Jasper County Democrat, Volume 13, Number 58, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 29 October 1910 — EXPOSES SCHEME TO ROB FARMERS [ARTICLE]

EXPOSES SCHEME TO ROB FARMERS

John W, Kern Shows That Meat Trust is Contracting to Deliver $6.50 Hogs Soon. PRICE FIXED WAY AHEAD Democratic Nominee For U. S. Senate Warns People of Plan of Big Republican Trust. (By Guernsey Van Riper.) Indianapolis—John W. Kern’s statement, at Bluffton, that the meat trust is now making contracts for delivery of pork this winter on the basis of a $6,50 hog, has given the farmers of Indiana something to think about. Could anything be more autocratic, or domineering, than this attitude of the meat trust? The Indiana farmer s new getting $9 and more for his hogs. As soon as the election is over he will get $6.50. How does the farmer like the prospect? This is the result of the trust system, built up by the Republican party. ’ I now pay 35 to 37 cents a pound tor the bacon that i eat,” said Mr. Kern, and so do all of you. As for porterhouse steak, that is out of the question. What I want to show you is that the packers have the power to fix absolutely the price they get and pay. They may bay 9 cents to you farmers, but every cent additional they pay to you they add to the price they get. Tha'‘s for the bacon alone. They take the hogs and they utilize every part, but the.other parts are only the byproducts, the spending money of the packers. It shows the power of these men to monopolize a trade until the laws of supply and demand, which you farmers think control the market, have nothing at all to do with it. Set Price in Advance. ‘ A few months ago the price of hogs kept rising until it reached sll, and then it was set at $lO and at $S and at $9. But now these packers are making" contracts to their big consumers for delivery next Janflarv on the basis of a $6.5 • market in Chicago They are setting the price months ahead at their own will. Why? Because the meat trust has the power to dictate prices so that it can raise bacon to 40 cents or lower it to 10 cents a pound if it so desires. "Dir Roosevelt get after this monopbly when he was in office? Surely he did. Something the same he did to the steel trust in the Tennessee iron merger! The government did get an injunction from Judge Grosscup against the packers, enjoining them from fixing gj-ices.- The supreme court of the United States affirmed this injunction- But what came of it? The packers paid no attention to it. Not for a minute did they care. They laughed at it. Where Was Roosevelt? "And where was Roosevelt then? • A little piece of paper from him calling attention to the injunction would have sent these men to jail. But instead there followed the immunity, baths under Judge Humphreys. Roosevelt would not let them prosecute the individuals. When his friend Paul Morton came up in the rebate investigation he said Hands off!’ and they let him go. You can’t send a corporation to the stone pile.

"Then Roosevelt said, 'We must get after the corporations,’ and they fined The railroads and the oil trust, and the poor devil of a public paid the fine. They* fined the Standard Oil Company 529,000,000 and if the fine had held good, all that the" trust would have needed to do would have been to add a cent or two to the price of the oil the public buys. "That Is what the meat trust does. What- little it loses on one purchase price than made up on another and they all are doing business at the same old stand. I would put these malefactors of great wealth in prison the same as the lowest criminal in the land. Only I would make the stripes broader for those who plunder the people. Put one magnate in jail for one week and you will gee the trusts dissolve as they never have dissolved or ever will under present methods. And on this my friend Senator Beveridge and I differ.” It's True, Says the News. Commenting editorially on Mr. Kern's speech the Indianapolis News says: “As Mr. Kern says, the packers are months in advance making contracts for the January deli»?ry of hogs at $6.50. This means that after the election prices will be much lower than they are now, will be what the packers make them. "Now the"question is not simply one of the price of any given commodity, but rather one of permitting vast power to be lodged in the hands of a few men. Under such conditions industry is eubjected to a control that goes far to nullify the operation of the natural forces that ought to regulate it. We have to consider further whether a system of artificially made prices is a safe foundation on which to base our commercial prosperity. Is it well to allow men to fix both their buying and selling price, or to create a situation which permits them to do this, even in part? Undoubtedly, the aim of the monopolists is to do Just that thing. The fact that they may not always be aide to accomplish their

purpose—for occasionally natural ! forces are too strong for them— can not be pleaded in defense of an industrial arrangement which makes it easier for them to monopolize the market Ini view of all This one tan readI ily see how important is the question of the attitude of the government I toward these monopolies.”