Aberdeen herald. [volume] (Aberdeen, Chehalis County, W.T.) 1886-1917, 1908-06-18
IN RETROSPECTION
MISDEEDS OF AN INSOLENT MA.
JORITY GLANCED AT.
While Chicago Is ReSOundina with
Praise of Roosevelt and Roosevelt
Policies 1t is Well to Consider How
the Late Congress Treated Those
Policies.

DO|"OCh APiil l., last year, anu
April IS, this year, while the price
paid by the packers to the farmers
increased only 13 per cent, the price
charged by the packers to the whole
salers increased 20 per cent. The
beef trust, in other words, having
charged up to the public the full in
crease in the cost of beef to the trust,
gouged the public for an additional
amount which was almost 125 per
cent of that increase. The profit
made by the beef trust out of a 1000
pound steer, instead of being but 80
cents, as Mr.. Garfield reported, is
almost $S.
The beef trust, which, in fourteen
leading markets of the country packs
and slaughters 90 per cent of the cat
tie sold, fixes by concerted agree
ment of the members of the trust, on
each Thursday, the price that will be
paid on each day of the ensuing week
for cattle, sheep and hogs, as we'll as
the price that will be charged to
wholesalers and retailers.
The trust is as absolute and more
exacting now than when the govern
ment practically abandoned it's prose-
cution two years ago. The law that
it was violating then is still the law;
law which it is the duty of the fed
eral government to enforce. But the
government is making not the slight
est effort to enforce it.
These are the most interesting
points brought out by Congressman
Hitchcock in his speech in the house
on the beef trust.
The Omaha Bee sneers that the one
effect of the speech will be to swell
the volume of the congressional rec.
ord. 1t may be true. The republi-
can party is in entire control of con-
gress, the courts, and the executive
branch of the government; and the
republican party refuses to lift a
finger to rectify the wrongs exposed
by Mr.. Hitchcock and the other dem
ocratic members of congress. When
Mr.. Hitchcock showed from the rec
ord how the powder trust is gouging
the government, the house refused
to act. When he showed conclusive
ly, from his own experience as a pub
Usher, how the paper trust is mulct-
ing the newspapers and newspaper
readers of tens of millions annually,
the house was indifferent, and it has
thus far refused to act even though
the president himself has pleaded for
such action.
1t does not become the Bee, or any
other republican newspaper to sneer
at any democratic member because of
his inability to right these wrongs.
1t is the fault, the entire fault, of
the brutal, Indifferent, callous repub-
lican majority, which binds and gags
the minority, defies the president, and
flaunts it's insolence in the face of an
outraged and betrayed public.
The democratic members, includ-
ing Congressman Hitchcock, have
done all that was humanity possible to
force the republican majority to
grant to the people some measure of
relief a this session. They have held
up the presidents hands and offered
their solid vote to help enact into
law number of the measures he rec
ommends. Their failure is his fail
ure-and it is the peoples failure
And the people will know whom to
hold ponsible.-Omaha World
Herald.