The Oakes times. [volume] (Oakes, N.D.) 1906-current, 1907-01-31
OPERATION OF THE
LUMBER TRUST
Senator Kittredse Touches Up
Subject in Senate.
Calls Il the "Kins Of Trusts" and Show.
Wherein Il Exacts from 100 to 500 Per
Cent Profit from Consumers.

reasons for such high prices paid for
lumber in the United States. His
speech on the resolution, we quote in
part:
For more than twenty years
have lived in section of the country
requiring the importation of all lumber
that has entered into the home building
of fertile but treeless prairie. The
state in which have the honor in part
to represent has occupied it's position
in the sisterhood of states less than
twenty years, but in that brief period
her population has grown until it now
exceeds half a million people.
l have watched the development of
that country by the unremitting toll of
a sturdy yeomanry, schooled by habits
of industry and frugality, paying tri-
butte to what believe to be the most
exacting, and soulless of the
trusts that Cypress our people.
The lumber trust is the king of COM
binations in restraint of trade. In it's
far-reaching efforts there is none to
compare with it. It is remorseless in
its grasp on the people, and the only
change it contemplates is to increase the
price of its products at stated and
frequent intervals without regard to
cost. The consumer not only bears the
burden of its aggressive policy of ad-
vancing prices, but also of the profits
of intervening agencies. For him
there ia no escape from the avarice of
this monopoly. To him the lumber
trusts is tangible, living reality.
When he sees these advancing prices
without: reference to increased cost of
production, The needs no argument to
convince him that the government to
which he contributes his support and
renders true allegiance is derelict in
its duty, unless it employs all the re-
sources at its command to relieve him
of these expressions. The people de-
mand this as right and not as favor.
The trust has become so bold in it's
operations within the last year or two
that it has eliminated in many localities
all semblance Of competition and from
a central point controls both the whole
sale and retail trade and fixes the price
to the consumer.
l have in my possession uniform
price lists ostensibly emanating from
many different localities, but which are
in fact printed from the same type,
turned out by the same press, and is
sued from common center. A
further comparison of these lists with
each other discloses thee fact that
prices are identically the same whether
in Minnesota or Arkansas, Illinois or
Texas, Indiana or Missouri, Louisiana
or Ohio, or in any other portions of
country. It matters not whether these
price lists are issued by the North.
western Lumberman's Association, of
Minnesota, or the Trinity River
Lumber Company, of Texas. The
prices quoted by each and every one of
these companies are identical in every
particular I apprehend that the de-
partment of commerce and labor, with
information obtainable by it, will have
little difficulty in establishing the fact
that the lumber trust is a verify, whose
fields of operation extend from ocean
to ocean and may extend from the
tropics to and beyond the Canadian
border.
This evidence is but,a sample of what
l have collected by personal efforts
during the past two years.
That the profits of this gigantic COM
bination are exorbitant beyond all rea-
son, is easily demonstrated. The value
of stumpage-that is, the value per
thousand feet board measure of
standing yellow pine timber-based on
the highest price at which the govern
ment sold its stumpage last year was
81 per thousand. The cutting and
hauling of the logs to mill is made at
an average cost not to exceed So. so per
thousand; any well-equipped sawmill
can put the lumber on the yard for 81
per thousand. Add incidental expenses,
$1.5O per thousand, thus making the
cost Of the manufactured article $40
per thousand feet. This lumber sold
on the market during the past year at
prices ranging from $45 to $48 per thou
sand feet. The difference between the
cost of production and the retail price
is thus found to be from $35 to $38 per
thousand and represents the cost of
transportation, the legitimate cost Of
doing the business, and what conceive