The evening times. [volume] (Grand Forks, N.D.) 1906-1914, 1906-07-04
ARM 0UR AND THE
GREAT BEEF TRUST
WRITER ASSERTS THAT HE WAS THE FOUNDER OF
THIS THE GREATEST FOOD MONOPOLY THE
WORLD HAS EVER sEEN-H1sToRY OF THE
STOCK YARDS GRAPHICALLY follower $4,000
PEOPLE EMPLOYED-BIG CAPITAL INVESTED

The real founder of the beef trust
the greatest food monopoly the world
has yet seen-was Philip Danforth
Armour. writes Pittsburg Dispatch
correspondent in a recent issue. in
his Chicago meat factory he first saw
the possibilities of utilizing on the spot
the lost by-products and offal from
slaughtered animals. He was the first
to seize and adapt to the perishable
meat trade the newly invented re-
frigerator car, of which the earliest
specimen was constructed only 81
years ago. He was the originator OF
the meat business principle, Let moth
ing be wasted" upon which are Or
SaniZed the gigantic and now notori-
GUS packing houses of Chicago
Before Armour's genius came into
full operation, meat packers sold the
sheepskins with the fleece and each
city had its own slaughter houses,
where the animal refuse went to
waste. Armour put in machinery that
made the wool ready for direct sale
to the mills that wove the cloth; he
introduced machinery that turned
every class OF waste into salable COM
mercial products; he had thousands of
refrigerator cars built, which enabled
him to place fresh meat promptly in
all the cities at prices that under sold
the local meat merchants and swept
scores of them out OF separate en-
istence.
Armour was the pioneer; and when
the three other leading Chicago kill
lers-Nelson Morris, George F. Swift
and George II. Hanlmond-were forced
to follow in his methods, there began
that fierce competition OF the four able
men which eventually brought about
for their common interest the COM
binatiOn that has made the beef trust.
Instead of fighting one another, the
four houses, with one consent, fell to
fighting all the others.
In 1901 Philip ID. Armour died. Two
years later Swift passed away. A
little later Nelson Norris retired from
business. George H. Hammond has
been bought out by Armour. And now
the dead pioneers son, Jonathan Og-
den Armour, aged AZ, who is president
OF the vast Armour corporation, may
be said to rule the meat market OF the
United States.
At Chicago, the great center of the
trade, $4,000 people, about 5 per cent
OF them women and girls, are en-
ployed in the stock yards. The mems
wages range from SIZE to 81 day,
the women's and girls from 81 to
S4.15 day. The capita invested is
$500. 1000, 900, and the annual turnover
of money is 81 $50 100000 Over $780,
900 cattle, 100000 hogs, 100000
sheep, and 100000 calves are slaugil-
tered yearly. The stockyards cover
AS acres of ground, with 800 acres of
pens for live stock, miles of railway
tracks. engines for switching purposes
waterworks, hotel, Office buildings and
banks.
Practically the whole of these vast
interests are in the hands OF the fol-
lowing firms:
Armour & Co., Swift & Co., National
Packing Co., Nelson Norris & Co.,
SchwarZchild & Sulzberger Co., Cuda-
by Packing Co.,
THESE are known as The Big SiX"l
Libby, McNeill G. Libby, H. NJ. Jones,
Fairbanks Canning Co., John r. Rog-
ers, Omaha Packing Co., Anglo-Ameri-
can Provision Co.
These corporations, it is claimed by
their officials, are not trust; they
merely confer with one another re-
specting common interests" In popu-
lar opinion they are trust, with all
the evils of arbitrary prices, railway re-
bates and callousness to public inter-
ests attaching to trusts.
OF all the features of the industry
the by-products are most interesting
and the most amazing. If steer
weigs 1900 pounds it dresses out APP
proximately 800 pounds of beef. The
remainder of the animal-hide, feet,
blood, fats, casings-with the offal
from the hogs and sheep, furnishes
material for the by-product plant. The
Head and feet go to the fertilizer and
glue works; the horn is cut off to be
converted into combs, buttons, hair
pins and fertilizer 1.-THE hard shin bone
is cut from the feet, and with the thigh
and blade bones made into knife and
toothbrush handles, pipe mouthpieces,
button and bone ornaments, and the
waste into glue and fertilizer The
hoof is made into hairpins, buttons,
| yellow prussiate and fertilizer. The
feet, knuckles, hide clippings and
small bones are made into glue, gela-