The Minneapolis journal. [volume] (Minneapolis, Minn.) 1888-1939, 1903-11-20
MEAT PRICES DOWN
President Of the Retail Meat Deal
ers' Association Says Meats
Cheap Enough to Eat.
Prices Have Been Falling in Past
Three Months and Are
Low.

There never was time within my
memory when meats were so cheap
as they are now. People can live on
meats cheaper than they can any
thing else, and as far as local condi-
tons are concerned they are buying
more meats and at cheaper prices
than at any other large center in the
country, and that is why Minneap-
oils Is one OF the biggest meat con-
sumers on the map, proportionally,
at least
This is the statement made this
morning by Louis r. Witt, president
of the Retail Meat Dealers associa-
ton, after reading a dispatch from
Kansas City in which the big four
combine of meat packers Is severely
arraigned for squeezing" the beef
feeders and pork raisers on one hand
AND the meat consumers on the other.
In the daily press dispatches, in
daily conversation and in almost
every cereal advertisement you read
you see or hear the statement that
meat Is high and how the poor man
must reduce his portion Of meat"
ter of fact, the creation Of the big
four combine has had no appreciable
effect on the prices of meat, so far
as my experience has gone, and, To-
cally meats are selling cheaper than
they have for a long time.
In the last three months, for in
stance, porterhouse and sirloin steaks
have dropped from Is cents to 12k
cents a pound; pork chops which
were selling at Is and even 17Ncents
a pound have come down to 12Ac;
mutton chops, sold at Il cents three
months ago, are now sold at 10 cents;
pot roast has dropped from II cents
to g.; corn beef from to 8 cents:
round steaks from 12h to 10, .and
whole hams from Is to 121s cents.
What the packers may be doing to
the feeders I cannot say, because we
do not buy live beef and we really
| pay small attention to prices in the
live stock market. But have noticed
no tendency to squeeze the retailers
and 1 doubt if there has been any
such tendency. The packers, while
| they have a working agreement, are
! out to get the business and are not
liable to kill the goose which lays the
golden egg. And this goose, by the
way: probably yields only a fair
If the public is being held up In
| anv place it is in the markets of the
outlying districts and in the country
had occasion last week to visit a Red
/, River valley town not reached by the
/ COM bine, at least not to the extent OF
shipping in fresh meat, and I found
that prices there ON country killed
/ meats were Iully ~ per cent higher
1 than they are here. This disparity
could not be occasioned by differ.
ence In freight rates, making prices
that much higher in the surrounding
region, because the packers can la,
down meats in Crookston, which
place they serve, almost as cheap a!
they can here.
1 Il am not chanpioning the cause
Of the packers combine and it prob
ably does great amount Of injustic,
somewhere. There is nothing in m,
Eposition or my business association
which would prevent my expressin,
an adverse opinion of the com bine i
i had one, but in this particular o
Is fretatl prices the com bine cannot b,
regarded as an element harmful t,
the public