Wichita eagle. [volume] (Wichita, Kan.) 1886-1890, 1889-01-30
DRESSED BEEF TRAFFIC VS.. LOCAL
INSPECTION.

gives an account OF a meeting held BY
the directory of the board of trade O.
Chicago, and of the resolutions passet
by that body relative to the bills that are
being introduced into the various state
legislatures to provide for the inspection
of stock before it is slaughtered at the
place of its. consumption. In one Of
their resolutions they say that the
dressed beef business has cheapened BEEF
| to the consumer all over the country
and the EAGLE, in a recent issue, COM
| menting on this subject says that if the
laboring man and consumer could vote
on this question that they would vote te
sustain the dressed beef business, i. e..
for cheap beef. Now if you and the di
rectory of the Chicago board of trade are
right then the business is in the line of a
human benefit and should be encour-
aged in every proper way, and these bills
should not become laws.
Is it true, though, that this gigantic
combination. which, next to the Stand
ard Oil combine, is the most powerful in
this country. has cheaper d beef to the
consumer? If so, will you please state
where and when beef became cheaper to
the consumer through the operations Of
this great trust! Do the people of the
east get their beef any cheaper than be-
fore Armour, Swift, Morris and Ham
mond conceived of the plan that would
practically enable them to control the
meat products of this country? Does
the consumer get his beef any cheaper
now than he did in the days when the
stock yards at Kansas City, Chi
cago and Buffalo were crowded
with butchers competing with each other
for stock to ship to their local markets:
If so will please state how much cheap
er?
If your statement and the statement of
the Chicago board of trade is correct,
then is the statement published in Sunday
mornings EAGLE, and which is a report
of the statician of the department of
agriculture at Washington. true. His
statement is as follows:
1.-THE. meat supply has been very abund-
ant and the price on the hoof too low in
the western markets and too high in the
retail markets of the east. The middle
men get too large slice of the profits and
the farmer accepts either slight profit or
a little loss"
81 1t has been more than slight one in
this section of the country for years.
an infinite amount of harm to these hui
manitarians-the dressed beef men, who
are but middlemen. But you 60 ask the
cattle feeders of Kansas, Iowa, Missouri
and Nebraska and then talk to the labor
ing men Of the east and they will tell
you that Mr.. Statician is right.
Is it not true that all Of the capital in
vested in the dressed beef business in
this country has brought to the investors
very large returns, and that the syndi-
Gates that control it have through their
great wealth became very powerful? Is
it not true that the majority of the cap
ital used by the cattle feeders of Kansas
for several years past has brought but
very small returns, in fact that there had
been so much of loss in the business
that men have been and are being driven
out of it? They tell me SO, and they en-
phasize it with long line of explosives
that would make the editor of the great
religious daily shudder.
The st. Louis Globe, of the Goth inst,
says, at is inexpiicable that cattle are
so low" and that it is not due to the fact
that there is an overplus of cattle at
present, because there is not. Why,
it is not inexplicablde; the COM
bine simply find that they
can knock the price notch lower
with less trouble than they to raise itin
the east, where Mr.. Statician says it is
very high, and SO they do it.
Now | think these bills should be
passed by Kansas and other corn grow
ing states, and they should encourage all
other states to pass similar laws. Feed
ing cattle would be at the present time,
and will be- in the future, if prices regu-
late themselves, upon a legitimate basis
so that the feeder can make fair profit
and the middle men not make it all, the
great industry of Kansas for years to
come. Large herds of cattle can no
longer be grazed in Kansas as in former
years; the country has become too thick
ly settled, corn is the great staple, and
in order to realize fair price for it, it
must be fed to cattle and hogs, and these
cattle so fed cannot compete without a
loss to the feeder, with the cattle that
are shipped in from the grazing grounds
of the Indian Territory, Western
Texas or wherever it does not
cost the cattle syndicates anything
or but little to raise them, and these men
are complaining now.
This is a class of cattle that is largely
taken up by the dressed beef concerns,
and which, if there was local inspec-
ton on foot at the place of consumption,
would never be shipped to Chicago and
Kansas City and then reshipped by the
butchers of the various localities, but
they would first be shipped very largely
to Kansas and other corn states and there
fed for market, and in this way the
eastern consumers could get better beef
at the same cost. and with the Dressed
Beef combine out of the way or con-
trolled by proper legislation the feeder
could get far profit, as he used to in
former days. You doubtless have at
hand the statistics that will enable you
to answer these questions. That it is an
important matter TO great industry in
Kansas no one who has been engaged
in it or has observed it for the past sew
eral years can for moment doubt.
l have no doubt but that you will an
swer these question fairly and candidly,
and the farmers Will be anxious TO see
them.
The great scry of the times is that
should be done to help the
laboring man, but very little attention
has been paid TO the men who labor in
agricultural pursuits. This class, from
not being able to combine like the labor
ers of the large cities. do not have the
same opportunity to make their wants
known. think you will admit as true
that for the past several years, all-and
is it so of the meat products
of the west-hare. been selling for good
prices to the eastern consumers, and
that they have been purchased very low
from the western producers and that the
profit has been made by the middle men
of which the dressed beef combine is the
greatest.