Jasper County Democrat, Volume 14, Number 68, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 2 December 1911 — THE MIDDLEMEN’S HIGH TOLL [ARTICLE]

THE MIDDLEMEN’S HIGH TOLL

Some Pertinent Questions Which the Voter Will Do Well to Consider. William Hope, a South Americans cattle and wheat ’’king,” from Buenos Ayres, asks two pertinent questions. The first is why do the Britons, who ship their wheat from America, pay only 3 cents for a pound loaf of bread, while we, in the greatest land of wheat, pay 5 cents for a scant pound loaf? The second is, why does the Briton pay only 10 cents for meat for which we, growers of meat, pay 20 cents? Mr. Hope answers the question himself —at least in part His answer is “middlemen.” The beet trust, he finds, tells the grower what it will pay for his product, and tells the consumer t what he must pay for the meat. Only the other day there appeared in these columns a comment from the St. Paul papers on the fact that farmers are receiving less for their meat than a year ago and the people are paying more for It —at least In Minnesota. Our cost of distribution —of getting American meat and wheat to American tables —Mr. Hope declares, is so great that with fair entry he could ship both from Argentina and sell cheaper on the docks in New York than we could from Chicago; and he points out that Argentina does not have “pauper labor.” Mr. Hope emphasizes the fact that we are clearly the victims of the organized middlemen. The chief middleman whom he points out is J. Pierpont Morgan, organizer of the trusts. In Mr. Hope’s eyes he is the emperor of the United States, to whom all pay tribute. Hope is positive that no other ruler in the world, with the possible exception of the autocratic czar of the Russlas, has so much power and demands so much tribute. It is collected through the necessities. He well declares that no such state of affairs would —or could—be endured in Great Britain. Mr. Hope only more graphically states, with his illustrations in the cost of meat and bread, exactly the thing which President Yoakum of the Frisco system; Dan G. Reid, of the Rock Island, and Secretary Wilson, of the agricultural department, have pointed opt. Mr. Yoakum deals in figures in the bulk, showing that the consumers pay >13,000,000,000 annually for what the producers receive only >6,000,000,000 for, the other >7,000,000,000 going to fatten trusts and meet the toll of middlemen. Mr. Reid shows that grapes that sell for 5 cents In California and that the railroads transport for 1% cents a pound, sell In Chicago for 40 cents. Mr. Wilson summarize? by declaring that the farmer seldom gets over 41 cents of the consumer’s dollar and often only 33 cents. Hope, Yoakum, Reid, Wilson all agree. The toll-taking is unfair.