Morning journal and courier., 1883-10-19
Serlrnd xlrS Gsurisr
Friday. October 10. 1888.
WHY BREAD COSTS 60 MUCH.


 Two members of the United States Senate committee on education and labor have been in Boston examining several gentlemen upon the subject of the relations between capital and labor and the condition of the Iaboring class. Among those who appeared before the committee was Mr. Edward Atkinson, and what he had to say is yell worth a.ten- tion
 Mir. Atkinson pointed out that if all which has been saved in more than two centuries of existence from the EaboEs of our forefathers and of ourselves, and which now exists in 50 called fixed capital-eo wit. railroads, mills, storehouses, dwellings, churches, schools and the like, could be converted into the food, fuel and clothing which were con- suned in the process of the production and saving of this capital; if we then stepped work, ceased to make exchanges and lived for while upon our present reserve of cap- ital, we should be without food, without clothing and without shelter in two years, or at the utmost in three years. The whole question of substantial equality, not in property, but in substance, which Is the same thing, is therefore today question of dis tribution rather than of production. Corne- lius Vanderbilt, he continued, was the great est and most useful communist of his day. He explained this statement by saying that he may be taken as the exponent of a small class of men who have achieved enormous fortunes in a single life and yet have done more than any other man to bring an ample subsistence within the easy reach of all at 8 less and less cost, whether cost be measured in labor, in price or wages, or in purchasing power of the Iaborsr. This he illustrated by 8 loaf of bread. The price of bread made from the medium grades, known aa ''baksr's four," in the small shops in Boston, where the poorer people deal, is 6 cents to 2 cents per pound The price of the best bread in the best shops is cents to s1 per pound. The cost of distribution is computed upon the lowest retail price of cents per pound. The cost of distributing the bread made from one barrel of flour on these data ia $5 62 minimum, $7.75 maximum The average is 24 cents per pound. Instead of the monopolists being the Vanderbilts, Tom Scotts, or the Garretts, they are the bakers, grocers, and others, who add enormous charges to the cost of the bread. The aver age profit of the railroad for moving the element of bread from the center of Iowa or Dakota to the seaboard is about equal to the tomarily packed. The largest single item in the cost of bread to the consumers is the charge upon it after 1t has been baked.
 Your committee, said MT. Atkinson, has been asked by what are known @ the advo- oates of ''antimonopoly" to frame and pre- sent to Congress such laws As will forbid capital taking the advantage of labor by means of excessive charges for railroad ser vice, which charges are said ''to make the "make bread dsar:s The distribution of bread by bakers wagons and through gro cers' shops is simple but costly; the distribu- tion of wheat and flour by railroad is c0n- plex and difficult. but it is now done at % little cost as to leave itNe margin to be saved. If your committee will first regulate the distribution of bread, reduce it's price by statute, and, second, reduce the cost of barrels, or require the substitution of cheaper sacks, you may then be fully prepared to frame suitable statutes for the regulation of the railroad office. The advantage of this method is, that you can begin in Washington, and, by reducing the cost of living, you can make the salaries of Senators and Representatives in Congress more adequate. When you have fixed the price of bread by legislation, you will, of course, take up meats, timber and fuel, and after you have established an economic mill iennium in Washington. the several States, cities and towns can supplement your nation al statutes by adequate municipal ordinances in order to complete the system.
 This is very different from most of the | stuff to which the committee has been treat ed. It will be easiIy evident to anybody who will take the trouble to look inte the 1 matter that railroads do not 'tmake bread dsar.'' On the contrary they have done a 1 great deal to make 1t cheap and plenty.