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FLUID PRICES

Temporary emergency 'Milk Bills' enacted in 1933 – that would continue for three years – sought different ways of balancing milk profits with varied and limited success. Dr. Whitney, Parodneck's partner, continued her project with the United Neighborhood Houses to study and record the devastating effects each law had on the dairy market. Her findings, published in a book entitled "What Price Milk?" included nutritional information, milk law descriptions, economical statistics, and profit margins. Whitney foresaw the power of an educated public, a mission Parodneck shared. He, in turn, produced weekly newsletters that contained simple explanations of complicated policy reforms, political cartoons, and cooperative literature – Parodneck's newsletters and Whitney's pamphlet provided accessible information to those who most needed it.

As New Yorkers understood it, the Milk Bills were created in order to give producers a greater percentage of milk profits. Instead, they found that it artificially raised their cost and the upstate farmer benefited by receiving only slightly greater returns. The public accused the Milk Control Board of favoring distributors. For the first time in the fight for affordable milk, consumers became actively involved; one letter to Governor Lehman by Emil Greenberg, Chairman of a special milk committee of the Community Councils of New York City, read that, "The Board of Milk Control has had meetings with the farmers, the milk dealers, but never has there been a public meeting in order that the voice of the people could be heard and their side of the story told."10 By the end of that summer, the milk situation had spiraled out of control. Threats from upstate farmers that 40,000 would strike on August 1st, 1993, worried the State Legislature. Greenberg suggested that the Milk Board be dissolved; Lieutenant Governor Bray asked for "patience;"11 and on August 15, Governor Lehman demanded that the Milk Control Board investigate why, despite low-paid farmers and price-gouged consumers, milk distributors had a profit margin that grew and grew.

In February of 1934, Meyer Parodneck, then President of the Sunnyside Consumers Cooperative, dubbed these distribution giants the "Milk Trust" at a public hearing on the proposed Federal Milk Marketing Agreement. Parodneck then outlined a proposal based on his cooperative experience, calling for the Agricultural Adjustment Administration to sponsor a cooperative that would directly connect consumers with farmers and eliminate the need for Milk Trust distributors. In front of the 500 farmers, distributors, and consumers gathered at the hearing, he blamed the Department of Health: "Families of poor people, and the city budget itself have had to pay a heavy toll because of the close cooperation between the Department of Health and the milk lobby. No better example can be seen than that the moment health commissioners retire they immediately go into the employ of the milk combine."12