'NEAL. If Schulte can show it can be done for a few months, I will give the first dollar to put up a monument to Schulte, if you will put through a bill to make milk a public utility. Mr. SCHULTE. Now, you and I are agreed. Mr. SAUNDERS. I would like to build a monument to him if he sees that it is not taken away from the farmer. I realize what 1 cent a quart would mean to the consumer and also to the farmer. Mr. SCHULTE. We will stand adjourned until tomorrow morning. at 10:30. (Whereupon, at 5:35 p. m., the subcommittee adjourned until 10:30a. m., Wednesday, May 24, 1939.) REGULATIONS GOVERNING THE SALE OF MILK, CREAM, AND ICE CREAM IN THE DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA WEDNESDAY, MAY 24, 1939 HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES, SPECIAL SUBCOMMITTEE OF THE COMMITTEE ON THE DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA, Washington, D. C. The committee met at 10:30 a. m., Hon. Harry Sandager (acting chairman) presiding. The CHAIRMAN. The committee will come to order. We will take testimony on H. R. 6316. I might say, so far as possible, if you can avoid a duplication of the testimony and bring out some new ideas it will be appreciated. Of course, I realize the attitude of most of you will probably be the same, but so far as possible try to avoid a repetition of the testimony. STATEMENT OF HORACE L. GREGG, HAMILTON, LOUDOUN COUNTY, VA. The CHAIRMAN. Will you give your name and address to the stenographer? Mr. GREGG. Horace L. Gregg, Hamilton, Loudoun County, Va. The CHAIRMAN. How much milk do you produce a day? Mr. GREGG. You mean right now? The CHAIRMAN. Well, in the average production. Mr. GREGG. Oh, 70 gallons-70 or 80. The CHAIRMAN. And of that production how much is base production? Mr. GREGG. Approximately 60. The CHAIRMAN. Are you opposed to this Schulte bill, Mr. Gregg? Mr. GREGG. I have not had an opportunity to read the bill. From what I gather the purpose is to allow milk to come in from outside sources with State inspection. Naturally, I am opposed to the bill.. The CHAIRMAN. You are a member of this association, are you? Mr. GREGG. I am. The CHAIRMAN. How long have you been a member? Mr. GREGG. You mean the blended price for the whole thing? 55 |