Last Wednesday, July 9, 1919, Mr. Harris Dick, founder and president of the Western Dairy Company, died. He has done much for Chicago Jewry as a man of great self-respect, with a soul and a Jewish conscience. He devoted many years to the building of a business concern which brought health to hundreds of men, women, and children.

Like all immigrant Jews he found himself a stranger in a strange country on his arrival twenty-six years ago. The Jewish community in Chicago was too small at the time to be able to render aid or service to the newcomers. Mr. Dick's motto was "to earn money by his own hands". Possessing natural courage, energy, and a rare patience, working at everything and anything to earn his livelihood, he found nothing too base nor too hard to undertake.

Later he opened the H. Dick Milk Store on Fourteenth Street. At that time, there were no large Jewish-operated dairy companies. Those that existed at the time were small and were housed in filthy, dark damp basements. Mr. Dick, as a far-seeing man, saw clearly his duty to the Jews of Chicago and performed it all.

In 1907 he organized the present Western Dairy Company, installing the most modern machinery of the time. Jews were now able to secure milk, butter, and cream, produced under the most sanitary conditions. This was then a revolutionary step in the dairy business. More and more Jews patronized his company.

He was the first Jew to use modern methods to produce milk, cream, and butter for Chicago's Jews under sanitary conditions. He was also the first Jew to pasteurize milk; the first to bring the dairy business into the field of Jewish employment.

Mr. Dick did not stop at this; he he dreamed and strove to expand and improve his company, to make it a great business monument of beauty and progress in the 3United States. And his dream became a reality.

A new plant covering an area over two hundred feet wide and one hundred and six feet long, extending from 1443 to 1459 Edgemont Avenue, near Laflin Street, is really the finest, the most modern and sanitary dairy from both its inner and outer appearance. Its architecture is one of beauty. The building is large, and is flooded with daylight. The machinary contained therein is very modern.

Mr. Dick introduced a new relationship between employer and employee, one of friendship and sociability. From time to time he and his workers gathered to enjoy themselves in a true Jewish fashion, at such times collecting money for war sufferers or charitable institutions. Such a relationship is the pride of any business concern.

Mr. Dick comes from a fine family in Wilna. He was a quiet person who sought no honors, but did everything wholeheartedly, as his philanthropies and his friendly relations with his workers testify. For years he was president of 4the Congregation Anshe Wilna Hagar'a, devoting much time and energy to its maintenance. He leaves three daughters Anna, Ida, Mamie and two sons Morris and Samuel.

Mr. Dick is dead, but his accomplishments, his character as a businessman, Jew, and humanitarian will remain in the memory of Chicago Jews for generations to come.