Milk comes into every home and is a mainstay of sound diet and health. Wand-waving by "economists" who have never been on the business end of a milk pail will not solve many of the problems involved.
An advanced local milk price, which the paper had been advocating in aid of both the dairymen and the public health, finally removed the necessity for editorials on this subject.
About two weeks later (February 18) an editorial headed "O.P.A. and the Milk Muddle" criticised the freezing by O.P.A. of prices to be paid milk producers at the "top price paid in January." This, said Mr. Tugman, "made matters much worse instead of better in this and many other areas." Concluding, he said:
Must there be a cutting off of decent and normal milk supply in Eugene to make people realize what crack-pot regulation is doing to them? Homegrown common sense could settle this trouble in two hours.
The next day a news dispatch from Washington reported a statement by a deputy price administrator that the milk price might be modified. Subsequent editorials, however, indicated some delay in reaching a satisfactory agreement. May 3 an editorial commenting on a bad milk situation at Madras, Oregon, under the heading "Madras Milk Rebellion," argued for local milk control, with an eye on local conditions.
A Fourth of July editorial headed "After Seven Months of Delay" still complained on the federal slowness in handling the milk supply problem. "The aims of these wartime controls," it was set forth, "are admirable; the administrative machinery is perfectly fantastic and impossible."
The day after Christmas there appeared a front-page news article and an editorial dealing with a public project very near to the editor's heart, the so-called Century Progress Fund. Crediting the original idea to William N. Russell, far-sighted young business man, the Register-Guard described the matter thus in the news article:
The Century Progress Fund, "for the benefit of the Eugene Springfield Community" and for all communities within 12 miles of the settlers' landmark at Skinner Butte, is announced today by a group of citizens who have decided to act on an idea proposed several years ago by Lt. William N. Russell, now on duty with the 100th Division "somewhere" in Uncle Sam's service.
