Gloucester County Democrat. (Woodbury, N.J.) 1878-1932, 1894-02-01
BUCCANEERS BOLD.
TRUST OPERATORS AND TRAIN ROB-
8ERs COMPARED.

The Railroad Bandit Is BungIer and
Lands In Prison. While the Sugar Thief
Wakes Fat on the Proceeds OF His VII
IaIny-western Profits.
Talk about daring robberiesl Those
Indiana and Michigan bandits aren't Sin
it" at all. They are mere bungling,
slouchy novices alongside Of some Of
their professional brethren who take
millions and never get caught, and who
neither wear masks nor conceal them
selves from the officers of the law.
How those Is or 20 Michigan train rob-
bers will kick themselves when they real
iZe what mess they made in robbing
an express train of only $40, 900 and then
getting caught and having to return
all of their Doodle of which they them
selves had been robbed How they must
turn green with envy when they think
Of some of the successful trust operators
who, in open defiance of federal and
state laws and public opinion, hold up
not mere handful Of people on train,
but the whole American people, and
who take not merely few thousand,
which they cannot retain, but many
millions.
For instance, there is the Sugar trust.
It puts its greedy clutches into the pock-
cts of every one of the 5000, 900 or TO-
600, 900 of US Americans 365 times year.
1t picked our pockets of not less than
$4,000, 900 last year and is reaching for
$50, 1000, 900 this year. Observe with what
smoothness and boldness it does its work!
Going back two years, we find two
bands of sugar robbers plying their trade
in this country-one, commanded by
Havemeyer, in control of all but two OF
three important refneries in the east
and Of one in San Francisco; the other,
under command Of Claus Spreckels, who
owned refinery in San Francisco, and
who had just completed big refinery in
Philadelphia. The territories of these
robber barons overlapped, and each
threatened to exterminate the other-but
they didn't. They ''got together" The
Havemeyer band agreed to pay the
Spreckels band $1O,OOGOOO (at least $4,
100000 more than it was worth) for its
Philadelphia refinery and to establish a
western branch by pooling the two San
Francisco reineries, leaving Spreckels as
chief buccaneer Of the Pacific coast and
joint owner with the great Havemeyer
band of the western refneries.
The eastern end of this consolidated
robber band is doing it's best, but it has
more to contend with than the western
end. 1t has the same half cent per
pound duty, to be sure, to keep out for
eign competition, but it is only one
week distant from Europe, and freights
are comparatively low from east to
west across the Atlantic. 1t is really
protected from the cheap sugar of Eu-
rope by only three-fourths Of cent per
pound. Under these conditions it
should congratulate itself when for any
length Of time it can filch more than
cent per pound out of the pockets of its
10000, 900 customers. During the latter
part Of August and the first part of Sep
tember it was paying 81 cents for raw
and selling standard and fine granulated
sugars for 500 cents per pound net cash
in seven days. AS the total cost of re-
fining does not exceed 81 cents, this end
of the trust was then making more than
/ cent per pound net profit. Refined
sugar could then have been imported
from Europe and sold here at profit
for less than cents after paying duty,
but importers dare not start any con
siderable quantity this way because the
trust would take pains to drop the price
until they had sold out at loss.
The western end Of this robber trust
GUS work. Here is what The Journal Of
Commerce and Commercial Bulletin of
New York said on Sept. 10:
"But it is different in San Francisco.
Our last quotations from there, about
week ago, gave the price Of dry granula-
ted sugar at 81 cents net cash in rs barrel
lots, and fine granulated 81 cents per
pound. Thus there was difference of
1.41 cents between the net prices here
and there ON dry granulated, and of 1 66
cents on fine granulated, thus bringing
the profit on the western sugar trade up
to 2.4t and 2.66 cents per pound respec-
lively on the two grades, assuming that
the cost of refining is the same in the
two places.
"But to this profit we must add the
one-quarter cent rebate secured from
the Hawaiian planters, which thus brings
the aggregate profit per pound on the
San Francisco business, as per list prices,
up to 1855 and 2.91 cents per pound on
the grades mentioned. Even if we al
low an extra cost for refining there, we
still will have the refners' profits Of not
less than 24 and "a cents per pound re-
spectively, and applying the smaller
amount to the total importations of $780,
600 short tons of raw sugar we get an
aggregate annual profit at q cents per
pound of $6,5O0,0 900 from the business
done by the Western Sugar Refining
company, the branch Of the Sugar trust
in San Francisco"
At cent per pound the profits on the
sugar sold in this country each year will
be about $50, ,0O0,G0 The same journal
quoted above estimated the trusts prof
its for the fiscal year ending June 80,
lCSO, db %~c.Oo<.NVU CiedH pIOHb OH re-
fining properties reported to be worth
only $50, 100000. 1t says: And these
are by no means all tie profits of the
Sugar trust. 1t is known as money
lender on Wall street" 1t calls the
trust ''the most arbitrary monopoly the
country ever saw or put up with" On
Sept. 21 it was said that the Sugar trust
had loaned S4 ,OOO, 900 on the market and
that it had ''heavy balances left over
which it was unable to loan"
Such operations, carried on in open
daylight in every state Of the Union, put
to shame the miserable little attempts Of
poor men who have to rob express trains
for living, and even then are far more
likely to spend their declining days in
Il =. 1 - ~