The Iola register. [volume] (Iola, Allen County, Kansas) 1875-1902, 1888-05-11
The CATTLE pool.

/ Senator's vost aud Plumb Speak Plain
words About the Chicago Cattle Pool.
WASHINGTON. May 4-The Animal H.
iastry Bureau 5il. being under considera-
ton in the Senate yesterday Senators Vest
and Plumb spoke in PLAIN terms Of the out
| rageous power exe-ted By the Chicago
cattle syndicate.
Mr.. Vest said that il one-tenth of what
was stated in the correspondence which
had just been read was true, the Commis-
sioner of Agriculture should be hurled out
of official life, disgraced ana dishonored.
II the Commissioner had used his of1icia.
position to defeat or advance legislation he
was unworthy 10 be messens I'm, much
less the head Of, that great department..
But he (Vest) did not believe these state
ments. He had been diligently searching
! foc the truth all through the labyrinth 81
speeches and literature on ,hls subject. be
then spoke of what he called ''the cattle
syndicate" AMI said that the people were
he pless and within its power. /;
was the most terrible tyranny evel
exercised. There were five men OIL
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 3 to 80 cents pound, shipped his
cattle to Chicago, but when he got there he
found that the syndicate had put beef down
10 . or 2lS cents. Il. could not store his
cattle. as they would be diminished every
day in weight and quality, aud so he was
cocrced TO cell. He went to an agent OF
Armours and was told that the price was
~ cents: ne went to another Armour
agent and got the same answer. He was
met all over the city with the unvaryiag
response. ''ee1l cents a pound" AID he had
20 take it. Thus these men owned the
cattlc-raiser's property and confiscated it
as if they possessed the right to take it
from his farm without paying him a cent.
Talk" said Mr. Vest, ''about trusts;
talk about pools; the cattle pool of Chicago
is the most Infamous tyranny that ever
existed in thu United States. They have
got the collar ON the cattle producers of
the entire West. And / know no e.nedy
for it. The statesman who would invent
the remedy would deserve a monument
more enduring than the capitol. He would
perform the highest beneiaction on the
people Of the Northwest aud on the cattle
raiscrs of the country.
Mr.. Plumb had also something to saw on
the same subject. In his opinion, the wors t
combination IN the country was the COM
blnation OF beef and pork packers, having
Its Headquarters in Chicago There was
no trust or combination, the Standard Gil
trust, the sugar trust. the copper trust, or
any other trust that had had so powerful
or so baIefLi an influence as that combina-
ton. For years the price OF cattle to pro
Gucers had been going down. They hal
gone down, he thought, fifty rer cent. At
the same time the price OF meat to the
consumers had gone up, and every 81 ngie
dollar of the difference had gone into the
rockets Of that combination. So per-
feet was their control that they knew alb
solUtely not Only how many cattle We're
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.
When the cattle reached Chicago tue syn
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 cared to set up for himself in
Chicago. His occupation woul be imme-
diately gone. Under the operation of this
trust, the prices of cattle hal declined I'M
necessarily and deStructively. 1t was safe
10 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-
ton, reduced not less than $40 a head. The
damage TO the State o. Kansas alone dur
ing that period of time had been more
than S4O,GN0C0 aud the wealth of the
syndicate had grown proportionatel7.
They had q 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
tnat control Chicago would be made
open water and st. Louis could be Guaran-
tined against. Practically there was the
same influence in st. Louis and ia Kansas
Cisv. 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 then.
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 :xed
the prices OF cattle Just as though they
were the Men who raised them and were
the only parsons in the world who did raise
them. When lie considered that they then
proposed TO have Congress rivet the snal
cham on the cattle industry IN their behalf
he was lost between admiration and inGig-
nation at their audacity. He believed that
the Commissioner OF Agriculture would
DO as well with the powers given in the
Till as body else. He had great
confidence in him. Ee would trust
him Il Thousand fold before he would trust
any one in the ''conb.ne." He believed in
giving to the Commissioner of Agriculture
oil the powers proposed TO be gwen to the
commission and would not vote for any
measure that would detract from the power
and dignity OF that department.