The morning news. [volume] (Savannah, Ga.) 1887-1900, 1894-10-19
The JUTE BAGCNG TRUST.
Interesting Facts About the Great OCtO-
puS the Farmers DeSpiSe.
A Circular Issued to Employees Fore
shadowing Reduction in Wages and
a Possible Total Shutdown Coming
soon-Elections Near as 1t Happens.

Elections Near as 1t Happens.
From the New York World
Republican high protection newspapers
throughout the country are trying to
make a great deal of political capital
out of the circular issued recently to
its employees by the American Jute Bag
| ging Manufacturing Company.
In substance this circular is nothing
more nor less than a "feeler" towards
reducing the niggardly wages which this
greedy trust is already paying it's en-
ployes. 1t sets forth that owing to the
removal of the duty on bagging the COM
pany really does not know whether 1t
/ will be able to continue in business at all.
There is a dark hint that the concern
may be compelled to close down alto
/ gether.
At the very best the employees are
warned that a reduction in wages is
| about the best thing they can expect
| out of the situation. The LIST of No
vember is fixed upon as the time when
the trust will be able to say positively
/ what its decision will be, not because it
/ is on the eve of an election, but because
! the season for the manufacturing of
| baggng closes about that time. That
is the statement of Mr.. Anderson Gratz,
! the vice president of the trust.
| The hypocrisy of this sensational cir
| cular has been already exposed in tn a
/ World by the quotation from Mr.. GRATIS
/ own lips of a remark which he made
only a few days before the gloomy cir
cular was issued To representative
/ of the Cordage Trade Journal Mr.. Gratz
| said about the LIST of September that his
concern, the American Jute Bagging
! Manufacturing Company, was prepared
! Ito take an order for 100000 yards Of
| bagging, deliverable in March next, at .
! per cent under any legitimate price OBJ
tainable anywhere on earth"
The history of the Jute Bagging Trust
like the history of so many other trusts.
is one of grasping, constituencies greed,
! and it's snuffing wall over the prospec-
tive loss of some of it's great profits of
the past will awaken little sympathy
with the farmers of the south, who dur
| ing so many years paid its eXtortionate
prices. Certainly it will not reconcile it's
| employees, 80 per cent. of whom are
| women, to a reduction of the beggarly
! wages which the trust paid them even
when it's hold upon consumers was
| clinched by high protective tariff.
1t is the boast of the American Jute
| Bagging Manufacturing Company that
it produces fully go per cent. of all the
| bagging used in the country. Besides its
great factory in Brooklyn, it operates
two large concerns in St. Lous and one
in Charleston, s. c.. II Is a West Vir-
ginia corporation, having been organized
| under the favorable corporation laws of
that state about the year 1890 At a
meeting held in Charleston, w. Va, on
! Feb. 2S, 1892 it was reported that the con-
Germ had a capacity of 100000 yards of
bagging per month, and its strength in
this particular has rather increased than
diminished since that date. The presi-
dent of the company is Daniel Nevin of
Boston, the head of the great dry goods
man of great wealth, who is largely in
terested in New England manufacturing
The vice president and controlling inhu-
ence in the concern, is Mr. Anderson
Gratz, whose Headquarters are at the
company's Offices, at No. Is Exchange
place in this city. The directors are
John V. Doniphan, James S. Murdoch, L.
F. Jones, ]. D. Filley, Charles E. Pearce
b. p. Graham and u. 70. Clarke.
In reality the American Jute Baggine
Manufacturing Company is an offshoot
and survival of the great trust combina-
ton in the manufacturing of jute bag.
ging, which so outrageously oppressed
the southern planters with its extortion.
ate prices that it drove them almost tC
a state of revolt. AT one time this com
bination, which was little else than q
great trade conspiracy drove the prices
of jute bagging, used by the planters
for baling their cotton, up to Il and 1.
which the trust even now is able to hold
up to 6is and ~ cents per yard These
last prices are still considered so unrea.
sonable in the south that a recent Issue
of the Shreveport Oa) Caucasian con
tains call for meeting of planters tc
take some action in the matter An(
that call is only one of many that are
being made throughout the cotton-raisine
states. Southern newspapers generally
are advising the planters to combine to
gether for the purpose of putting an enc
to trust tactics.
But the days when the trust was abb,
to force the planters to pay double The
high prices they must now pay came Il
an end. The greed of the trust over
reached itself. There grew up dissen
sions among the concerns composing it
There was a split and then prices were
cut more than half, and for a time, &
very short time there was an era ot
something like healthy competition
But the men who were at the head OF
the combination before, and who ar,
the same men who are at the head OF
the American Jute Bagging Manufactur
ing Company at the present time. soor
resolved sufficient order out of the fem
porary chaos to organize and get a new
trust under way. They Organized TN
company which they now claim make,
60 per cent. of all the jute bagginp m
out in the country. Their first NOV,
was 10 dlSmantle a number of the fac
tories under their control One at Mum
Gle, Ind, was so treated. and another a.
Salem, Mass, and there were Others
These plants were concentrated into ,
big establishment, which they built IL
Brooklyn, and in which they began worl
in 1891.
The consumers for a time benefited b,
the organization of the new trust for IT,
policy involved the usual monopoly tao
tics Of starving out competition by price,
which made it impossible for concern,
backed by small capital to exist. A mum
Der of factories were thus crushed on
entirely or put into the hands of re
ceivers. Others that had been proiectet
were abandoned. At last the new trus
which had emerged from the ruins OF tn,
old one began to have a clearer field anf
to be in position to dictate things as 4
chose.
Then OF course prices went upward II :,
an interesting fact. in view of the recen
wailing circular issued by the trust. tina
prices to-day are fully 40 per cont. highe
than they were a year and a haif ago
on the first OF May, 1898, for instance, N,
price OF l34-pound bagging was 10 cent,
per yard, for 2-pound bagglng cents pei