The Nonpartisan Leader Newspaper, July 11, 1921, Page 4

We ;lnswer a Letter of Swift & Co. of Chicago We are publishing in full elsewhere in this issue the Swift & Co. letter to the editor to which this is our answer. N A letter to the editor, the commercial research department of Swift & Co. says that figures we recently published do'the pack- ers an injustice. It will be remembered that we published fig- ures of the Minnesota agricultural department showing that, while livestock had declined 4114 -per cent during the last year, wholesale meat prices during the same period had declined only 2914 per cent, and retail meat prices only 1814 per cent. Swift & Co. do not ques- tion the accuracy of these figures, but, claim that Excuse of there are valid reasons why meat has not declined in Pack correspondence with livestock, and that these rea- ackers sons prove the packers blameless. Inadequate By-products, says Swift & Co., have fallen so much in value that the packers have had to maintain. By-products, per 100 pounds- meat prices at a higher relative level. of beef, worth $4.75 a year ago, are worth only $1 now, we are told. By-products, in which the public is much less vitally interested than meat, have thus declined in price 79 per cent, while livestock was declining only 4114 per cent, and wholesale meat only 2914 per cent. In other words, by-products, largely raw materials sold to manu- facturers and not direct to retailers like meat, have been made to stand a loss which to some extent the people have had to make up in higher relative prices for meat. Such evidence as we have is that the manufacturers who ob- DIVIDING UP THE FARMER’S DOLLAR [ DIVIDING UP THE FARMER'S DOLLAR _| of a cent a pound less, according to the packers’ own figures. And if the consumer was given this almost invisible decrease the pack- ers could pay no more for livestock to farmers than they now pay. But if the packers divided the saving of a 25 per cent reduction in packing house wages equally between producer and consumer, the housewife could buy beef for one and four-tenths mills less per pound than now, or about one-seventh of a cent a pound less. And the farmers would get an almost invisible fractional part of a cent - more per pound for. cattle. No, wages have little or nothing to do with.it. They do not explain the discrepancy between a 4114 per cent decline in the price of livestock, as compared to only a 2914 per cent decline in the price of beef. They do not account for even a visible part of the dis- crzpancy. : HINKING farmers will not join big business in the propa- ganda for lower wages in industry, for other reasons than the mere fact that lower wages can not make a direct, appre- ciable difference in the prices farmers get. Wages in the packing houses, for instance, while higher than the pre-war level, are lower than official and impartial investigations show are necessary for the average family to live in decency. Further cuts in wages neces- sarily mean a retrenchment in the expenditures of workmen. The workingman is the largest consumer of farm products. If his wages are cut, the market for farm products is fur- ther restricted. What lit- tle direct tained these -pro - at this big redl?g:cig; dfilac‘EZ T A et 2 Why .Labor 21;?2 trf'xaiglrllt not handed the saving GET Mvekt of THIS i Is Friend | .o in a down to the consumers. of Farmer wage cut to Shoes, for instance, made workmen of hides, a packer by- would be more than made product, are almost as up in the restriction of the high now as when hides were bringing three or four times as much to packers and farmers. Factories which uti- lize packer by-products are to a large extent owmed and controlled by the packers. Thus the packer’s manufacturing side lines have been given the benefit of a 79 per cent reduction in the price of packer by- product materials, while 3 et retailers, who buy the L meat, a finished product, at wholesale and pass it on to the consumer, have been given the benefit of a reduction of only 2914 per cent. It seems to us that in making this excuse for failure of meat to be “de- flated” to the same extent as livestock, Swift & Co. have succeeded simply in divulging another set of damaging facts which .packers will have to explain. : - The other excuse made in the letter of the packers was that wages paid by packers, even with the 15 per cent reduction of last March, are so high that the packers, while they can buy livestock at pre-war prices, have been unable to reduce their manufacturing costs. We are asked by Swift & Co. to join with them in a fight to force packing house wages down, the packers now having a case pending before the government arbitration board to secure that end. We can, they tell us, assist in getting more return to farmers for livestock, and cheaper meat for the consumer, by assisting in the propaganda for lower wages for workmen. But here again the packer reasoning seems to us faulty, if not dishonest. Swift & Co.’s own figures show that 100 pounds of beef, now selling at $15, represents a packer manufacturing expense of only $2.50. Of the $15, wholesale price for 100 pounds of beef, $12.50 represents raw- material cost and $2.50 packer costs and profits. Now wages are 45 per cent of packer. expenses, so that there is a labor cost of only $1.1214 in 100 pounds of beef. If the packers obtain a 25 per cent reduction in wages, which would be all they could possibly get and which would put wages away below what they were even in 1918 before the chief war wage rise was effective, it would cheapen 100 pounds of beef only 23 cents. The beef which now sells wholesale at $15 would then sell wholesale at $14.72. : If the retailer handed down to the consumer the saving that a 25 per cent reduction in packing house wages would make in the price of beef, the housewife could buy meat for about three-tenths This: cartoon is Morris® illustration of the figures to which Swift & Co. objected. The farmer has been forced to take 58!, cents in place of the dollar he got a year ago for livestock. The 41, cents out of that dollar which the farmer loses has been divided up by giving the packers 13 cents and the meat retailers 10 cents, a total of 23 cents to middlemen, while the con- sumer, who should be benefited the most, gets only 1815 cents out of the 415 cents lost by the farmer. The figures are derived from the fact that while livestock prices during the last year have declined 41'; per cent, wholesale meat prices have declined only 29%; per cent, and retail meat prices only 18!, per cent. market for farm produects, and a consequent lowering of prices to farm pro- ducers. Aside from this, farm- ers have come to realize that the workman in in- dustry is a fellow producer whose economic interests are identical with his. The industrial workers are the largest class that the farmer can depend upon to help him in obtaining the reforms necessary to make farming a safer and more profitable business. The _farmer can hardly expect the big business interests, which profit by and hence are satisfied with the pres- ent system, to join him in the fight for political and economic changes which mean cutting down profiteering in the mar- keting system, from which these big interests are benefiting. So that the most considerable body of citizens and the biggest interest that the farmer has to help him is labor. Labor is oppressed by the same privileged groups that oppress the farmer. =~ The Swift & Co. letter, if it proves anything, proves this. These big business men realize that their hope is to keep the farmer and workingman separated. Their propaganda is largely directed to- ward prejudicing the farmer against the worker. One way is to convince the farmer that labor unions are revolutionary, misled. by radicals and anarchists. Another way is to convince the farmer that the chief thing that stands in the way of better farm prices and better conditions is a grasping attitude of labor in regard to wages. Swift & Co. have approached us from that angle in their letter. We believe that, in refusing to fall for it, we are backed up by thinking farmers. : The farm publications which fall for the big business propa- ganda against labor unions number practically all that are published. It is one of the things which farm papers do to please the big fellows and get advertising. It is possible for them to do it only because many farmers are narrow and selfish, against every class and inter- est outside of their own, unwilling or too blind,to recognize the brotherhood of all producers. Such a farmer is not a Nonpartisan leaguer. He is not progressive or alive to his own fundamental in- terests. He supports such men as Howard in the American Farm Bureau federation,_ and Potter in the Minnesota Farm Bureau feder- ation. He hurts his own cause as much as the bigoted labor leader, whoL calls farmers “labor oppressors” and “profiteers,” hurts his. Fortunately he is becoming fewer and soon will be as rare as the dodo. S T R /}/dar;. % : PAGE FOUR .