Timesuck with Dan Cummins - Short Suck #49: The Milk Wars: When People Died for Dairy

Episode Date: January 9, 2026

In this week's Short Suck, we head back to the 1930s, when milk wasn’t just one of many beverages  - it was survival, income, and power. As the Great Depression crushed farmers, workers, and cities alike, a perishable staple sparked riots, bombings, deadly shootings, and even Mafia involvement across the Midwest. This is the forgotten history of the Milk Wars,  when America went to war... over cow juice.For Merch and everything else Bad Magic related, head to: https://www.badmagicproductions.com Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

Welcome to another edition of Time Sucks Short Sucks. I'm Dan Cummins, and today I will be sharing the story of The Milk Wars. That's right, people literally fighting and dying over milk. Well, it seems like the most innocent beverage on earth, right? It's basically cow juice. It's a thing that you pour on cereal to start your day with, and sometimes delightfully end it with as well after the edible kicks in. It's what you buy when you're pretending you're going to start making protein smoothies

as part of some New Year's resolution. It's also kind of like the beverage equivalent. of beige wallpaper. Seems so benign. Don't cry over spilt milk. And yet, people have killed over it. In Chicago and elsewhere in the Midwest or in the Great Depression,

milk sparked a decade of violence that included strikes, riots, truck hijackings, mass milk dumpings, bombings, and arsons. People getting beaten and shot at. Even the Chicago mob led by Al Capone was trying to hijack the dairy industry like it was a bootlegging operation.

all because milk is also money. Big money. And back then, more than now, it was a daily staple for almost everyone, so essential that if you controlled it, you controlled a considerable amount of cash flow. You controlled a considerable amount of cringy dad joke incoming,

Mullah. Words and ideas can change the world. I hated her, but I wanted to love my mother. I have a dream. I'll plead not guilty right now. Your only chance is to leave with us. Today, milk is not nearly as in demand as it once was.

I mean, I think we can all agree that it's pretty common these days to overhear people saying stuff like, fuck milk, or only sexual predators drink milk, or, oh, you like milk, do you? Hope it's worth your inheritance. Good luck finding a new family, you milk cuck, fuck. You'll never be my son again. Actually, I'm pretty sure none of those sentiments are common today

except maybe for fuck milk. A lot of people myself included, have realized that milk, at least the kind that hasn't had its lactose removed, that natural sugar found in milk and dairy products, uh, it isn't our stomach or butthole's best friend. Seriously, though, milk truly is not nearly as popular as it used to be. Back when today's story was set, food scientists were intensely studying milk to find out just how good it was for us and the verdict was really, really good. Lots of protein, calcium, vitamin D, and other minerals and nutrients needed to keep our minds

and bodies humming along nicely. especially when you fortify it. By the mid-20th century, Americans were being told by doctors and the government alike to drink two to three glasses of milk a day. And most Americans already were. And for generations, we continued to drink so much milk. As recently as in 1970s, according to a U.S. Department of Agriculture Study, the average American was still drinking about 30 gallons a year. But in 2017, when this particular study was conducted, consumption was down to just 18 gallons. a year, an amount that has fallen even further to 15 gallons by 2023, and it is still falling today. The USDA now says about 90% of Americans don't get enough dairy per day, which is surprising to me because when I go to the dairy aisle of the grocery store, I see what feels like 100 different kinds of cheeses, two dozen different kinds of milk at least, and roughly 45 million different types of flavors and kinds of yogurt. But milk specifically, regular old, unflavored full of lactose milk, not nearly as popular as it was back when many people were still

having milk delivered to their door every week. I mean, how many people do you know now who have fresh milk delivered to their door? Is that even a thing? To my knowledge, I have never known anyone who is actively having milk delivered to them. Never met a single working milkman, but that used to be an extremely common job. Every town had at least one milkman, if not a whole bunch of them. The very first milk home deliveries that happened in America occurred in Vermont back in 1785, when the milkman would visit each house with a barrel full of milk, and milk-loving residents would then bring out their own containers, jugs, pails, and jars, and the milkman would fill them up with milk. In 1879, milk was sold in glass bottles for the first time in the

U.S. This improved the cleanliness and the convenience of milk deliveries, keeping the milk fresher for longer. The first purpose-made milk bottles were introduced by Echo Farms Dairy from Litchfield, Connecticut, and the usage of glass bottles to store milk became so popular that by the 20th century, some cities made it a requirement for milk to be delivered in glass bottles. Customers replace their orders with the milkman and then abracadabra, they would have fresh milk delivered to their doorsteps the very next day. Some homes even had insulated boxes placed on their porches, while some had milk boxes built into the sides of their houses. The milkman would place fresh bottles of milk into the milk boxes and take the empty bottles before collecting his payment.

Or sometimes, uh, the milkman would take the milk inside the house. Fuck your mom real quick. And in addition to some fresh milk, you'd soon have a new baby brother or baby sister who would need more milk, which would bring the milkman back and he would naturally fuck your mom again. And now you have a huge family, but no dad, because he's sick of having more and more. kids who don't look anything like him and a very expensive milk bill. It was a vicious cycle. Kidding. Mostly.

The milkman did not fuck your mom, probably. But there are definitely stories out there. In the 1930s and 1940s, most homes in the United States were buying these new fancy things called refrigerators, allowing milk to be kept cold and fresh in the house. And grocery stores were installing refrigerated sections as well. Q milkmen being scared. This meant hard times for the milkman. Their job was on the way out.

But great times for the dairy industry overall. They were able to cut out one of the middlemen and just needed to ship milk directly to stores now, not homes, greatly increasing their profit margins. And milk was selling well. Better all the time. Money, money, money. Back in the early 1930s, when the Milk Wars went down, the average Americans fluid milk consumption was approximately 31 to 34 gallons per year. And it was still getting more popular. consumption would peak in the mid-1940s at nearly 45 gallons per person annually.

And why is all this important? Because it illustrates why milk and the money to be made on it was worth fighting for. Also, when it came to milk, because it's so perishable, who had the cleanest, most pure milk, became very important. Does all this remind anybody else of drugs like cocaine? Right? People want to get pure coke, not dirty shit. It's been stomped on with various chemicals and other drugs like,

fentanyl and if you have a good supply of clean coke and obviously don't get busted, well, you're going to make a lot of money. It's kind of like that with milk. Whoever controlled the supply of good, clean milk controlled a lot of cash flow. And milk not always being clean was a big problem back then. The swill milk scandal was a major dirty food scandal in the state of New York in the 1850s. Back in 1857, the New York Times reported an estimate that in one year, 8,000 infants had died from so-called swill milk. Cows and urban distilleries were being fed brewery waste, aka swill, which led them to becoming diseased, which led to them producing tainted milk, which was then mixed with plaster of Paris, flour, eggs, and molasses, to mask its foul

tastes, hide its obnoxious odor and gray color, leading to widespread infant death. What the fuck? Whoever decided, hey, let's just put a little plaster in this. milk, a bit of flour, maybe some eggs and a pinch of molasses, so it doesn't stink and taste so bad. That should be okay, right? That won't hurt anyone, will it? That greedy bastard should have been taken out and shot. By the early 1900, scandals like that one had led certain public officials to become obsessed with the idea of pure milk. For example, in a 1918 article for the Journal of Political Economy, researcher C.S. Duncan wrote, the problem of securing an adequate supply of pure milk for cities has for a long time been the subject of serious consideration.

This commodity is such an essential food in the dietary of every household, and at the same time is so highly perishable, so easily contaminated, and so dangerous as a medium for carrying disease, that the duty to safeguard its purity and wholesomeness has been recognized in most large centers. That was the milk vibe back in 1918. Now, hey, check out this cute milk mustache. more like, hey, this class of cold, tasty, refreshing milk might kill your baby.

Chicago, like other major cities, spent years trying to systemize milk safety, and by the early 20th century, it had a strong regulatory culture around milk. But that system came with tradeoffs. Yes, it made milk safer, but it also made milk more expensive to produce and distribute.

And that point is a key one in the culmination of the milk wars. This new industrialization created a tangled network of farm farmers, dealers, bottlers, and delivery drivers who all needed to get paid. Everything got, for lack of a better word, corporatized. Which was a problem for working farmers. This new structure did not favor the little guy who owned a handful of dairy cows, you know.

It only favored the big guys who had an army of cows whose money wasn't in, you know, decent profits made off of a few cows. It was made in a little bit of money made per cow, which became a whole bunch of fucking money when you have an army of cows. Another problem with milk that led to the milk wars Is that it's not like whiskey or beer The goods that the Chicago mob was trying to replace as an income stream Right, you can stockpile whiskey, you can hide beer, you can delay whiskey or beer Get into where it needs to be but now milk Milk is a ticking clock

So when the Great Depression hit and the money dried up And every link in the supply chain started to fight over every penny Shit got intense in the milk game By the early 20th century dairy farmers who were part of the pure milk Association, PMA, were required to follow certain quality and purity standards for their milk. The way Americans consumed dairy products had changed. Many people didn't know the farmers who collected and bottled milk anymore. They purchased it in stores for the most part. PMA farmers worked hard to provide a quality product to local consumers, and they wanted

fair compensation. Their distributors disagreed on what that number should be, though. And in the 1930s, tensions reached a breaking point. This was the basis for the milk wars, started in 1932 and lasting until around 1940 in many places, American dairy farmers, especially in the Midwest, where most of America's milk was being produced, became engaged in tense conflicts, sometimes violent conflicts with milk distributors and milk delivery drivers. There's no exact end date for the milk wars.

Agreements were made here and there, regionally throughout the 1930s that left dairy farmers happy enough, not to strike anymore or resort to violence, and then World War II and the buildup to it for America reshaped the economics of nearly everything in America and more money for all left the milk wars largely outside of more minor skirmishes, a thing of the past. But before the wheels of World War II were set in motion,

there were violent strikes, vandalism, milk dumping, bombings, actual bombings, yes, and other violent assaults. Even Al Capone's Chicago mob got involved. While there was no large organized milk war, these skirmishes defined the decade and left a lasting impact on the dairy industry. The Chicago Tribune reported, The battle over the dietary staple amid the economic devastation of the Great Depression Initially pitted union officials against gangsters and dairies that delivered milk to homes against those that marketed milk in stores.

Every penny that was chipped off the price of milk by the milk wars was bringing them closer to the wave of bankruptcies Engulfing America's farmers. The Tribune also wrote about the farmers sometimes violent actions during the milk war, saying, the campaign of terrorism in the city was directed against independent cut-rate milk distributors who attempted to continue home deliveries. The vandals sank six milk trucks in the Chicago River and set fire to two more. In a score of other cases, they beat, threatened, or fired shots at truck drivers, smash windows, and dumped milk into the streets. Why is all this so funny to me?

I mean, it sure shit wasn't funny, you know, to the dairy truck drivers, getting shot at, or dragged out of their trucks and beaten. But it is funny to me that just thinking about how working in milk could be such a dangerous job. Are you okay, Dorothy? Why, you look white as a sheet? Well, you know, I hate to complain, but my nerves are shot. I can barely sleep at night, and my stomach feels like someone tired at the knot. Oh, what happened, honey? I don't mind you complain in one bit.

Tell me what's troubling you. Well, my oldest boy, Ronald, I know times are tough, and we're all scrambling to make ends meet, and I should be happy he's got a new job. but honestly I'd rather worry about him having to move back in with me than to worry about him ended up dead and just cue so much crying, just sobbing and then what job did he get, Dorothy? Is he a cop of firefighter, a soldier of fortune? No, Ethel, it's so much more dangerous than that he's a milk man.

What the fucking fuck, Dorothy! Pardon my French, but does he have a fucking death wish? It's crazy. Crazy that things were, you know, so dire for people working in milk. Before the milk wars really started to heat up in Chicago in 1933, the first shots were actually fired in North Dakota, 1932. They weren't fired over milk specifically, but they were fired over agricultural disputes that would carry over into the milk wars. Soon to be North Dakota congressman, Usher L. Burdick, a politician at the state level at that time, and a man who had later marry his 30-year-old secretary when he was 79. Dear God, why does so many politicians fucking suck so hard? Why are they so creepy?

That old perf took the stage before hundreds of North Dakota farmers on the brink of strikes and a riot on September 14th and made a promise he could not keep. Surrounding North Dakota and Minnesota all the way to Wisconsin, New York, Illinois, and beyond, bankers were foreclosing on farmsteads, ravaged by drought and locust on top of the Great Depression's economic troubles. Milkmen all across the nation were not making a livable wage because of the country. all this. Most farmers, dairy and otherwise, they're not doing any better. Desperate farmers, like 47-year-old Henry for Zon, he blamed the banking system for their troubles. And out of frustration, Frizona, Frizzan, would actually shoot and kill George Copp, the former vice president of the Farmer State Bank and the mayor of Columbus, North Dakota on September 17th, 1932, after storming into Cop's money exchange office and berating him. Dude literally shot the mayor.

He was so mad about the current economic situation for farmers. picketing shall be unnecessary, promised Burdick during that speech. While Burdick was the president of the North Dakota Farmers Holiday Association, a chapter of the national organization intent on helping farmers boost produce prices. And if you will unite, he continued, if you will organize, if you will join hands with the farmers in Iowa and elsewhere, you will see your object obtained in 60 days. But that shit would not happen.

Within days of Burdick's announcement, headlines, and Fargo Moorheads at the forum and other newspapers across the Midwest predicted a full-fledged farmer war in North Dakota while milk war rumblings stretched across at least 11 Midwestern states. Picketers known at times in the press as holidayers began blocking highways with ropes leading to markets in St. Paul and Worthington, Minnesota,

then westward into North Dakota cities like Bismarck, Williston, Minot, and Oaks. They've got their backs to the wall and faced with the prospect of losing their homes and their life savings, they are ready to fight, said Tolna, North Dakota farmer Del Willis to a reporter at the time. Brandishing actual clubs and ready to use them, blocking roads with steel girders and heavy wire cables and spiked machine belts, farmer pickets went into action in Worthington on September 19, 1932, and soon afterward, lost in their first brush with the law,

after sending a truck full of sheep into a ditch. Other strikes slowed down grain deliveries in Williston, and by September 22nd, the holidayers had spread to 36 counties in North Dakota, effectively cutting off all entrances to Minot 24 hours a day, said Chris Leinert's Secretary of the Ward County Holiday Association. Then on September 5th, the forum reported, while Farm Strike Enthusious through the Middle West Saturday mustered their forces for a concerted drive to tighten their lines, the nation watched the spectacle of milk destruction to close down the supply in America's largest cities. One newspaper headline read, Milk supply destroyed near Atlanta, Georgia.

Milk producers in upstate New York threatened to stop shipments, which would aggregate millions of gallons daily lost to New York City unless rates were established to a living minimum. Pennsylvania, New Jersey, Maryland, Delaware, they were on the brink of striking. Milk holidays continued amongst farmers in Ohio and Michigan. Farm strike organizers bragged to the forum that they had procured

two million producers to clamp down on grain and produce markets and that the movement's influence had even spread to Great Britain, where a general milk strike began in October of 1932. The movement then sailed across the North Sea to Norway where fishermen dumped massive amounts of herring into the ocean and over in California, quote, thousands of tons of fruit were dumped into the Pacific Ocean in order to maintain prices, said T.T. Fuglestad, Secretary of the farmers Holiday Association for Griggs County, North Dakota. These worldwide strikes continued intermittently until February of 1933 when strikers armed themselves with clubs and bombs faced U.S. soldiers and the Chicago mob, and the so-called

Milk Wars really got started. But first, before digging into the Chicago action, let's explore what was happening in nearby Wisconsin, before also adding more to what went on in North Dakota and elsewhere that relates to this crazy fight. The Wisconsin Farm Holiday Association and the more radical Wisconsin co-op milk pool vowed to reduce supply and raise prices by withholding milk from the market. Strikes in Wisconsin began in February of 1933 when more than 25,000 pounds of milk were deliberately tainted with kerosene.

And thanks to activists resorting to intimidation and violence to disrupt the supply of milk, the state called on the National Guard to protect remaining milk supplies. Troops responded with live ammunition. At least three farmers were shot and killed in clashes amongst picketers, protesters, and soldiers, and soldiers shot and killed a teenager while he was driving a car to assist a picket line. The shit was deadly serious. By November 1st, the strikes took an even more grisly turn. A creamery near Plymouth, Wisconsin was literally bombed, causing massive destruction.

That same day, a cheese factory near Fondelac, Wisconsin, also bombed, causing minor damage to the building. later that week a cheese factory near Belgium in Ozaki County, Wisconsin was fucking dynamited and then burned to the ground. And a 60-year-old farmer was shot and killed by a stray bullet that had been fired at a picket line in the town of Burke, Wisconsin. Shit was fucking wild. And the fight continued. It was due or die for a lot of these farmers.

Now let me back up a little bit. Give some more context, share some basic economics as to why it really was do or die for so many. The price of evaporated milk from 1927 to 1929, was set at $4.79 per 100 pounds, with 46% of that money going directly to the dairy farmers. 33% would go to the dairy manufacturers, and 21% would go to the merchandisers selling it.

But then between 1930 and 1933, the price fell to an average of $3.48. Per 100 pounds, a huge drop of over 27%. But actually, it was much worse than that because individual farmers were now receiving a much smaller percentage of the proceeds. just 30 and a half percent instead of that 46 percent. So now, while the 1929 farmers, for every 100 pounds of evaporated milk,

we're getting $2.20. Now for that same 100 pounds in 1933, right, just four years later, farmers were only getting $1.6. They were making less than half of what they had made before the stock market crashed. And that is why they were going to war, essentially, right? They literally could not fucking survive on this price rate. production. This massive decrease put small farmers in a very difficult position. And making things even worse for some of these farmers, farmers who produced milk for bottling were largely able to

remain solvent with what they could make. But those who produced milk for cheese, butter, and other uses were truly driven to the brink of poverty or past it because the price of milk that was going to urban areas for bottling was around $1.50 for 100 pounds, while the milk going to cheese and butter factories was only $0.85 for every 100 pounds of milk. But no matter how you fucking slice it. No one's making that much money anymore. Shit was dire. Now let's segue back to North Dakota. Right after this week's first to two mid-show sponsor breaks. If you don't want to hear these ads, please sign up to be a space letter on Patreon.

Get the catalog ad-free. Get these episodes early and more. Thanks for listening to those ads. Orford, you skipping them. I get it. Now back to North Dakota, we go. A year late to the milk war, Fargo Unions had strikes in late 1934. Local newspapers caught wind of the intended milk strike two days before members of chauffers, Teamsters, and helpers of local union number 173 began at midnight, November 4th. Picketing minor violence marks hectic Sunday, but temporary agreement reached, a headline in the Moorhead Daily News reported. The first strike order came after milk drivers voted to walk out.

American Legion posts quickly erected emergency distribution stations in both Fargo and Moorhead trying to get milk to neighborhoods with hungry kids. I'm sure the milk suppliers, you know, didn't love, you know, withholding milk from kids, but they also had their own kids to feed, so they kept biting. Late on November 4th, a union organizer, Miles Dunn, quote, a leading figure in the Minneapolis truck strike in 1933 and five others were caught tipping over the milk trucks of dairy workers who did not comply and pouring the milk out onto the streets, according to the Moorhead Daily News.

Six people were arrested and charged with inciting a riot, according to the Moorhead Daily News, again, but a book written by A.J. Must and published in 1935 entitled The New Militant reported the violence was even more severe. Must reported that up to 10 comrades were in must room in Fargo following the late night riot. Must wrote, the telephone rang. Miles Dunn was wanted. Fargo, North Dakota was calling. The call was from a newspaper man in Fargo and conveyed the news that a few hours before the police force, which had sworn in 300 special deputies in that town of about 25,000 inhabitants had appeared at union headquarters with warrants. Damn, they quickly swore in a small army of dudes to fight, 300.

Musk continued, so the police shot tear gas bombs to the windows, rounded up 94 strikers and threw them into jail. Thus, our gathering was transformed into a council of war. Strike and defense plans were mapped out. Luckily, it doesn't seem that a lot more fighting was done in Fargo, not at that time, at least. Headlines for the following two weeks made an no further mention of violence. A 10-day truce was called after mediators stepped in. Talks nearly broke down at midnight on the final day, but negotiators, which included North Dakota governor, O.E. H. Olson, brokered a five-day truce extension. Not long after that truce, accusations of some kind of communist takeover began to kill momentum for dairy farmers,

fighting for better money in North Dakota. A schism between strikers occurred after Reds infiltrated the holiday movement. Headlines at the time read, Williston farmers quit picketing, claim communists active. Another headline was Reds at Work and Farm Strike. Charged with organizing pickets around Williston Farm Market Highways without official recognition by the North Dakota and Williams County Farm Holiday Associations, farmers broke away from P.K. Barrett of Sainish North Dakota, a communist candidate for Congress,

and L.J. Dahl of Sioux City, Iowa, also a communist who was given out picket instructions. Holidays became enraged, saying they'd been duped by outsiders in the quit. The Farm Holiday Association also squelched what they termed a communist-inspired attempt to seize control of the organization and kept old-line leaders remaining in the saddle after a tumultuous convention that at one time broke up in complete disorder. At the time, communists circulated their own weekly newspaper called the iconoclast, and they repeatedly attempted to take over the holiday leadership. In another takeover failure, two vitriolic mimeographed pages which leveled singing, excuse me, stinging attacks against Burdict and other leaders, of a holiday association were circulated. At the same time, the Holiday Association in North Dakota sponsored bills and tried

to push legislation that many consider to be socialist, even vigilante in nature. On July 19th, 1934, Burdick introduced legislation that would have immunized the poor against crimes. If, and in the event, a man needs food and clothing for his family and such be not forthcoming from federal

state or local relief agencies, he can go out and get it and be protected against criminal prosecution. said verdict during a street corner speech in Bismarck. He also proclaimed a legislative program that included a five-year moratorium on all property mortgages under which there would be no foreclosures. With interest at the rate, the international bankers pay the government, which is nothing. Well, well, meanwhile, in Fargo, strikers and mediators came to an agreement.

After 15 days of secretly held heated discussions, the Fargo Moorhead Milk Strike ended. The Moorhead Daily Times reported. The agreement became known as the Milk Code, which should be a far. stated drivers and salesmen were entitled to $20 a week with 4% commissions, wholesale drivers received 1.5% commissions, and inside worker wages saw boost to $18 a week. Truck drivers, some of the most vocal strikers, saw their salaries boosted to 40 cents an hour. But the violence didn't stop entirely with the milk coat. In early December, the Frank O'Nair dairy company was picketed. Roofing tax were strewn throughout the property. Employees who didn't strike were targeted with violence personally. According to testimony discovered within the North Dakota State University Archives,

the Fargo Trades and Labor Assembly warned the dairy company that they were out of compliance with the milk code agreement. When owner Frank Nier, or NER didn't agree, strikers attacked court documents stated. Charles Elgin, a driver for the dairy company, was delivering crushed ice to the John Holzer confectionery store on Broadway and December 10th from out of the shadows. Two men emerged, striking him on the right temple, knocking him to the ground. It was dark out. The assailants escaped discovery. and the police who gave a short pursuit. Next day, Jay Hoss was preparing to go to work at the dairy

when union workers found him, threatened him that if he didn't quit, some radical would pop him off. On January 6, 1935, Alice Nour, vice president of the dairy company, discovered that sugar had been poured into the gas tank of her car ruining the engine. Late at night, that same day,

Melvin Sexton and James Colby were delivering empty cream cans when three men came out from behind some box cars at the Great Northern Railway Station. Heave on her boys, Sexton testified he heard before the assailants tipped his milk truck the fuck over. And in January of 1935, union members discovered that the big red grocery was purchasing their dairy products and began a campaign to stop customers from going into the store. Saying he had suffered damages, exceeding $1,000, nurse sued chauffeurs, teamsters, and helpers of local union number 173, the Fargo trades in Labor Assembly, Miles Dunn, W. Lind, and others saying that he was operating under a buttercoat.

not under the milk code that was part of the milk strike agreement. That's funny terminology. This isn't the milk code. This is a butter code. This might be like the cream cheese code or the fucking milk chocolate code or some shit. Defended in court by young Quentin Burdick, future politician, will become known as the king of pork. Oh, this guy.

The defendants were ordered to pay $141.95 in damages, and all charges against the defendants were dropped according to existing court documents. Most of the milk was sizzled out by the time 1935 rolled around in North Dakota. Most of the milk war sizzled out. Governor Ole Olson had mediated a 1934 settlement for driver pay raises and improved conditions and a series of other negotiations kept most farmers from losing their farms barely. Also, President Roosevelt's New Deal improved living conditions for milk farmers in places like North Dakota and many strikers returned home. By the end of 1934, early 1935, while milk wars continued.

to rage elsewhere, they were largely faded away in North Dakota. And then the economy would shift in the 1940s and once again, there would be enough money to keep people from rioting. Now let's look at how the milk wars were affecting things over in New York. Dairy farmers in New York, one of the state's major industries, were hit particularly hard by the Great Depression as they nervously watched retail milk prices drop 37 percent and wholesale prices declined by 61% in the four years between 1929 and 1933. According to the New York State Milk Control Board, prices paid for milk had fallen to such a low level that dairymen could not possibly meet their most pressing obligations.

Even the bare necessities of life could not be secured by many farm families. And many dairymen were threatened with the loss of the farms and homes in which their meager lifetime savings were invested. Right? This shit meant everything to them. they were going to lose everything, lose their house, lose their job,

lose their ability to work in this fucking arena if they didn't get more money for their milk. State legislators whose constituencies were largely made up with dairy farmers, such as Senator Purley A. Pitcher, a Republican from Jefferson County, gave those farmers an opportunity to have their voices heard.

In 1932 through early 1933, pitcher operated as a chairman of a joint legislative committee created to investigate farmers' grievances. Through what would become known as the Pitcher Bill, legislation was created that sought to fix minimum prices to be paid by producers of this milk and maximum prices for consumers.

Despite the investigation and farmers' voting power, though, that influence was limited by the influence of groups such as the Derryman's League Cooperative Association, aka the League, which had significant connections to the executive branch and the legislature. The League, a cooperative bargaining agency of sorts, who in theory worked on the farmer's behalf

to get the best deal to distributors and dealers were often criticized not only by member farmers, but also by those non-member farmers who felt their prices were often too low. Further, the Senate Agriculture Committee made up of Democrats representing urban consumers had little interest in creating a higher fixed price for milk to those already struggling to make ends meet.

It's tough on both sides. The milk producers aren't getting enough to make their ends meet, but if the prices go up any higher than all these struggling people in the Great Depression, the cities they can't afford to buy the milk. This put the farmer's future in the hands of others, none of which seemed to be working in their interest

and their patience were thin. In March, the newly organized Western New York Milk Producers Association, aka the Association, voted to declare a milk holiday, unless the League promised to pay them a flat rate of 45 cents per court for their product. And that tactic failed. The Association called a strike that quickly led to physical acts of violence, violence against the league and its member farmers. In April of 1933, independent dairy farmers began dumping milk out on the street on the way to the market and blocking delivery trucks to pressure Governor Herbert H. Lehman, Lehman, excuse me, to sign the pitcher bill into law, which Lehman would eventually do on April 10th.

Unrest continued to grow amongst dairy farmers despite the pitcher bill, however, and by August that discontent. And the addition of interstate competition that kept prices down created a cocktail that fueled more and more farmers to take matters and of their own hands. On August 1st, the milk holiday turned into a milk war with its origins in central New York. In Boonville, in Oneida County, large groups of farmers estimated between 400 and 800 strong stop delivery trucks and spilled thousands and thousands of quarts of milk in the streets. One incident escalated even further when some 400 farmers, many of them armed with axes, literal pitchforks or other tools, attempted to stop Derryman League trucks who were being

escorted by the New York State Police. Troopers, quote, hurled tear gas bombs and charged the strikers rank, swinging nightsticks, injuring about 40 farmers. Newspaper reports continue to mention spilled milk and stranded delivery trucks after their tires were shot out. Word of the strikes spread throughout the central and north, or spread throughout central and northern New York, and soon, quote, 15,000 farmers in a dozen milk producing counties were in arms. An article in New York Times stated the 1933 strikes, quote, brought New York State closer to martial law than at any time since the Revolutionary War. Holy shit.

A milk war nearly brought the state of New York to a state of lawless anarchy. Soon Syracuse was in the middle of the milk wars with the Syracuse Herald, reporting that on a doga county, deputies were investigating a report to the sheriff's office that a milk truck was dumped near the viaduct at Thompson Road just outside of Eastwood. Another incident occurred at a traffic light at the Jamesville Road in East Genesee Turnpike intersection. Two milk trucks stopped at a red light and then strikers rushed the trucks, forcing them to move to the side of the road. When they did that, the strikers picked up 30 large cans of milk, poured them into the street. On August 9th, more strikers dumped 6,000 gallons of milk in cards, corners, and Marcellus.

They were headed to market in Syracuse. The outfit, according to the Syracuse Herald, was well organized and included boys, youngest 14, and men up to seven. in that attack. These fuckers were dead serious about fighting for their livelihoods. By August 11th, with milk strike leaders calling for peace after an increase in milk shipment security, the Derrymen's League plant in Onondaga County admitted their supplies were becoming noticeably low. Shipments did begin to increase, however, as officials stated, troubled routes were quiet, and milk shipments had begun to go through unmolested, though under heavy guard. The following day, the strike had waned and the supply of milk began to increase,

and was the first day unmarked by violence. Though the violence diminished, the fight for higher milk prices continued. In late August, between 10,000 and 12,000 dairy farmers gathered in Utica to decide the next step of the movement. Governor Lehman and the state milk control board made it clear that they had a willingness to cooperate with the dairy farmers and listened to their concerns. Ultimately, the farmers had their voices heard, moving the needle on an issue that affected their daily lives, though in their eyes, there was plenty of work still to be done. milk wars in New York or in other states where milk production accounted for a large percentage of the farming would re-ignite in the late 1930s, continuing a long battle for price regulations. In the end, like with the problems of many other American industries, the solution to the dairy farmers' problems in New York was the looming war in Europe, which helped keep milk prices steady as demand and profits increased. However, problems did arise after World War II,

and they would actually linger all the way into the 1960s in New York, but never devolve again to the levels of violence seen in the 1930s. And now before we head to Illinois, and dig into the mob's involvement in the Milk Wars. Let's look at one other state first. It'll be worth it. Let's swing through Pennsylvania. And check out how the Milk Wars spilled over into the production of delicious chocolate candy

right after today's second-to-two mid-show sponsor breaks. Thanks for listening to those sponsors. Now let's actually swing through Pennsylvania. Check out how the milk wars spilled over into the production of delicious chocolate candy. Of course milk chocolate would get dragged into this mess. Let's head to Hershey, Pennsylvania. Hershey is basically a chocolate-themed company town, the so-called sweetest place on earth.

I actually took Kyler Monroe on a tour of the Hershey chocolate plants when I was doing some shows out there when they were a little cute place for sure. Would have loved it more if my stomach could have handled milk chocolate. a little better. Kyler Monroe certainly loved it. Kyler especially, man, that kid loves a milkshake. Never been around somebody

who loves a milkshake more than him, specifically a chocolate milkshake. I think these milk wars may have broken him. What do you mean? They don't have any milk for a milkshake.

Why, God? Why have you forsaken me? Hershey was built around one man's dream. Milton S. Squirts. I mean, Milton S. Hershey squirts. I mean, just Milton S. Hershey.

And Milton did this very American thing, where he didn't just build a factory, he built a whole little utopia around a factory, neighborhoods, streets, amenities, a whole vibe. Like if Willie Wonka was also a civic planner who said, I want my workers to have homes, but I also want my workers to remember whose motherfucking town this is. That last part actually matters, because by the 1930s, there was a lot of tension in America between workers and employees of all sorts, milk related and not. The Great Depression did not just break a lot of bank accounts,

broke a lot of trust between factory owners and factory workers. And in Hershey, the stakes were extra weird because the factory didn't just employ people. Like, it was the economy. It was like the reason, the sole reason. The community, the factory workers lived in was even there. So when labor unrest hit Hershey in the 1930s, it wasn't like, oh, no, the factory is shut down for a week.

That's inconvenient. It was more like, if the chocolate plant shuts down, the whole town stops being Hershey and becomes dairy township, which sounds like the name of a place, where an evil clown from outer space kills all the kids. Stephen King reference, if you're very confused right now. Hershey is located in Dairy Township, if you're still confused. Anyway, it would have been devastating for the Hershey chocolate plant to shut down,

and milk was a very large part of what was keeping that plant open, connecting this to today's topic. Hershey didn't just need cocoa and sugar and workforce morale to keep chugging along. It needed milk, so much milk. Milk chocolate is literally a business model that depends on a constant milk river flowing into the plant day after day on a schedule with no drama, preferably nobody throwing bombs into the assembly line or tipping over trucks. While in Chicago, milk violence was going to be about price controls, distribution, unions, organized crime,

competing delivery systems. In Hershey, the conflict was different. But milk was still the ticking clock and milk was still the leverage and milk was still the thing that could be destroyed in an economic fistfight. Hershey's factory relied on surrounding dairy farms close to the plant and those farms relied on Hershey. According to Pennsylvania's historical marker right up on a big 1937 Hershey strike, the work stoppage threatened the livelihoods of local farmers across six counties

who sold the Hershey plant an estimated 60,000 to 70,000 gallons of milk each and every day. That's a big number. 60 to 70,000 gallons of milk a day. That is not a few milkmen with some bottles. That is truly an industrial amount of milk. that's uh if this stops a bunch of cows are going to keep doing what cows do and we're going to have an ocean of cow juice with nowhere to put it

Hershey now becomes this odd little Pennsylvania microcosm of the wider milk wars logic. Farmers are desperate, workers are desperate, the company is desperate to maintain control. Milk is the volatile, perishable resource that turns pressure into panic and then panic into violence. In the spring of 1937, a sit-down strike shuts down the Hershey Chocolate Corporation. And a sit-down strike is when workers don't just walk out. They actually occupy where they work. They occupy the facility. They sit.

They stay. They shut down production by physically big. being in the building, which from a worker perspective, you know, is a pretty gutsy power move. From a company perspective, it's pretty wild, if you think about it. It's kind of like somebody breaking into your house and they're just saying, I'm not leaving until you give me what I want. And Hershey, remember, it's a company town. There's a paternalistic, you know, we gave you everything, attitude in this kind of setup. Prior to Depression-era economic tensions, and actually also during most of the Depression,

Hershey was seen as relatively idyllic, high wages, solid benefits, great quality of life in a town built around a company. However, Hershey could also be seen as cold, controlling, domineering, and resentful of workers challenging their authority.

So in the labor movement and union organizing wave hit in the 1930s, Hershey wasn't just dealing with a negotiation. Hershey was dealing with, you know, what the company likely saw

as an insubordination. It was emotional, right? I gave you your fucking town. And this is how you repay me? How dare you? In early 1937, the C-L-A-R-C-I-O, the Congress of Industrial Organizations, began organizing chocolate workers around Hershey, pushing for better wages and working conditions.

Tensions had risen over wages, hours, conditions, and control, all the familiar, you know, depression-era ingredients for a strike or a riot. And then on April 2nd, 1937, workers launched a sit-down strike and occupy the factory. Hershey Community Archives notes about 500 employees began to occupy the factory that day. the chocolate machines all went quiet, which was bad for not just the company, you know, but for the whole town. And the consequences for dairy producers in the area were felt almost immediately. While the workers could sit in a factory for days and days and days and, you know,

possibly get a bunch of back pay down the road to make up for some lost wages, the dairy cows right outside town, they're obviously not participating in the sit down. They're not getting compensation later, not their owners, right? The cows are in a stand-up and produce situation at all times. And now the farmers have a problem of a lot of milk, nowhere to go. When the factory shut down, the dairy farmers started to bleed money fast. Area farmers began to collectively lose as much as 800,000 pounds of milk a day, enough to supply a city of around a million people, 800,000 pounds a day. And these dairy farmers, who have

already been, you know, battered by depression economics for seven long years, are not looking at that number and thinking, whatever, it's fine. We can, we can handle us. We can eat that loss. We'll just wait it out. Now they're thinking, you fucks, you selfish, fucks! We're going to lose everything. We have almost nothing. We're going to lose what we little we have now. The strike wasn't just workers versus company. It was workers versus company versus the dairy ecosystem feeding the town.

Milk conflicts weren't only about bottles and routes and mob dairies. They were about how an entire regional economy could go practically feral when milk can't move. On the fourth day of the strike, dairy farmers met with the strikers about the lost milk sales. and the strikers actually agreed to operate the factory's creamery while negotiations continued so the milk could be processed and not wasted. Pretty, you know, bizarrely wholesome moment inside an otherwise volatile situation. You know, kind of like, hey, we're taking over the damn factory.

These machines won't move again until our demands are met. But then some dairy farmers like, totally get it, totally get it with you 100% in spirit. But all our milk's going bad. And if that continues, we'll have our... already lost our farms by the time you get what you want. Oh, oh, oh, shit. Oh, really? Damn, I didn't, okay, I didn't think that.

Okay, you know what? All right. Well, then, uh, fair. We'll run the creamery. No problem. We got you. But that unfortunately didn't actually neatly solve things because the very next day, Hershey Milkman, delivery drivers failed to pick up the milk to sell it since they were

also now striking too. So now you got farmers watching their livelihood curdle in real time while the town debates, whether the CIO is a legitimate labor organization or a common communist invasion. And now people who have been brainwashed to think a labor dispute is akin to some kind of Bolshevik revolution start getting real, real worked up around Hershey. A whole bunch of locals begin to view the CIA as un-American, communist. After strikers raised a CIA flag above the stars and stripes on the company flagpole, they really lost their mind. So now in addition to the milk crisis, there's a cultural panic. And when you mix cultural panic with economic desperation,

people started doing shit. They'll either regret or struggle to justify for the rest of their lives. On April 6th, the night before the strike ended, there was a march in nearby Palmyra full of farmers, loyal employees, patriotic groups framing the strike as dishonoring the legacy of the great American Hershey Corporation and just shitting on American values in general, right? How dare workers demand more? How unpatriotic? Everybody knows the most American thing you can do is just shut the fuck up and work. Just take it with the big guy, living in the mansion on the hill, feels like giving you, and don't complain. Then, April, April 7th arrives, and angry, Kamihaten farmers who, again, are watching 60,000 to 70,000 gallons of milk, you know, sales, you know, evaporate daily or more.

They're ready to act. That day, a truly angry mob of non-striking workers and desperate farmers forcibly remove the strikers, running them through a gauntlet where they emerge beaten and bloody. You can find old photos online is pretty insane. A bunch of middle-aged factory workers bleeding from various head wounds, looking a little bit shaken up. Farmers and loyal workers had even issued an ultimatum, evacuate by 12 noon or suffer the consequences. A crowd of about 3,000 men gathered, men of all ages armed with weapons like bats, pitchforks, lead pipes, even ice picks. That was the mob that stormed into the plant. As the New York Times put it, angry farmers administered, quote, the indignity, not to say the physical pain of an old-fashioned walloping before quickly leaving the scene to tend to their fields and cows. When the fight was all over, somehow no one was killed, but dozens were, quote, soundly beaten and some of them were hospitalized.

The brutal attack worked. The violent mob ended the strike. Hershey workers abandoned hope of ever bringing a free and unintermated union to the chocolate town, writes the plant's current union. After some further legal battles, however, the workers would finally unionize as the Hershey Chocolate Workers local and they would successfully negotiate, excuse me, better wages. and benefits. Okay, now we're into Chicago. Let's back up now and check in on how things are proceeding in Chicago.

Chicago, the Italian mob, still loyal to Al Scarface Capone, saw opportunity in all this milk drama. His organization bought Meadowmore Dairies in 1932, which is so funny to me. The mob moving in to literally make some milk money.

All right, boys, let's dance. Machine gun, Capacho. You and your boys, focus on the barn. Trying to kill any cows, okay? But if a bovine gives you trouble, you cap it. Screw meatics. You and you Ziploc Bactorial. A two-liter soda bottle, Vincenzo, a little mayonnaise jar, linguine.

You take on the boys in the bottle and assembly line. Right? We're taking all the milk today, capish. All of it. Or we're going to die trying. At the same year, Steve Sumner, the organizer and secretary-treasurer of the milk wagon driver's union, local 753, met with the state's attorney investigator. Sumner claimed he was visited by Chicago mobsters at union offices at 12.

220 South Ashland Avenue in May of 1932. Murray the Camel Humphreys, a political fixer and leader of Chicago mobsters, told Sumner that the mob was moving in on the dairy industry and he needed to step the fuck aside, right? Let them have what they wanted. One of the mobsters allegedly told him, Sumner, you're old. When you started in the union racket, brass knuckles and blackjacks were used.

Now gats and machine guns are used. You come along with us, we'll take care of you. but he didn't want him. The Chicago gangsters had worked for years for Capone during Prohibition. Now Capone's in prison, convicted a tax evasion, sentenced to 11 years in 1931. During Prohibition, the Chicago mob had earned most of their money by wholesaling beer to speak-easies. But they knew their main source of income was going to dry up real soon. FDR, it ran for president, and won partially on a promise to end Prohibition.

And he would make good on that promise in December of 1933. So the clock is ticking for the mob to replace their illegal, alcohol cash flow. Sumner told the state's attorney investigator, quote, he, Marie Humphreys, asked me to lay on them for six weeks so they could employ non-union help and undersell the regular dairies. After that time, I could hold a demonstration at their plant, they said, and that would give them an excuse to raise the price of milk and employ union men. Sumner told Humphreys, he didn't want to be a part of the mob scheme, and him not going along with what the mob wanted marked the official start of the Chicago portion of the milk wars. The war's most violent battle.

battleground. In the 18 months that followed, Sumner's meeting with Capone's crew, there were numerous bombings, vandalism, and assaults. Hundreds of gallons of milk were dumped, entire truck, sometimes dumped into the Chicago River. Some farmers even place road spikes to prevent drivers from making deliveries.

In at least one instance, an airport milk delivery was under police guard to prevent dumping. Sumner likely wasn't intimidated by the mob or the farmers. According to the Chicago Tribune, he was, quote, built like a barrel with a strength to match. also known for a violent temper. Sumner once saw a milk wagon parked in front of a tavern

and found the driver drinking inside and told the man, there are women and children waiting for that load of yours, and then he fucking just tossed that guy out and delivered the milk himself. After Humphreys walked out of that meeting, Sumner fortified the union offices with sheet metal. He was not backing down.

He was prepared to be bombed. This actually wasn't the first time the milk wagon driver's union had been threatened by the mob. Back in late 1931, then union president Robert Fitchie had been fucking kidnapped and tortured by gangsters. The milk union guy. Kidnapped and tortured by gangsters.

So much violence and milk. He wasn't released until the union paid a $50,000 ransom. After the kidnapping, Sumner started driving around in what he called his rolling fortress, a three-ton bulletproof armored car. 1932, a union guard leaving his home to go to Sumner's office was the victim of a drive-by shooting sadly and killed, gunned down in the street because his boss wouldn't go along with what the mob wanted. After the grand opening of the mob's new purchase of Meadowmore Dairy's office was bombed.

So much bombing. An article in the May 20th, 1932 edition of the Chicago Tribune reads, Flings bomb out of dairy plant as it explodes. Windows were broken early today in the Meadowmore Dairy Company building at 1334-42 South Peoria Street by a bomb which a night watchman had discovered and tossed on the sidewalk outside, just before it exploded. The watchman, Max Rosen, 1350 South Peoria Street, said the fuse on the bomb was sputtering

when he picked it up on the stairs inside the front door. The police were informed that the Metamore Company was a newly organized concern which had not yet started operations and that the management planned to sell milk for nine cents a quart instead of the standard 11 cents. There were three watchmen on duty in the plant

two guarding the machinery inside to prevent vandalism while Rosen patrolled the exterior. Yet this time, dairy prices were supposed to be fixed. But independent dairy farmers wanted more money for their milk, for reasons I've already gone over, right? They're not being paid enough. Union drivers, like Sumner, demanded a uniform price for all milk no matter where it was sold, so they too could earn a fair wage.

Representatives from the Associated Milk Dealers argued that the public wouldn't pay more than the price they had set. But the gangsters thought that if they bottled milk in Meadowmore facilities outside of Illinois, they could bypass fixed dairy pricing in the Chicago area and stop unions from distributing only local milk through violence. Metamore distributed milk through stores exclusively, instead of using drivers for home deliveries, also purchased milk from farmers at a flat price and, quote, aggressively exploited store distribution. I'm reading that as some mob guys approached a bunch of grocery store owners, made it very

clear that they would be selling mob milk only, or they would get fucking whacked. Listen, you fucking little worm, you're going to put our milk, Capone's cow juice, see? on those fucking shelves or Mario bedbugs Giancata and Joey the circus clown Lombardo and Tony baseball bat shit a caro are gonna send your ass to Tune Town you know something like that

With mob muscle, Metal Morg could underpriced other distributors who were bound to pay union prices to union drivers and make sure the distributors work with them and them alone. This pitted the gangsters against union officials

and dairies that did home deliveries which also meant they were against union delivery drivers. Former officer and mafia associate Fred Pesente corroborated this in his memoir. He wrote that Medoamore was actually a Capone front organization designed to undercut the city's reigning milk cartel. Fucking milk cartel.

June 26, 1932, the New York Times published an article titled Chicago Seas Peril in Milk Price War. The article stated, as a result of negotiations involving milk dealers, interested labor unions, and dairy farmers. The price of milk in Chicago recently dropped from 12 to 11 cents a quart and from 8 to 7 cents a pique. almost simultaneously an announcement was made that a company had been organized and acquired a plant and was about to distribute milk at nine cents a quart. Times also elaborated on the importance of milk to the city's residence, writing, There is probably no commodity service in Chicago more efficiently organized or better regulated in the public interest than the milk supply. In years of effort to ensure the consumer's milk, free from all possible contamination, and at reasonable price, there has been evolved a system which stands conspicuously.

among things justifying the pride of Chicagoans. It is responsible in no small measure for a decreasing rate of infant mortality and a generally excellent health standing. So much energy being focused on milk. With all the food product diversity we have today, I feel like this is hard to relate to. We get fish, beef, chicken, pork, other meats from all over the world now. We can get eggs from all over the world. We have, you know, protein rich fake meat alternatives, so many different kinds of protein

powders based in way, soy, pea, hemp, collagen, brown rice, and more. You can get fucking protein-rich cold foam added to your latte. Protein-rich pasta. Protein-enhanced cheese powder to add to your pasta. And on and on and on. We have so many options to get the nutrients we need to be healthy. Or gigantic. But back then, they didn't, right?

Milk was just so much more important than it is now. Chicago dealers obtained milk from roughly 18,000 dairy farmers who made up the Pure Milk Association in the early 19, 30s for farmers to belong to the PMA. They had to comply with regulations designed to protect the purity of milk. And at the time, there were over 400,000 dairy counts in the PMA. Each cow registered with an ear tag. Each cow had to pass health tests and any that failed had to be eliminated.

Sorry, cows. You make good milk. You get fucking whacked. You get the flamethrower. Did you know that's how they killed cows back then with flamethrowers? It wasn't. That would be an insane way to put down a cow. A good way to overcook a bunch of perfectly good beef.

But anyway, all the dairy equipment had to be regularly cleaned. Cows had to be housed separately from horses. They were required to have 5,500 cubic feet of airspace, no less than three square feet of window above their stalls. A Chicago ordinance required milk to contain no less than 3% buffer fat and a maximum bacterial count. They took all this very seriously. The Times provided an explanation on the pricing of milk reporting that the $0.1.1% price charge for a quart of milk is divided amongst those concerned in its production and distribution as follows. 4.32 cents to the farmer, 4.51 cents to labor, 2.17 cents to the dealer, whose profit per court averages 0.0325 of a cent. In order to affect the reduction from 12 cents to 11 cents,

the wagon drivers and inside dairy workers took a 13% cut in wages. When the farmers, through their association and on the expert advice of Dr. Clyde L. King, Philadelphia economist, agreed to a cut of $2.1 to $1.85 for 100 pounds, the dealers were reduced. the price of pines from 8 to 7 cents. Sociologist Dr. A. E. Holt, who devoted weeks to study the milk problem and speaking to PMA farmers, told the times, those who are offering cheap milk to Chicago proposed to buy in a cheaper market and sell accordingly. They proposed to introduce cutthroat competition into a market, which at great cost has been working towards some kind of socially regulated and planned procedure.

When either milk or clothes are produced on sweatshop basis, society simply plays a trick on itself. So basically they're saying they're like, the mob is, you're fucking all this up, right? We're working very hard to set these price points based on a lot of science, a lot of machinery, a lot of people need to be paid. And you guys are fucking that all up with your greed. The milk wagon driver's union was considered one of the best paid and cleanest labor organizations in Chicago, right? Capone's trying to ruin that, or at least he's guys. The union declined to allow their drivers to deliver nine-cent milk. And officials said threats were made by people from the Chicago Teamsters Union.

Sumner and the milk wagon driver's union tried to organize companies to convert them to an employee wage system but the associated milk dealers refused and dairy farmers continued striking. The milk wards pushed out independent distributors who could not compete with the mob's low pricing and massive facility.

Bullying its way into the milk business, the mob was able to easily undercut dairy prices because they weren't unionized selling milk for nine cents a quart which was two cents below the regular price of other distributors. They even extorted pizzerias into buying only mob cheese.

The fuck you think you're doing, you slimy little weasel. You put Mama Maserati's, Mob Marseller on those pepperoni pies, you'd be swimming with the fishes. As the battle raged between the unions, the mob, home milk delivery drivers and retail sellers, Sumner and the milk wagon drivers union attempted to organize the companies and convert them to an employee wage system. But the associated milk dealers refused,

and the dairy farmers continued to strike, even though the Supreme Court handed down injunctions against union picketing. Fast forward to November 1938. After several more years of sporadic violence, more strikes, a lot of people going out of business, losing their jobs, doesn't pay enough. A grand jury indicted 43 individuals with violating the Sherman Act for trying to fix the price of milk. 14 corporations and 43 people are indicted, including Sumner and several unions, the

milk wagon driver's union, the Associated Milk Dealers, the Pure Milk Association, the milk dealer's bottle exchange, so many groups, but not Capone's associates. Interesting. Pays some people off. Eventually, 1939, the antitrust case was thrown out by a district court judge but later reinstated by the U.S. Supreme Court. However, instead of just going to trial, the Department of Justice offered the parties the option of signing a consent decree to agree to the following. The farmers' organizations and unions pledged they would not stop independent producers from marketing milk. Distributors vowed to end price fixing and the driver's union promised not to hamper store sales of milk. and thus the milk wars officially

kind of quietly ended in 1940 and what about Capone and the mob? By 1940, the man they fought against union leader Steve Sumner, the main guy, was already voted out of his job as leader of the milk wagon driver's union. He seemingly took it with grace by saying, the young fellows wanted to move in,

so we'll have to step out, as reported by the Chicago Tribune, and then Sumner will die in 1946, and by that time, the mob in Chicago wasn't nearly as organized, not nearly as powerful as it had been in the early 1930s. Mass mafia arrests in the late 1930s, in addition to that government agreement in 1940

with farmers' organizations and unions to halt tactics such as price fixing and hampering with store sales of milk, effectively ended the milk war. Capone essentially retired from the mob after his imprisonment in 1931, but the Chicago crime syndicate he created continued under the leadership of several disciples

like Mafia bosses, Paul Rika, and Tony O'Cardo. By the time Capone, was released from Alcatraz in 1939. He's dying from a severe case of syphilis that affected his mental and physical health. Doctors noted he had the cognitive processes of a 12-year-old child. He never returned to Chicago.

Instead, lived out his last years with his family to Florida mansion where he died in 1947 at the age of 48. Some of Al's associates, we don't know exactly who, are rumored to have continued to control Meadowmore Dairies all the way until 1961 when it was sold. But by 1940, they weren't running Chicago, was dairy scene. Not really. The dairy scene was, you know, or their dairy, excuse me, was basically

just being operated as a normal legal business now. Good place I'm guessing to launder money. Okay, a lot of info. So what do we just learn? Well, when you zoom out from all of this, the bombings, the beatings, the dumped milk, the mob threats, the desperate farmers, the terrified delivery drivers, the chocolate workers getting walloped and the sweetest place on earth, what the milk wars really show us isn't that people went insane over milk it's that when a large sector of workers are under enough financial pressure

and essential product can become pretty combustible milk wasn't just cow juice back then it was nutrition survival steady income infant health rent money mortgage money identity and when the great depression squeezed every penny

out of an already fragile system milk turned from a wholesome staple into a fucking weapon a bargaining chip, sometimes a target for pure rage. When you can't stockpile it, can't hide it, can't afford to lose it, well, people are going to fight. Today we live in a world of endless food options, substitutes and delivery apps, where milk is just one choice amongst a thousand. And plenty of people will probably say nah to it. But less than a century ago, milk was so vital it dragged unions, farmers, corporations, police, the National Guard, the Chicago mob, even chocolate factories, into open violent conflict.

People didn't just cry ever spilt milk. They spilled blood over it. Historically, violence hasn't always started over gold or oil or ideology. Sometimes it started over something sitting quietly in your fridge right now, waiting to go bad. And that's it for this edition of Time Suck Short Sucks. I hope you enjoyed that strange little size of a slice of U.S. history. I sure did. If you did like that story, check out the rest of the Bad Magic catalog.

Beefier episodes at Time Suck, Mondays at Noon Pacific Time. New episodes of the now long-running. Paranormal podcast, scared to death, every Tuesday at midnight, with two episodes of nightmare food, some fictional horror thrown into the mix each month. I was able to handle all the research on this one, and Logan Keith polished up the sound of today's episode before release. Please go to bad magic productions.com for all your bad magic needs and have yourself a great weekend.