Democratic messenger. [volume] (Snow Hill, Md.) 1869-1973, 1902-05-17
A POOR MANS ENEMY

man. MS mas been Verl1ed
by the Beef Trust i'm a manner
that has brought it home to all
of us. The Philadelphia Record
shows up this Trust in the fol-
lowing statement:
One of the gravest charges
against the Beef Trust for
meanness and deception is thus
defined in the bill in equity
filed in the United States Court
by Attorney General Knox:
The defendants have engaged
n and intend to continue an
unlawful combination and con
spiracy for bidding up through
their respective purchasing
agents the prices of live stock
for few days at time at the
said stockyards and open mark
cts, so that the market reports
viii show prices much higher
than the state of the trade will
warrant, and thereby induce
owners of such live stock in
divers other States and Terri
tories to simultaneously make
large shipments from other
States and Territories instead
of shipping the same to more
natural and advantageous
markets and at more natural
and advantageous times in the
due and proper course of such
trade and business, and by this
means and by reason of the re-
sulting large offerings there of
such live stock land by there
upon refraining from bidding
against each other for the same)
obtaining such live stock at
prices much less than it would
bring in the regular way of
trade if such combination and
conspiracy were not so engaged
in and continued.
Such is the charge in all the
amplitude of legal phraseology.
Reduced to the briefest Ian
guage it is that the big six
make fictitious prices of live
stock at their yards in order to
induce cattle owners to rush
simultaneously to market, and
when this end is attained they
put down the prices, while only
one of the conspirators appears
as a purchaser. The cattle
owners must accept the prices
offered or ship their stock home
again at great cost. This charge.
if true, implies a degree of tur-
pitude rarely revealed i'm bust
ness transactions. Should the
accusation be sustained in the
Courts it ought to be sufficient
not only to dissolve the combi-
nation but to drive the conspir-
ators from association with all
business men who regard honor
and probity in their dealings
What greater knavery in bust
ness is conceivable than this
method of decoying cattle own
ers in great numbers into the
stockyards of the Trust for the
purpose of defrauding them of
a large share of the value of
their property:
In order the more successfully
to carry on this and other ne
farious methods of business the
conspirators (as they are de-
scribed by the bill in equity do
not appear as close corpora
ton like other Trusts. but main
tain separate firms to convey
the impression that they are
acting independently of each
other. They imagine that they
can deceive the public and elude
the spikes of the law by pre-
serving the form of individual
independence, in spite of all the
evidence that they are acting
as one under the same supreme
regulation. They denied a little
while ago that they were ship
ping their meats for less than
the railroad rate to firms not in
the combination and they
now confess that up to January
last such was the fact. When
the railroad authorities in Chi
cago frankly admitted the truth
denial was of no further use.
On more accounts than one
the public has reason to rejoice
that this suit of the Govern
ment against the Beef Trust
has been begun, tardy as has
been its inception. Ifthe action
shall succeed its probable effect
will be to lessen the cost of
meat to the consuming millions,
Notwithstanding the pretenses
that the existing high prices
are due wholly to natural
causes But the processes of
the law are proverbially slow,
and it may be long before a
final decision of this suit against
tho Reef Truct can lao raacbad