Meade County news. [volume] (Meade, Kan.) 1900-1918, 1904-07-28
BEEF TRUST DEFIANT
COMBINE STILL AT WORK PLUM
DERING THE PEOPLE.
ADMINISTRATOR FarcicaI Efforts to
Curb the Rapacity of This Monopoly
The Most Powerful Weapon De-
liberateIy Laid Aside.

Knowing that a handsome contri5u-
ton to the Republican compaign fund
has in the past secured immunity from
prosecution for the worst of the great
criminal trusts, the Packers Combine.
evidently does not fear being further
molested now Chairman Cortelyou is
holding out the contribution box. In
spite of all the legal efforts of the Ad-
m1n1stration the beef trust is still at
its old game of squeezing the farmers
and plundering the consumers, for a
special from Sioux City to the St.
Louis Post-Dispatch says:
with the opening of the season for
marketing CRASHED cattle from the
ranges, most dealers at Missouri river
points are confident there will be a
drop in the high prices of meats.
There is little difference at present
from the retail prices of one and two
years ago, the packers being able to
hold their rates for meat about as
high as ever despite that they are not
paying nearly so much for the cattle.
Whatever difference there is in the
direction of an advance as compared
to last year.
whether the arrival of the grass
cattle will lower prices in eastern
cities is considered doubtful. for the
packers have more complete control
of retailing facilities there than in
the western cities. But in the Mis-
souri, river cities there are many indie
pendent retailers who, when prices
Warrant N kill i
thus are able to undersell those who
handle the packers meats and charge
the schedule of prices fixed by the
packers. Meat dealers say that the
reduced consumption of meats, owing
to the high prices, is certain to force
lower retail rates soon, and that this
effect would have been felt before
this time but for the war in the East,
which has aided an immense market
for American foodstuffs of all kinds,
and especially for meats from the
western packing points"
That is a sad statement, after all
the efforts the administration has
made to reduce this only bad trust
to a state of innocuous desuetude.
Here it is charging about the same
prices for beef as two. years ago and
paying the farmers less for cattle
and still debating what the retail
butchers shall charge, after all that
President Roosevelt and the courts
have done to curb it.
But for some occult reason Presi.
dent Roosevelt and the federal law
officers have evidently overlooked one
important section of the antitrust
law, known as the criminal clause
which provides for the Imprisonment
OF those who disobey the law. That
section has been so often published
that nearly every one is familiar with
it. and it can only be through collu
sion with the trust that the federal
authorities have never enforced It
The Attorney-General's Office has am
pie evidence to convict the packers
combine under that criminal section
of the antitrust law, for the same
evidence that was produced to the
court which granted the injunction
would be ample to convince a jury OF
their criminal acts.
But President Roosevelt stands pat
and has evidently told his Attorney
General ito let well enough alone"