The Nonpartisan Leader Newspaper, December 21, 1916, Page 5

iy OUTH ST. PAUL _Dec: 18.—The: R b SSouth St. Paul livestock: market is - not ‘a. market where. quality. sets : e ; the price and where stock can be s » i .. ‘bought and sold on its merits. It is not ! .8 market’ where the s’hippers cattle go .impartially to the highest bidder. It is - " not a market where the buyer can pick his load.and deal freely with the man of .his’ choice. It is a monopohzed ma.rket. It is under the domination of a- ring.of specu- latars, who have grown from mere inci- dental traders “copping” off‘a penny “here and there, to a powerful clique ‘of “-millionaires who COKWI the Livestock. - Exchange, dictate its rules and say who . :shall’and who shall net make use if the . South St. Paul livestock matket. f : Inasenesofamcleslexpectbotell -some_of' the facts that shippers of live- stock ought to know, for ‘these facts concern all the producers of cattle, sheep and hogs in Montana, the _Dakotas, Min- nesota and part of those in Towa and mmols, ~who ship ‘through" this. market. It is a story of mingled craftiness and < bulldozing, boycott, ostracism,-loans. to . stockmen, control: of supposed Tivals -4 through finaneml dependence, ' showy framing. of “et.lncal" <rules, and secret breakmg of ‘those same rules.. These are some of the details of the picture, but in this first article ‘only a’ few broad strokes can. be given—enough to . show vhow speculators have ‘developed the mar- ket into.a toll-pavmg device of their own. When livestock first began to reach “South St.\Paul in /1887 there were no . speculators and there was no packing house to utilize the stock.” The animals "began to arrive before the plant was completed. And evén after Swift & Co. ““had begun: operation there was a large percentage wf stock that could not be . used in the plant.! The commission men who received the livestock : had: to find/ as buyers:local butchers or farmers who would . take the < stock to: the comm-v % 1. ~ 5 agé\ometrmes 10 buyers could be found “and-the commission men were forced to " purchase the stock themselves ‘and ‘hunt - "' a buyer latér—or accept the alternative, ; quit the business and admit that South St. Paul ‘could not become a market,: T - The -trading was unsteady for lack of a ‘f = ‘constant buyiig element that would s~ absorb au emvalk, ; G —~ nANGEns"” -ON BECOME UTOCBATS OF YARD . -« { Under these clrcumstances ‘the- comnus- ‘gion’ men gladl 7 welcomed those ‘pioneers The newcomers— " speculators , Who'saw a yawn- | ing opporbunxty and leaped at it—gave always: certain outlet “th afiorded and regsed ; : yeusormuretheyhavememsedm - ‘mumbers, and‘by a gradual crystalization " “an “ld guard” ha been 1 : formed. and it s b : ~brought‘n _:a. 1s0] 3 ~and caused ' indignation' ameng northwestern stock: r: aummts' of the yards. In the last 15 ¥ “Wmt untrl nfter dmner" he sm .'.“one of ‘the traders here in the yard ‘svants my whole string, and’ you can buys e!mnce, by first selling to the specul,ators ~and then .compelling ' the “outsider” to buy. of them. Once in a great while a commission man will sell directly to an outside buyer, but in 99 cases,out of 100 iti8 ‘the “insider;” the yard speculator, who gets the stuff. ;. INDIVIDUAL CASES SHOW HOW-FARMERS LOSE CASH After the speculator has-hought the stock he slaps on''a spread of $1 to several dollars per head and resells it Sométimes this stock is. sold without another feeding, and all of the spread is speculator’s profit. - Sometimes the stock i8 80 -and ‘fed a day or two and the ~.speculator ‘makes a still larger profit. Sometxmes he doesn’t—but the old ‘time _ . .'The South’St. Paul stoc]ryards. In the foreground. is a drove of “feeder” dominated by a group of speculators, who buy up.stock:and resell it to farm farmer with stock to sell can seldom if ever:get in touch-with a farmer w. in addition’ to paying the commission. ‘He:'was just as much.at the mercy of the commission man . and . speculator as though he had been arblttanly assessed a commission- of $4.50 per hcad mstead of 50’ cents. . . “SPECULATOR’S ALLEY” POES A ‘BIG ‘BUSINESS *_Another man who wanted to buy a whole car of eattle from a commission man who had. them on consignment, was H. Richricks of chhnson, N.D. He was willing to pay a good price, which would have _ yielded ' the _shipper more -money than the speculator paid: the commission .mau, but the latter absolutely refused “No. You go to the spe_culator," he On the~In81de : at South St. Pau ?_' , By Ralph Harmon, Staff Correspondent of the N onpartlsan Leader feller’s Sunday school class would ba quoted - about Standard Oil doing There is a reason. ¥ "HOW THE MILLIONAIRE TRADERS GET- BUSINESS But to ‘illustrate, suppose we say, using . fictitious names, that Isaacs anq Thompson are the king pins of the y They are speculators rated at a milli or so each, shrewd. cattle ‘buyers an business men. They. belong -to. the Exchange and are very “close” to twe or three commission houses that throw, the bulk of- their conargnments to Isaacl and Thompson. | .One. of these comm1ssmn houses gets a carload of cattle that.the Iowa, Monw tana or Tllinois feeders are daffy overy cattle in a, specnlator’s pen. The stockyards are ers who want to fatten animals: for market. A anting .to buy “feeders,” even: throngh: a ‘commission man. Both the. speeuletor and eommisslon man stand between the farmer who isa buyer and the farmer who isa seller. \ traders are. ~wealthyy a.nd some. of them .are rated at from ‘one million to three millions. W B. Adams of Brnddoek, N. D, was: 7 because: of the ~Was on the . Sonth' St. Paul matket stability ‘to the- markst. 5 recently: to buy several carloads of feeder - cattle. He had. placed ‘his. order with a " certain.commission firm but did not want ‘to pay an added-toll to ‘any yard trader. The commission: man-had - just: received on commission that day the kind of stock he wanted, but refused to sell them to hxm-—exqept just-a-few head tohold- his “order-so that Adams could:not- go elsé- ‘where: i b'eek-what yon want gt 3 “feeders"——'that : sald That~ mea.nt “an ad-vance of a.ny sum up to a dollar ‘or two per head, for . the buyer to pay, but it meant no 'bxgger returns to the farmer who ised the 5 Thus it 'is that the- speculators have become. the dominant factor-at the South St. Paul stockyards and have succeeded: in.draining into their owzrpens the wealth ‘of ‘the livestock industry.’ And half the business of the yards is done in the” “speculator’s alley,” or what in. more ‘dignified language is called the “Feeder +-and ‘Stocker Division.” Official- fignres for 1915 show thAt out of 797,838 ‘head of cattle sold on the . market, only 842,331 were used at- South St..Paul, ‘while 411 ' for. fattening. and - house .at some Ofsheep 60000 hedd were. The house sends for the l & T buyer to Tlook at them, He makes.an offer, which no one hears for the talk is off in & corner of the pen or alley; and Isagcs & : ‘Thompson . get. the load, : Other buyers ‘may. be ready to-offer more—may actually’ do_sp,-but they must raise the .bid at least 10-cents per- 109 {(for traders will not “spht a “dime”) -and:even if: /they do offer‘ more they may not get. it as the cases of Bates and -Sarsfield ‘and' others ‘show.” The slupper loses: and the specu« lators win. ‘Now consider ‘the ecase from the countryman’s pomt of view—the man ' who ;comes to buy- cattle’ to feed, Jones of. Sogth Dakota, we. will say. ‘The com- mission man takes his customer to-Isaacs - & Thompson and- shows ‘their. istring of - ‘cattle. . If Jones does no¥ care for them, he takes Jones down the' yards a block or two and ‘introduces kim to the cattle . of ‘the\ Crown Cattle company... Now. - : " Isagcs & Thompson heve set. Whe Crown.. R Cattle "company up - %