Jasper County Democrat, Volume 1, Number 32, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 19 November 1898 — TWO GIANTS AT WAR. [ARTICLE+ILLUSTRATION]

TWO GIANTS AT WAR.

Coffee King and Snarer King Engage * in a Bitter Struggle. A fight between the Arhackles, the coffee kings, and the Havemeyers, the sugar kings, is becoming so active that the effect will soon be felt throughout the country, and particularly by the grocery trade. They have already commenced cutting prices, and the apprehension of the investors is shown by the rapid decline in the price of sugar stocks. Brokers calculate that the vahie of the stock of the American Sugar Refining Company has suffered

a shrinkage of nearly $14,000,000 during the last thirty days, ami that the cut already made in prices, if continued through the year, will dimmish the earnings of the trust by more than $6,000,000. The firm of Arbuckle Bros., for

several years the largest coffee dealers in the world, was formerly composed of John and Charles Arbuckle, two Scotchmen, who began a small business of coffee roasting in Pittsburg fifty years ago, and having made a success and accumulated capital sought a wider field in New York early in the ’7os. They were men of little education, but understood their business thoroughly, and possessed the traditional Scotch thrift and economy which has swollen their pennies into dollars. For fifteen years after they began business in Pittsburg John Arbuckle roasted and ground coffee with his own hands, and bis. brother packed it and sold it over the counter. The quarrel with the sugar trust began in a curious way. The success of the Arbuckle coffee business has been due in a

large measure to the use of a certain kind of bag used in wrapping. These bags are made, filled, closed ami sealed by machinery which John buckle himself invent-J ed, and a few years J ago it occurred to him that it would be a good scheme to put up

sugar in the same way. Therefore the shrewd old Scotchman made au arrangement with the sugar trust to furnish him a certain quantity of sugar daily, which he put up in bags with the same machines that he used for coffee. The scheme Was a gretit Success, and the Arbuckle sugar sprang into popularity throughout the country. In 1896, however, when the price of raw sugar went down, Mr. Arbuckle demanded a reduction in his bills, but the Havemeyers laughed at him. This made the old man angry and he resolved to put up refineries of his own and enjoy the profit that is now going to the sugar trust. Mr. Arbuckle started at once to build a sugar refinery and coaxed Mr. Stillman, the sugar trust manager at Boston, to become his superintendent. He put up a refinery In Brooklyn that is now turning out 1,000 barrels of sugar a day, and every ounce Of it is packed in little Arbuckle bags nnd sold in that form. Mr. Havemeyer hired a fellow countryman named Herman Sielcken, from the Arbuckle factory, for his manager, and bought out an establishment at Toledo, which now has an output of 8,000 bags of eoffee a day, and fitted up several idle sugar factories with ma l chinery for roasting and grinding coffee, which he is selling as near a's possible in the Arbuckle market. Mutual friends have tried to effect a reconciliation, but it has been impossible. The German is just as stubborn and determined as the Scotchman, and each is beut upon ruining the other.

ARBUCKLE.

HAVEMEYER.