The Saint Paul globe. (St. Paul, Minn.) 1896-1905, 1902-08-25
ARGUING FOR A TRUST.

many advocates of late. 1t required
some time to develop the advocacy,
but it. has come, and not even the
Monopoly League is to be regarded as
one of the most strenuous of such adj
vocates. 1t has been taken UP in Of
fetal life and the country is now con-
fronted with figures from one who
draws a monthly stipend from the
United States government, and who is
described as having been for the last
nine years working under Col, Carroll
D. Wright. He is an official of the
federal department of labor and his
name is Croxton. The figures which
Mr.. Croxton secures the publication of
are much more extensive than they
can be said to be convincing. An ex-
animation of them leads their compiler
at least to the conviction that the pre-
vailing extortfonate prices of meat to
consumers are the outcome to some
considerable extent of the conditions
of supply and demand in the beef
trade
Starting out with the mathematical
proposition that the number of Amer
lean cattle exported increased during
the five years ending June 80, 1901,
nearly 20 per cent, and the total guam
tity of fresh beef increased Ala per
cent, this avowed graduate of an Hill
nois farm proceeds to demonstrate
that the 100 per cent or more of in
crease in the prices Of meats to con-
sumers is due entirely to the three
causes: increased consumption of meat
among the people, increased prices in
corn and unfavorable weather condi-
lions. 1t does not occur to the statis-
tieian that there is any other form of
fodder for cattle save that Of corn
alone, or that the conditions attending
the raising of live stock have been uI-
favorable at most in two or three
drought-stricken states. He shows
clearly enough, from his own point of
view, that the live stock supply dur
ing the past year has not been equal
to the demand, and that the prices of
live stock are relatively much higher
today than they were two years ago.
He does not follow out the logic of his
figures, however, to the extent to
which the distinguished secretary of
the United States treasury has gone
in proclaiming that 1t would be fatal
blow at the live stock Industries of the
United States should the falling off
in American meat production be sup
piled through the free introduction Of
the cattle of South American, Austria
liam, and other foreign ranges.
OF course it has been demonstrated
that it is not the consumer who paws
the tax, and hence it is, no doubt, that
statisticians of Croxton's order and
economists of the order of Secretary
Shaw would, to use an expression of
the secretary of the treasury, regard
the increase il the price of meat as
not even accidentally resulting
from the exclusion through tar
if enactments of the cattle of
other countries. The consumer
may be expected to continue to
pay Is cents pound for choice cuts
for Sundays dinner today, whereas he
only paid 12a cents a year ago. with
out charging any of the exactfon
against the tariff, Notwithstanding
that, according to all the beef trust
advocates, the supply of American
beef has run short and is UNEQUAL to
the increased demand.
All the special pleas which are now
being put forward in behalf of this
particular trust will be considered by
the intelligent mass of readers of
newspapers as simply an effort to get
away from the indubitable results Of
excluding foreign cattle from Amer
lean markets and of having placed in
the absolute control of the trust in
every large center of population in this
country the prices to be paid for live
stock and the prices to be received for
dressed meats. For ten years past and
over, through a system of commercial
coercion, the meat trust has been able
to destroy the system of retail butch
ering which prevailed throughout this
country, has been able. to force the
butchers representing this system to
buy their products from it, and it
alone, and has been able to prevent the
sale of live stock to any but them
selves. In word, they have monop-
olized the meat industry In American
cities, both coming and going, and
they have had the United States gov
eminent, through it's tariff legislation,
acting as their confederate in their ne
farious undertaking.
Probably the most convincing an
swer which has been given to the ar
guments of these special pleaders is
furnished by the Mr.. Armour of to-
day. who declares, that notwithstand-
ing the bountiful corn crop which has
been gathered, the tremendous pro-
duction Of hay, as the result of con-
tinued rains, and the universal pre-
vailing conditions favorable to the
raising of cattle, no reduction what
ever can be looked forward to for SONS
time to come, certainly not until next
spring, in the prices which meat con-
sumers are now paying to the trust.