Barton County democrat. [volume] (Great Bend, Kan.) 1885-1915, 1888-05-10

words About the Chicago Cattle Pool.
WASHINGTON, May 4-The Animal lu-
dustry Bureau bill being under considera-
ton in the Senate yesterday Senators Vest
and Plumb spoke in PLAIN terms OF the out
rageous power exerted by the Chicago
cattle syndicate.
Mr.. Vest said that if one-tenth OF what
was stated in the correspondence which
had lust been read was true, the Commits
sioner of Agriculture should be hurled out
of official life, disgraced and dishonored-
II the Commissioner had used his official
position to defeat or advance legislation he
was unworthy TO be = messenger In, much
less the head of, that great department
But he (Vest) did not believe these state
meuts. He had been diligently searching
for the truth all through the labyrinth OF
speeches and literature on this subject. he
then smoke Of what he called "the cattle
svndicate.n and said that the people were
helpless and within its power IL
was the most terrible tyranny ever
exercised. There were hve men or
firms in the city of Chicago which regu-
lated the price Of cattle every day. they
met every night and fixed the price for the .
next day. The Missouri farmer, who found
from the market quotations that cattle
were to 81 cents a pound, shipped ms
cattle to Chicago. but when he got there he
found that the syndicate had put beef down
to or 21< cents. He could not store his .
day in weight and quality, and so he was
coerced to sell He went to ap agent OF
Armour's aud was told that the price was
% cents; he vents to another Armour
agent and got the same answer. He was
met all over the city with the unvarying
response, ''21< cents a pound" and he had
to take it. Thus these men owned the
cattle-raiser's property and confscated it
as if they possessed the right to take it
from his farm without paying him cent
Talk" said Mr.. Vest, ''about trusts;
talk about pools; the cattle pool OF Chicago
Is the most Infamous tyranny that ever
existed in the United States. They have
got the collar on the cattle producers OF
the entire West And 1 know no remedy
for il. The statesman who would invent
the remedy would deserve a monument
more enduring than the capitol. He would
perform the highest benefaction on the
people of the Northwest and on the cattle
raisers of the country.
Mr.. Plumb had also something to say on
the same subject. In his opinion, the worst
combination in the country was the COM
bination of beef and pork packers, having
It's headquarters in Chicago. There was
no trust or combination, the Standard oil
trust, the sugar trust, the copper trust, or
any other trust that had had so powerful
or so baneful an influence as that combine
ton. For years the price of cattle to pro-
ducers had been going down. They had
gone down, he thought, fifty per cent AZ
the same time the price OF meat to the
consumers had gone up, and every single
dollar of the difference had gone into the
pockets of that combination. So per-
feet was their control that they knew alb
solutely not only how many cattle were
to arrive each day in Chicago. but over
what railroad lines they were to come,
where they had been shipped from, their
character and the men who shipped them.
HHTI 81
dicate's representative was sent TO view
them and put price upon them and that
was the price at which they had to be sold
unless it was made lower. No cattle COM
mission man dared to set up for himself in
Chicago. His occupation would be imme-
dIately gone. Under the operation of this
trust, the prices of cattle had declined I'M
necessarily and destructively. 1t was safe
to say that on every steer OF three years
old and upward raised west OF the Missis-
sippi river during the past five years the
market value had been, by this comblna-
tion, reduced not less than $40 head. The
damage to the State OF Kansas alone dur
ing that period of time had been more
than 10000 600 and the wealth of the
syndicate had grown proportionately.
They had committee there now having in
their pockets the money OF this stock ring
to get Congress to give them control OF the
question of the cattle quarantine. With
that control Chicago would be made
open water and ST. Louis could be quaran-
tined against. Practically there was the
same influence in ST. Louis and in Kansas
City. This combine had allies in the rail-
road managers. They had allies in the
railroads. They had made railroad officials
partners in their stockyards, partners in
their feeding stations and had given them
sops out of all the profits derived by them
from the time the cattle were shipped until
the cattle reached the abattoir in
New York or elsewhere Step
by step they had come TO the
final condition where they actually fixed
the prices or cattle just as though they
were the men who raised them and were
the only persons in the world who did raise
Them. When he considered that they then
proposed to have Congress rivet the final
chain on the cattle industry In their behalf
he was lost between admiration and indig-
nation at their audacity. He believed that
the Commissioner OF Agriculture would
do as well with the powers given in the
bill anybody else. He had great
confidence in him. He would trust
him thousand fold before he would trust
any one in the ''combine." He believed in
giving to the Commissioner of Agriculture
ali the powers proposed TO be given to the
commission and would not vote for any
measure that would detract from the power
and dignity OF that department.
An Official Dead.
Afarv