The Nonpartisan Leader Newspaper, February 11, 1918, Page 27

< The .Cr(’)oked' Deals o»f‘the Big Packers (Continued from page 7) came to $27,000, and that is all he ever paid for the original packing plant, stockyards, land and rail- road, including the $1,000,000 in shares of stock. So when Armour demanded $1,000,000 to come to South St. Paul, as the elder Swift-had done before him, Swift knew the smoothest way to pull the wires. He offered to get the necessary stockyards company stock and he did it just the same way that he got his stock in the beginning. He had the capital increased from'$2,000,000 to $2,500,000 and saw that Armour got the new issue of $500,000. But before this could be done, certain English stockholders, who controlled $800,000 of the $2,000,000, had to be brought into the scheme. This was comparatively easy. K. D. Dunlop, stockholder and director in various Swift concerns at South St. Paul, controlled the English stock- holders. Their stock was held in the name of Robert Benson & ‘Co., of England, and Mr. Dunlop was connected with this firm before he went to St. Paul. He has been a Swift & Co. stockholder and director for 20 years and usually voted the English stockholders’ proxies. In order to induce these English holders to consent to an increase in . the capital stock, Mr. Dunlop testified, he proposed that they be promised a 1 per cent dividend. “They had always been promised a dividend, but for 30 years they had never got it,”” he said on the stand. He thought this would be a good time to make good on the promise, and that it would smooth ° over any hesitation: they might have in signing away their rights to a half million worth of inter-. est in the big plant that had been built up out of earnings and their financial help. It was also brought out that at this time L. F. Swift owned over half the stock in the stockyards company. This promise, and the representations made in connec- tion with the proposed new issue, got their consent, and in due time the stockholders authorized the in- crease in capital, and assigned all their equity in . this additional capital to the Fort Dearborn Trust - & Savings Co., of Chicago, and it was taken in trust for Armour by this bank. The stockholders were not told that their chief “competitor” was to get this: stock, but only that it yas to be used to get “another firm into the yards,” Mr. Dunlop said. - SWIFT ALSO CONTROLS - STOCKYARDS RAILROAD 5 It will be seen that while Mr. Swift procured this half million for Mr. Armour, he never impaired any of his own $1,665,000 and that Armour’s share was made up out of the betterments paid for by earnings that were capitalized. Neither did Swift -relinquish any of his controlling stock to make up the $100,000 in stockyards company shares that had already been turned over to Armour, as was told in last week’s Leader article. The only people who paid anything to get Armour into South St. Paul along with Swift were the people who subscribed the cash and the stockholders who voted away their equity in the new issue. In other words, this new wealth — generally called “watered stock” — was® created by resolution and given to Armour, but this is just as valuable in -drawing dividends and exer- cising control as if it had been created in any other way. WORKING FOR THE CAUSE Chinook, Mont. Editor Nonpartisan Leader: I have been a reader of the Leader for some time and I can say I indorse every principle and doctrine it advocates. I am a man now 66 years of age, and it is the first time in my life that I can help fight for the rights of the farmer, and I am going to do all I can, I read the Leader—every word in it—and then I let my neighbors read it. In that way ) know I have converted some five or six to the cause of the farmers. I would like to have a speaker with us. We are all homesteaders here and in 1917 we didn’t raise any crop of any amount. Hardly any feed for our stock. I will do all in my power to get .'as many votes for the League as I can. The battle has begun; now let’s ifight it through to the end and give the man that is the backbone of this country a chance. I will send vou a cartoon taken out.of a Minnesota paper that suits me fine, S. A. SLAGBAUGH. NO USE FOR FALSEHOODS A copy of the below letter was sent to the Leader with a request that we publish it, together with the clipping referred to, which was an article re-written from the New York Herald, attacking the Nonpar- tisan league, in which some of the Herald’s most vicious statements were quoted with approval by the Dispatch.—THE EDITOR. West Fork, Mont. | Farmers’ Dispatch, St. Paul, Minn. I do not need your paper any more. My sub- scription ran out in August. I wish you would stop sending it. Your paper is a good one for the price if it were not that you are bucking Mr. Townley and the Nonpartisan league, which is the same as if you bucked the farmers that belong to it. I have read several pieces that you have printed that run down the League. The last one on Mr. Townley was in the December issue, in which you say Mr. Townley is unpatriotic and is like La Foll- ette and savors of pro-Germanism. Of course you don’t come right out and say this yourself, but you , quote the New York Herald. It’'s tommy-rot and you are helping spread it. Mr. Townley and the League are patriotic and both are doing the best they can to help the farmer and also there are 150,000 real men backing Mr. Townley and the League. ‘What little money the farmers get they get by hard work, and yet they will spend it to carry on the war or help better the laws of the United States for the common people. Will the speculators and moneyed men do that? I am asking you this because you seem to be helping their side. You are at liberty to print this, and also do you get all your news about the Northwest from New York? - = C. B. WILSON. AGREES WITH THE LEAGUE Mr. Vrooman’s remarks not only refute the charges made against the Nonpartisan league and the farm- ers of the Northwest by big business newspapers (that farmers are unpatriotic), but he went on to advocate just what the National Nonpartisan league always has advocated and in effect his entire speech was a tacit indorsement of its program for indus- trial as well as political democracy.—BOTTINEAU (N. D.) COURANT. These Exclusive Features ers are buying now. Rapid Tach-A-Tractor “fills the bill.” good’’ auto-tractor attachment. The attachment practical farm- Does the work and does it right. - Nothing" experimental about it—no weak points. Made to stand up for any service and does work of four big farm horses easily. 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