Fort Worth daily gazette. (Fort Worth, Tex.) 1882-1891, 1889-01-14


rious 10 Texas cattle interests now in
force are at Chicago, where Texas cattle
are yarded and posted as capable of COM
municating Texas cattle fever, notwith-
standing the fact that many of our cattle
are incapable of communicating fever.
In other yards there may be special pens
for Texas cattle, but from all yards eX-
cept the Chicago yards, so far as we have
knowledge, Texas cattle can be driven at
the owner S risk TO slaughter houses. The
Chicago restrictions were undoubtedly
designed to shut out butchers from buy
ing Texas cattle.
It is also advanced as an argument
against state inspection rs beng injurious
to Texas cattle interests, that if canning
cattle are inspected by the states, the
trade in Ioins and tongues will be closed.
This we think is trivial, because most of
the loins are consumed in states where
the cattle are killed There are excep-
tions, however, where second-class hotels
supply themselves with few loins in ice
boxes, thereby lessening the local killing
of few beeyes. The fact is well known
that much of the beef which is bought Os-
tensibly for canning purposes and paid
for at ruinously low canning prices is
marketed as dressed beef at high prices.
Canning cattle have sold so low that they
have not paid for grass consumed and
money invested. Imagination must be
strong that can conceive any injury to
arise where almost any change
must be for the better, there being no
possible chance of its getting any worse.
1t is also advanced as an argument
against state inspection as being injuri-
Gus to Western cattle interests that beef
lo+I or hi in
the West with state inspection laws in
force. This is anticipating the question
and bringing a local interest to bear on q
national subject. Under state inspection
laws canning operations can be carried
on and Ioins of cattle can be marketed
where the cattle are killed just as well as
to receive them from Kansas City or Chi
cago. The packing houses in Chicago have
strengthened that market so far as the
number of cattle there is concerned, but
the decline of other interior live cattle
markets necessitates shipping long dis
tances past vast amount of country
that under the old butcher regime used
to receive direct shipments of live cattle,
and freight charges were paid one way
onlv
SO far the dressed beef system has In
jured Western cattle interests and de-
strOyed our natural markets, forcing our
cattle into the toll gates of the beef COM
bine The general argument is also adj
yanced that Texas cattle Interests would
be injured by State inspection, because
the Chicago packers, being unable to
ship dressed meat, would be forced out
of the market This, to D certain eX-
tent, would result, and is desirable, but
there will be no decrease in consumption.
The cattle killed daily in Chicago and
retailed in st. Louis, Memphis, Little
Rock, Birmingham, New Orleans, Gin
clnnati, Pittsburg Buffalo and all other
cities in the United States, on which
Western cattlemen virtually pay freights
both ways, would be killed in st. Louis
and all other cities, The butchers every
where would compete for our cattle, and
cattlemen would save the additional
freight, and have better chance to sell
cattle on their merits, and while butchers
would try to buy cattle as cheaply as they
could, old time competition would exist |
again, and supply and demand again
control the beef trade. By the use of |
improved cars in which cattle are fed,
watered and separated into compartments |
cattle can be carried from remote pro-
ducing fields to consuming centers in |
good condition, and still greater i'm |
prOvements in transportation facilities |
may reasonably be expected. During |
the prosperous days of the cattle business |
even Texas cattle were sold in New York |
on hOOf, without the shipping facilities |
now supplied by the use of improved cars. |
A few range cattle are still shipped to
New York, and no impeachment exists be-
You'd the impediments that heretofore eX-
listed when prosperity smiled on the cattle |
!
house in the country of which the claim
could be advanced that it was the main
stay of the cattle interest. Texas cattle
men should not overlook the fact that of
all the markets in the Southern states
under natural conditions of trade, would
be supplied with Texas cattle instead of
being supplied with ice box meat from
Chicago as at present, to the detriment
OF the Texas beef trade.
The present situation of the beef trade
is very serious to all interests; it is es-
pecially important to the cattle interests
that the competitive butcher trade shall
not give way to the beef combine The
men who recently testified before the
United States senate committee, charged
with the investigation of the beef trade
did prove that the Chic go packers make
short work of closing up butchering es-
in any town they invade
also proved conclusively that four estab-
ments bought the great bulk of
Western cattle. 1t is immaterial to us
whether these four establishments do or
90 not pool their business, the effect to
rs being the same. The element of COM
petition is gone from the market, and the
shadow remaining there still is the pre-
text of market, and not the real thing
Live stock commission men fear being
Ooycotted in their business if they express
their honest feelings in the matter They
are forced to defend the monopoly, as it
furnishes She only outlet for their con-
'ignments, and they are just as powerless
to contend against it as are the butchers
IN the one hand and the cattlemen on the
'ther, without an appeal TO the sovereign
people for an adjustment through the
aw making power, the control of large
packers over the cattle trade will soon be
complete. If, as it is freely asserted,
md fully believed that the foregoing
statements are correct, then the cattle
men of the West must do something to
ave their business from destruction
The many schemes advanced heretofore
III EN-