Fort Worth daily gazette. (Fort Worth, Tex.) 1882-1891, 1889-01-20
ROUND-UPS.
The Reasons why Refrigerators Are
Not More Numerous.
To Supply the Big Demand for Mules from
Louisiana-Spaying and Dehorning in
Texas-Zaek MulhaH Shot


Four of Chicago in the refrigeration bust
ness, said yesterday: Everyone who
has any knowledge of the cattle business
knows that the Chicago cattle market to-
day controls all other markets in the
United States. Western men OF course
can realize this fact, so far as western
cattle matters are concerned, because
all western cattle Southwestern cattle and
northwestern cattle with few exceptions
are marketed at Chicago and Kansas
City, which is tributary
market, and the cattle products
are returned for consumption
to the very sections from which the cat
tie were originally shipped. The minor
cattle markets that used to be supplied
with cattle direct in the days when the
business was prosperous, have now ceased
to receive cattle, simply because the
butchers, who during prosperous times
when the beef trade was subject to nat
ural conditions, were on hand to pur-
chase cattle needed for local consumption
have been driven out of the business, or
at least have been forced TO purchase
their sides and quarters from the Chicago
packers No man of ordinary intelli-
gence, who has any knowledge of the
modern commercial methods en-
ployed by Armour III cornering
wheat and pork, and by Nelse Norris
in securing rebates and cut rates from
railways will gainsay the proposition that
Armour, Swift, Hammond and Morris,
by reason of the fact that they purchase
the great bulk of the cattle that are
marketed at Chicago, and they knock
out all competition wherever it appears,
regardless of the losses entailed during
the progress of the fight, that they have
of no Of he
United States It is a monopoly that
cattlemen, as well as the people gen.
orally, have started in to break
up The defenders of the Chicago
packers tried TO make it ap-
pear that the Chicago cattle market
is controlled by the laws of supply and
demand. This plea is ridiculous. Sup
ply and demand has nothing to do with
the artificial cornering of wheat or pork
or the bulling or bearing of railway
stocks or other securities. Those who are
champiOnng the cause of the Chicago
packers are apparently ignorant of the
methods by which Armour and their assO-
ciates have made their millions, when
they attempt tie assert that the law of
supply and demand is to-day a factor in
the cattle trade Tie farmers of Penn
sylvania, West Virginia and other east
to quit the business of feeding and
fattening cattle. In Pennsylvania alone
to-day, not 80 per cent. of the cattle are
fed and fattened that were fed and fat
tened five years ago. The same state of
affairs exists in West Virginia and in Ohio,
and in fact north of the Central and
Eastern states. Armour & Co.. , who are
posing as special champions of Texas
cattle interests, and the saviors of the
southwestern cattle industry where by
reason Of the fact that they pay price
for canning cattle which net the owners
just about the price that the hides, tai
low and offal brings Armour is using the
Texas cGtt.e as a club to break down the
cattle trade in all other parts of the United
States. It is a fact which cannot be
questioned by any one conyersant with
the cattle business, that prices of range
cattle, owing to the fact that they are
fewer in numbers than the cattle in the
states. has depended very largely on the
cost of raising and maturing cattle in the
Central and Eastern states. 1t is true
that the southwestern cattle sell, owing
to inferior grade and poor quality, for a
less price than high grade cattle
raised on the farms of the Central
states, but at the same time it is the cost
of raising and maturing cattle on these
high-priced farms that under natural
conditions would determine the price of
cattle in competitive markets, which
state of affairs would cause Texas beeves
TO sell for fully third more than at
present Some of the western defenders
of Armour, who talk about local re-
frigerating establishments which they
think would be killed by the passage of
state live stock inspection laws, and they
say that instead of cattlemen trying to
do away with the Big Four that what they
want is n big forty. This is all very
nice. If any one wants to start a re-
frjgerator in Texas, or in any other state,
the business of the state, which is now
supplied with meats from Chicago and
Kansas City, would be sufficient to pay
satisfactory returns on an investment of
81 900 600, and any firm that wanted to
monopolize any particular business in
more than one state, should be set down
upon by the public. 1t is always well
enough 10 learn to crawl before We try to
run, and the only way to get the Big 40,
which Uncle Henry Stevens says are
needed, or the Big 400 which would be +
ten times better is to render it impossible
for Armour * Co. to ship any dressed
beef across state lines and sell the same
at less than cost in competition with
products of local refrigerator plants
Capital cannot be procured to establish
refrigerator plants, which are to be used
in a contest with Armour 4 Co., without
the passage of live stock inspection laws
which would shut out Chicago or Kansas |
City beef from crossing state lines 1t is /
well enough in all these matters To
take a practicable view of the situa-
ton, and TO realize that by means of the |
agreements - which Mr. Armour saws |
exist among the Chicago packers, that
they have complete monopoly of the |
beef trade and that they are not gong TO
allow others to take ii away from them |
or even TO take away any part of it with !
out vigorous fight, and that any fight I
means selling cattle products at less than !
cost, and if the producers take IA part in /
the fight they will be left with the /
bag to hold. The unnatural and |
artificial condition of the beef trade, at |
the present time, has been canvassed by |
the ablest minds III the country, and the /
only solution of the present situation /
which would tend TO restore the trade to /
such natural conditions as would insure a /
return of the DrOSDeritv formerly en- !