The Nonpartisan Leader Newspaper, September 30, 1918, Page 9

. figures for the separate markets also ‘Swift & Co., found a number of sheets " participants ~ in - the Veeder pools. ‘should the League for any regson cease to func- tion. They tell you through the papers that the League is already beaten and is breaking up. In their secret .correspondence they make no such foolish statements. They realize the farmers are sticking and they are eonstantly _planning and scheming to dis- credit their work and defeat their organized power. Nothing in this letter about /Townley” and the “leaders” being all wrong but: the “membershlp" being all right! The whole organization, its mem- ‘ bers and program, are condemned. These plotters do ndt care anything about the “leaders.” They would not support any organization of the farm- ers that would be effective in getting the farmers justice, no matter what “leaders” it had. They are not really after the “leaders,” as they claim in the newspapers. They are after the organiza- tion and its program. They merely use the “lead- ers” argument as the best means of destroying the organization and defeating its program. How the Packers Kept Prlces Down Competltlon in Buying Cattle and Hogs in the Stockyards Was Avoided by Agreement to Split the v ~Available Supply - BY THE FEDERAL TRADE COMMISSION ,v O FAR we have been merely de- scribing ' the character and methods of the conspiracy among the Big Five. We now offer some of the illuminating proofs, leaving the examination of the voluminous details re- garding the workings of the conspiracy for the full report. The first evidence which came into our posses- sion indicating the existence of a livestock pool was in the form of a tattered memorandum dis- covered by one of the commission’s agents in the files of Edward F. Swift. This memorandum, which bore signs of frequent consultation, con- tained only certain percentages, totaling 100, op- posite which was scribbled “% live buyers.” This document might not have attracted so much at- tention if in the same files had not been discov- ered a set of sheets showing the num- ber and percentages of livestock pur- chased by each of the Big Five at the principal markets and in the entire country. The. first glance at these sheets revealed such a remarkable uniformity from year to year in the percentages purchased by each of the big packers as to convince any dis- interested person that such results could be attained only by agreement. Here, for example, are the percent- ages of cattle purchased by each of the Big Five during the last five years: PER CENT OF TOTAL CATTLE PURCHASES 17.14 | 10.85 The percentages for hogs, sheep and ealves displayed the same uni- formity, ‘even more ~significant, the were eensistently maintained. PROOF OF THE CONSPIRACY Not long after this discovery an- other agent of the commission, in an examination of documents in the pos- session of Henry Veeder, counsel for containing various percentage figures, opposite a number of which appeared letters which were the initials of the different packing companies. But of particalar importance was a series of percentage figures, accompanied by the symbols which Veeder had testi- fied in 1912 represented the various These had been bracketed and com-- bined in such a way that the percent- ages for the companies which have now been con- / fsolldated with Armour, Swift and Morris, follow- ing the dissolution of the National Packing com- pany, were brough together into a sécond series of pereentages ‘which correspond exactly with fig- ures on the Swift memorandum. These figures - seemed: sxgnificant when, IMMEDIATELY AFTER /- THEIR ' DISCOVERY, * FUSED FURTHER ACCESS TO THE PAPERS‘ < IN HIS POSSESSION. - HENRY VEEDER RE- ;.W!wn:these“percentages and records of hvestock o -“capacity theory.” MADKME DEMOCRACY, 'ound, certain’ representatives of / ; ommendation. the packing. companies hastened to explain that there was no significance whatever in the uniform- ity of purchases from year to year, elther for the country as a whole or for the separate livestock markets; that these percentages were determined by the.capacities of the several plants; and that if there was a correspondence between. the percent- ages of purchases and the memoranda which had. been found, it was merely an interesting co- incidence. TYING UP THE OMAHA MARKET About this time, however, other agents investi- gating Armour & Co. and Wilson & Co., Inc., brought in several letters which demolished the First was a letter of October 19, 1916, from Philip D. Armour to J. Ogden Ar- N WHEN YOU ARE ORGAMNIZED YOU WiLL ENJOY MORE DEMOERACY THAN YOU HAVE. EVER - HAD IN ALL YouR LIFEY = A ////// —Drawn expressly for the. Leader by Congressman J. M. Baer Miss Democracy, the palmist, is here telhng he farmer what he has known all his life. By organization he will put men _ ests rather than to the public utilities, ilam gamblers, unnecessary middlemen ‘ “and the raw material trusts. means better returns. for his toil. mour which shows that although Armours plant at Denver had a much smaller ‘capacity than Swift’s,. the division of hvestock was nevertheless “fifty-fifty.” i | < My Dear Uncle Ogden Just a ‘line: to tell yon t.bnt - Tom and I arrived here from Fort Worth and lud a very ‘ pleasant trip. 1. can nottellgnu how surprised I was in going over - the plant here, all the plants: we have, this one cer- tainly needs our first attention. In my opinion, the best part of it as bad as the worst part of any of our other plants. ' Swift’s little T saw of it; ;nd “conditi .done on a b ufarabendotounbothutothen " FATE OF POLITICIANS WHO ARE GUINGON A LONG dOuRNEY; ,office favorable to his own inter= ore democracy to the farmer ‘plant, from what 1 hear ‘and from the. ; -5unttnkeepquietand‘let them do the ng here ¢ ed i i ERE is another installment of the report of the federal trade commission on. the évil workings of the packing monopolies. dent’s investigators reveal the conspiracy against producers, and consumers. S the marketmg of the raw and finished product was their rec- Step by step the presi- Federal acquisition of The Nonpartisan farmers are back of this proposal. _Hope you are well and that everything is going all right. Tom Joms me in kindest regards. Very sincerely yours, P. D. A. There are also letters /between Arthur Meeker, vice president of Armour & Co., and Thomas E. Wilson, president of Wilson & Co which prove that even so strong a company as Wilson is not vermitted to buy on any market it pleases, but must conform to the agreement, which was made “on the basis of the map when peace was declared”: Chicago, March 24, 1917. Mr. T. E. Wilson Sy President Wilson & Co., Union Stock Yards. Dear Mr. Wilson: Our hog department say that any hogs that your people bought in 1912 or 1915 in Omaha, they bought under cover. They never maintained a salaried buyer there. What few they bought they bought through a speeulator named ‘“Red” Murphy, who used all kinds of schemes in shipping them out to have their des- tination unknown; shipping them to a junction point, and_then they would be reconsigned under fictitious names. soon as the matter was taken . up with the S. & S. Co. they discontinued it. So I fail to see how you can honestly claim any rights today for Bny under- hand work that your firm did in 1912. Yours very truly, ARTHUR MEEKER. March 26, 1917. U. 8. Yarda, * Chi- Mr. Arthur Meeker, Armour & Co., cago, Dear Mr. Meeker: Answering your note of March 24, you are misinformed on the matter referred to. Our people did main- tain a salaried buyer in Omaha as I have previously advised you. In fact, Mr. Harry Booth, who is now our head buyer in Chicago, was himself stationed there for periods of several weeks, and if, as you state, Mr. Red Murphy undertook to cover up the purchases that he made for this company and destination, he did it for reasons of his own, and I think you probably know that all of the hogs that he buys are first weighed to him, sorted and reweighed.. This. is his practice today and no doubt was in former years, when this concern_did business with him. Yours very truly, . In the public hearings, when these letters were read, Mr. Francis J. Heney, special attorney for the fed- eral trade- commission, said: Those letters, Mr. Commission- er, can not mean anything except that the complaint was made that " Wilson & Co. did not have any right to ‘buy any hogs in that market. They must get their per- . centages elsewhere, and they®did not have any right, because the map was not fixed that way when the peace was deelared and the combination made. KEEPING DOWN HOG PRICES AT SIOUX CITY - -local agreements we quote also the [ given unwillingly and only after he had been confronted with the letters from E A.- Cudahy, which appear in the record: Question by MR. : I want to read you, e files- of the Cudaby compmy. The 'first one dnud ’.,( C stoe rdflmtwe-oldontfnflum O‘!tzonmh;e ‘ean’t stop the' rumorl. but all we hnva ‘to do’, -talking. I think® e As pfoof of the existence of these following excerpts, from the testimony . of M. R. Murphy, general superintend- ent of the Cudahy Packing company, . tion with that testimony, the copy of letters bere hken