Wood County reporter. [volume] (Grand Rapids [i.e. Wisconsin Rapids], Wis.) 1857-1923, 1893-10-19
Concerning the Sugar Famine.

stomach. The average man Will
be more impressed with the aspects
of trusts, combines and conspira-
cies if they affect his personal
comfort. Now, with sugar scarce
and high priced, and the quantity
of cakes, sweetmeats, conserves
and CONNECTIONS daily diminishing
from the table, the indignation Of
the masses is awakened and a
protest not loud but long begins
to be heard from all over the land.
Fruit is spelling for want of sugar
to preserve it; prices of all sorts
of cakes are advancing; the land
lady growls over the wastefulness
Of her boarders and the indispen-
sible doughnut is becoming a
dream of the past to those who
frequent lunch counters.
Housekeepers are barely able to
get enough sugar for their daily
needs, some Of our most enter
prising grocers cannot fill fifty
cent order for it. Every grocer
has standing orders for sugar but
wholesale houses say they can as
yet give them no promise as to
when they will fill them. Repre-
sentatives of the sugar trust say
they are short over a million
barrels and that no relief can be
looked for in the near future.
There is abundance of the raw
material to be had and there are
rehneries enough to convert it into
the marketable product SO as to
supply all wants. While men are
idle from lack of work and
rehneries representing hundreds of
thousands of dollars worth of
machinery are imperative; while
Spreckels in the west and Have
meyer in the east are doing all in
their power to keep it SO, the
price of sugar is advancing and
the poor man is squeezed between
the upper and neither millstones of
capitalists trusts. A few more
dollars change places from the
pockets of the poor to the purses
of the rich.
Representative Henderson, of
Iowa, introduced in the House
recently resolution for the
Investigation of the sugar trust as
follows:
1t is currently asserted and
believed that the American Sugar
refining Company, a corporation
organized and existing under the
laws of the state of New Jersey,
and otherwise known as the Sugar
Trust, has in violation Of law and
against public policy created a
gigantic trust; and
WHEREAS, 1t is so asserted and
believed that said corporation, by
the use of watered stock, by unfair
competition, and by illegal combi-
nation, has crushed out legitimate
competition to an extent which
gives it the power to depress the
price of raw material and to
advance the price of the manufac-
tured article at will, thus throttling
the cane and beet agriculturists
with one hand and grasping the
purse of all householders and
consumers with the other; there
fore be it
Res0lUed, That a special COM
mittee Of five members of this
House shall be appointed by the
Speaker-one of whom shall be
drawn from the committee on
agriculture, one from the commit
tee on commerce and one from the
committee on judiciary-which
special committee shall have
power to sit during the sessions OF
the House, to send for persons
and papers, and shall be charged
with the duty of examining the
circumstances attending the crea-
ton of said sugar company and
the methods by which it is
conducted, its effect upon agricul-
ture and commerce, as we'll as
upon the enhanced cost of one Of
the necessaries of life.
The resolution further author
ICES the committee to secure the
aid of the departments of justice
in its work, and if the investigation
proves the facts to warrant it, tc
report bill to annul the corporate
existence of such trusts.