The Leon reporter. (Leon, Iowa) 1887-1930, 1905-05-11
THE PACKERS METHODS
How the Feeders and Farmers are
Being fIeeCed by the Big Four
Packing Concerns.

OSsssS sSSSON ~ S0S Ds9 y WI
Packing Concerns.
Charles Edward Russell in discussing
the "Greatest Trust in the World" in
Everybody's Magazine gives some mat
ter that will especially interest Iowa
people.
He tells how the farmers of the west
gradually changed their business from
raising and selling grain to the stock
business. The new business required
capital. The farmer not having suffi-
cient capital to buy the stock and pre-
pare it for market depended upon the
local banks for aid to help him until he
sold his stock.
$50 long as there was free, unimped-
ed and unmanipulated cattle market,
both parties to these transactions went
their way rejoicing. The farmer found
that selling his corn turned into cattle
fat was far more remunerative than
selling it to the elevator, the banks lent
much money at fair rates and on good
legitimate security.
$50 he went into cattle feeding. He
built sheds and borrowed money at his
bank and bought cattle and made pro-
fits. And at last he lifted that old
mortgage that had been q load and
blight upon him the best part of his
life. For the first time he tasted pros
perity and the flavor was novel and
sweet.
Mr.. Russell then proceeds to show
a change came in 1901 and no matter
what market he took his stock to there
was only one price offered.
IF ho. hold hic cf0ck ovor nj crhf hnnincr
to get better bid, he was offered five
cent less per hundred weight because
the stock had become stale.
Sand he sold, he could stand still and
watch his cattle driven up the different
drive-ways to the different plants. The
representative of one house had hidden
for them, all the houses shared them.
The game was too palpable. This was
why there was no competitive bidding.
One man really bought for all.
"You will understand that the busi-
ness had become enormous, that in
great areas of the middle west practi-
cally every farmer had become cattle
fattener, that millions of capital had
been invested in it, that the livelihood
of millions of people largely depended
upon it. And here was the entire in
dustry at the mercy of four buyers, only
one of whom bid, and that one at prices
that meant ruin to the producer.
"Iowa is the great cattle feeding
state Of the Union. One half of the
beef cattle receipts at all the trust
slaughter houses come from Iowa.
"The total loss of the cattle feeders
in Iowa in 1904 are computed at $I2,-
100000. In 1908 and 1904 forty bankers
in Iowa failed, closed their doors, or
went out of business, and at least seven
bank officers committed suicide. Even
in time of national business depression
and panic there has been no such re-
cord as this"
Mr.. Russell explains the failure of
the Dunning bank at Mt. Ayr as fol-
lows:
SAT Mt. Ayr the seat Of Ringgold
county, the president and chief owner
of the Citizens bank was Day Dunning.
The common verdict in Mt. Ayr is that
Mr.. Dunning was most estimable citi-
zen, conscientious, public spirited, of
blameless life and an eminently respect
able figure in the community. He had
lived in Mt. Ayr from boyhood, he had
reared there large family. He was
prominent in the church and in good
works. For years Mr.. Dunning's bank
lent much money to farmers and cattle
shippers. There was,no reason why it
should not make such loans, no business
was more legitimate or open. The daily
market quotations and reports showed
with trustworthy details just what were
the trade conditions. Five or six firms
in Mt. Ayr were heavily engaged in the
cattle shipping. When the grip of the
trust closed upon the market and prices
were fixed by an arbitrary, intangible
power, these firms were driven rapidly
down the road to ruin. They kept on
shipping in the hope that conditions
would mend. The bank kept on advanc-
ing money to them in the same anxious
hope. Conditions grew worse instead
of better, a great many farmers notes
had to be extended, the losses in the
dent to those on the inside that a wreck
did what many other tempted men have
and straining frantically in every direc-
accepted deposits after he knew the
days of hot struggle and the thing went
uOWh WiUA a SIdSAs 1ACIS WScS dlu1Obl
$500,000 of liabilities, and for assets a
pile of worthless notes for money lent
in the cattle business, the relics of a
prosperous business garroted by arbi-
trary interference with natural condi-
tions of supply and demand. In Febru-
ary of this year Dunning was put on
trial for the crime of receiving, in the
way have indicated, illegal deposits
He was found guilty and the long career
of which his townsmen have been proud
ended in utter ruin"
Mr.. Russell gives the following Incl.
dent as showing how we'll the trust has
the trade in hand:
SIN September 1904, Mr.. Franklin
made big shipment to Omaha of choice
stock. When his cattle were exhibited
in the Omaha yards he was ,astonished
to find that he received but one bid fol
them, and that SO low that it's accent