The news & observer. [volume] (Raleigh, N.C.) 1894-current, 1905-02-02
A SOLAR PLEXUS FOR THE BEEF
TRUST.

The decision of Justice Holmes
makes the task of smashing the beef
trust very simple. Let Mr.. Roosevelt
now administer the solar pleXus 50
people can get meat and beef at living
prices.
The ramifications of the beef trust
are far greater than the consumer
realize, though they know that it Is a
heavy burden upon the breakfast and
dinner table and has almost driven
beef from the supper table. The ex-
tent of it's ramifications is thus detail
ed in a virile article in Everybody's
Magazine by Charles Edward Russell:
1T fixes at its own will the price of
every pound of fresh, salted, smoked
or preserved meat prepared and sod
in the United States. 1t fixes the
price of every ham, every pound of
bacon, every pound of lard. every can
of prepared soup. 1t has an absolute
monopoly of our enormous meat ex-
ports, dressed and preserved. 1t has
an absolute monopoly of the American
trade in fertilizers, hides, bristleS.
horn and bone products. 1t owns or
controls or dominates every slaughter
house except few that have incon-
siderable local or special trades. 1t
owns steam and electric railroads, it
owns the entire trolley car service in
several cities, and is acquiring the
like property elsewhere. 1t owns fac
tories, shops, stock yards, mills, land
and land companies, plants, ware
houses. politicians, legislators and
Congressman.
ut defies Wall Street and all that
therein is. 1t terroriZes great rail-
road corporations long used to ter
roriZing others 1t takes toll. from
big and little. 1t gouges millions
from railroad companies, and cent
pieces from obscure shippers. To-
day it is compelling a lordly railroad
to dismiss it's general manager, to-
morrow it is blacklisting and running
some little commission merchant. III
Is remorseless, tireless, greedy, in
satiable. and it plans achievements so
much greater than any SO far record
ed in the history of commerce that
the imagination flags in trying to fol-
low its future possibilities.
at fixes, for its own profit, the
prices the farmer of the West shall
receive for his cattle and hogs, and
the prices the butcher OF the East
shall charge for his meat.
1T fixes the price that the grower
of California shall receive for his fruit
anu the price Tie ItDOieI VI ANcN
York shall pay for his breakfast.
cit lays hands upon the melon
grower of Colorado, and the cotton
grower of Georgia, and compels each
to share with it the scanty proceeds
of his toll.
ut can affect the cost of living in
Aberdeen and Geneva as easily as Iii
Chicago and New York.
'It has in the past three years in
creased, for it's own benefit, the ex-
penses of every Household in Arneri-
ca. 1t controls or influences the
prices of one-half the food consumed
by the nation. 1t has its share in the
proceeds of more commodities of
daily consumption than all other
trusts, combinations and monopolies
together, and the prices of these 1t
seeks to augment for it's own profit.
st can make within certain limits,
the price of wheat, of corn, of oats.
what it pleases; it will shortly be able
to control the price of every loaf OF
bread.
ats operations have Impoverished
or ruined farmers and stockmen, de-
stroyed millions of investments,
caused banks to break and men to
commit suicide, precipitated strikes
and annihilated industries"