The Nonpartisan Leader Newspaper, August 26, 1918, Page 9

A B T s talked have agreed to this policy and it is Mr. Veeder’s idea that as soon as our people have formulated our re- ply we should have a meeting among ourselves to con- sider it and that we should at that meeting discuss the advisability of exchanging copies of letters with the others as against simply bringing our letters into a meeting to discussed there without exchange of copies. Told him that I thought that this was a point that ought to be given very careful consideration, and that we would not want to commit ourselves at this time to an exchange of letters with the others. Told him that when our material was ready would ar- range for meeting of all interested who were in town at that time. 3 Will Mr. White please advise me when the data is in shape to be considered in a conference of our own pedple. © WILLIAM B. TRAYNOR, Secretary to Committee. In addition to the general “combing” of the com- panies’ files in anticipation of the investigation, attempts were made on certain occasions to ab- stract important documents from the files under the eyes of our agents. G. S. Shepard, vice president of the Cudahy Packing company, admitted that he had ordered- his stenographer to make an incorrect copy of a letter which the commission’s agent had requested, and had himself destroyed the document. Finally it may be stated that the attorney for Mor- ris & Co., M. W. Borders, when put on the witness stand under oath, after first demanding immunity on the ground that his testimony might tend to incriminate him, proceeded to make statements which were disproved by the doeuments, many signed by himself, with which he was later con- fronted. s Cases of this nature involving violations of the law have been placed in the hands of the depart- ment of justice for appropriate action. ALLIES AT THE MERCY - OF THE PACKERS : It should be remembered also in considering the results of this investigation that these corporations are now operating under a federal injunction issued in 1903; that they had been informed by the at- torney general in 1912, at the dissolution of the National Packing company, that they would be the objects of close scrutiny and inspection; and that a committee of their confidential employes reported on April 10, 1916, that “as matters now stand criminal prosecutions are sure to follow.” These facts have been cited at the beginning of the report, not so much for the light which they throw upon the character of the corporations and individuals under investigation but because , they demonstrate that this report, based as it is upon documentary evidence of the corporations, is AN UNDERSTATEMENT RATHER THAN AN OVERSTATEMENT OF THE SITUATION. Five corporations—Armour & Co., Swift & Co., \ THE “NOOS FAMILY” ‘TIS_AN AWFUL GANG TO BE SEEN W BUT WE NEED 'EJH You WE. NEED ‘EM. KRNOW/, DN }‘; R Wise men now know that they can mot get the truth from the newspapers. Big Biz and ‘Special Privilege have the editors by the hand. -When the editors show signs of independence, their advertising is taken away from them, and they either starve or join_the procession. Leaguers know that city papers that devote pages to attacking the Nonpartisans have little or o room to discuss the revelations of the greed of the packing monopolists. ) l/ \,“N. < T, b po AN i i The government always has had to watch the pack- ers. Here is a picture of federal employes exam- ining hogs’ heads for disease. This was to protect the people from greed that would poison them if left unchecked. Morris & Co., Wilson & Co., Inc., and the Cudahy Packing company—hereafter referred to as the “Big Five” or “The Packers,” together with their subsidiaries and affiliated companies, not only have a monopolistic control over the American meat in- dustry, but have secured control, similar in pur- pose if not yet in extent, over the principal sub- stitutes for meat, such as eggs, cheese and vege- table-oil products, and are rapidly extending their power to cover fish and nearly every kind of food- stuff. In addition to these immense properties in the United States, the Armour, Swift, Morris and Wil- son interests, either separately or jointly, own or control more than half of the export meat produc- tion of the Argentine, Brazil and Uruguay, and have large investments in other surplus meat-pro- ducing countries, including Australia. Under present shipping conditions the big American pack- ers control more than half of the meat upon which the allies are dependent. : The monopolistic position of the Big Five is based not only upon the large proportion of the meat business which they handle, ranging from 61 to 86 per cent in the principal lines, but pri- marily upon their ownership, separately or jointly, of stockyards, car lines, cold storage plants, branch houses and the other essential facilities for the distribution of perishable foods. The control of these five great- corporations, furthermore, rests in the hands of a small group of individuals, namely, J. Ogden Armour, the Swift brothers, the Morris brothers, Thomas E. Wilson (acting under the veto of a small group of bank- ers), and the Cudahys. A mew and important aspect was added to the situation when the con- trol of Sulzberger & Sons Co. (now known as Wilson & Co., Inc.) was se- cured, 1916, by a group of New York banks—Chase National bank, Guar- anty Trust company, Kuhn, Loeb & Co., William Salomon & Co. and Hallgarten & Co. The report of the committee appointed by the house of representatives to ‘“investigate the con- centration of control of money and credit” (the Pujo committee) states (p. 59): “Morgan & Co. controls absolutely ° the Guaranty Trust company.” The Chase National bank, a majority of its stock being owned by George F. Baker, is closely affiliated with the First Na- tional bank. William Salomon & Co. and Hallgarten & Co. are closely affili- ated with Kuhn, Loeb -& Co. Thus we ERo ) «\"f:inlx oV 'S/ K\ f//'fi/x & s ] 28 <Y y TP 2N N ghtol hucenis fi] have three of the most powerful banking groups in the country, which the Pujo committee classed among the six “most active agents in forwarding. and bringing about the concentration of control of money and credit” now participating in the rapidly maturing food monopoly above described. The en- trance of the bankers into the packing business, it should also be noted, was not at all displeasing to the big packers. J. Ogden Armour and Louis F. Swift were frequently consulted during the ne- gotiations, and Paul D. Cravath is quoted by Henry Veeder as giving assurance that the fihal arrange- ments would be “more than satisfactory” to Ar- mour and Swift. The menace of this concentrated control of the nation’s food is increased by the fact that these five corporations and their five hundred and odd subsidiary, controlled and affiliated companies are bound together by joint ownership, agreements, understandings, communities of interest and fam- ily relationships. DEFRAUD BOTH PRODUCER AND CONSUMER The combination among the Big Five is not a casual agreement brought about by indirect and obscure methods, BUT A DEFINITE AND POSI- TIVE CONSPIRACY for the purpose of regulating purchases of livestock and controlling the price of meat, the terms of the conspiracy being found in certain documents which are in our possession. There are undoubtedly rivalries in certain lines among the five corporations. Their agreements do not cover every phase of their manifold activi- ties, nor is each of the five corporations a party to all agreements and understandings which exist. Each of the companies is free to secure advantages and profits for itself so long as it does not disturb the basic compact. Elaborate steps have been taken to disguise their real relations by maintain- ing a show of intense competition at the most con- spicuous points of contact. The Armour, Swift, Morris and Wilson interests have entered into a combination ‘with certain for- eign corporations by which export shipments of beef, mutton and other meats from the principal South American meat-producing countries are ap- portioned among the several companies on the basis of agreed percentages. In conjunction with this conspiracy, meetings are held for the purpose of securing the maintenance of the agreement and making such readjustments as from time to time may be desirable. The agreements restrict South American shipments to European countries and to the United States. Since the meat supplies of North and South America constitute practically the only sources from which the United States and her allies can satisfy their needs for their armies, navies and civil populations, these two agreements constitute a conspiracy on the part of the Big Five, in con- junction with certain foreign corporations, to mo- nopolize an essential of the food of the United States, England, France and Italy. The power of the Big Five in the United States has been and is being unfairly and illegally used to— Manipulate livestock markets; ° Restrict interstate and international food sup- _plies; Control prices of dressed meats 4nd other foods; Defraud both producers of food and consumers; Crush effective competition; Secure special privileges from railroads, stock- yard companies and municipalities; and Profiteer. The packers” profits in 1917 were more than four times as great as in the average year before the European war, although their sales in dol- lars and cents at even the inflated prices of last year had bare- ly doubled. In the war.years, 1915-16- 17, four of the five packers made net profits of $178,- KC. ogélv'ugss RTLAND STAR| % "’Zoeaommv 0 S, ( — 2" o O o e % “ « Read the story on these two pages—you will not be able to find it in any other magazine or paper in America, although it is a government report. e -The space it might have occupied in the daily press is taken up by high-priced advertisements paid for by the packers. PAGE . NINE > 1] “ e e R S S s e O e e e e