Evening times-Republican. [volume] (Marshalltown, Iowa) 1890-1923, 1902-10-31
uG|N MARKET A FAKE
Very Little Butter Sold There
and Market Quotations Are
Fictitious
ENJOYS ANCIENT REPUTATION
Butter Is Now Mostly Sold at Great
RAILROAD centers Where Cold Storage
House. Ahound-state Dairy Com
missioner Investigates Supposed FL
gin Market.

Il u.
Commissioner II. r. Wright, who has
returned from attending the National
lButtermakers' convention at Milwaukee
last week, dropped off at Elgin, ILL.,.
and made little quiet investigation
OF the so-called "Elgin market" He
says that no such market exists and
that the prices fixed are purely ticti-
tious, and that Iowa creamery men are
being swindled when they ship stuff
to Elgin or follow the .Elgin market"
In speaking of the situation at this
point Mr.. Wright said:
1T Is little astonishing what tre-
mendous force habit Is, and that peO-.
pie will keep on doing something they
have been accustomed to long after
changed conditions have made their
actions ridiculous.
Not SO many years ago, before the
creamery business became what 1t is
today and has been for half a dozen
years, the city OF Elgin. about forty
miles west OF Chicago, was the ac-
knowledged center OF buttermaking,
and the great distributing market for
butter as well. Then the Elgin price
of butter was the price, because there
was no other. The price OF butter as
fixed by the Elgin market was law and
gospel to the creamery man for the
reason that practically all butter went
to Elgin to be sold and then distributed.
Naturally Elgin fixed the price. Now
the situation is entirely different. No
butter is made at Elgin, none Is shipped
there or from there. practically none is
sold there, the refrigerator lines run
thru Elgin to Chicago, and the cold
storage plants and naturally the con-
sumptive demand for butter are all at
the large railway centers. And yet
the Elgin market and the Elgin price
Is still the standard with too many
Iowa creameries.
The Elgin board is composed princi-
pally OF large owners OF creameries and
they have an outlet for their product
and sell considerable amount of but
ter each year in the aggregate. but
very little Of it is from Iowa. Last year
this state shipped 1850 pounds of
butter to Elgin, 805.379 to other Illi-
nois points outside Chicago $685. 900
pounds to Chicago and 3S,264,2S0 to
New York city out OF a total Of 3d.
100000 pounds reported.
1T makes one think of the story
about the tail wagging the dog to read
something like the following In the
official report OF the market: One sale
on the call, ten tubs at 81 cents. Quo
tation committee declared the market
firm at 20 cents. Sales for the week
by members of the Elgin board, 720.-
900 pounds That difference OF cent
per pound makes a nice sum. And
the sale at 81 cents was likely this.
sale from one jobber to another who
would sell at an advance Of a halt
cent or more SO that the price was
really 21k or % cents. When the
creamery man receives his pay for his
butter he gets the official quotation.
Or more likely a half cent above and t
he thinks the dealer is robbing him.
self to pay good price for the butter
and the creamery man is corresponds
ngly happy. principally because of the I
confidence In the Elgin market which
ne inherited from his father and grand
father.
THE Elgin market is not alone In
his fixing of official quotations. but
t is the only market for any kind OF
produce that know OF that fixes the
price on commodity which is not
handled at all on that market
i