The Topeka state journal. [volume] (Topeka, Kansas) 1892-1980, 1908-12-21
Average American Eats Half
His Own Weight Annually.
Uncle Sans Bill for This Pro-
duet a Million a Year.
BEET PRODUCT LEADS
Home Production Is 21.3 Per
Cent of Consumption.
Quantity Imported From Insu
lar Possessions.

Washington Dec 21-Figures gath
cred by the bureau of statistics show
that the average American citizen con-
sumes half his own weight in sugar
every year and Uncle Sans sugar bill
average a million a year. The total
consumption of sugar in the United
States in 1907 as shown by a report
issued by the bureau which is the lat
est year for which statistics are avail
able reached, 1859, 667, 1915 pounds.
Calculating this enormous total at
the average retail price of 51k cents
per pound" the report states, I'VE get
a total of 372 million dollars as its cost
to the consumer, or more than a mill
lion dollars for each of the 365 days
of the year"
The statement shows that 21.3 per
cent or ISL. 900, 900 pounds of the SUI
gar consumption of the country was
of home production; III per cent or l.
254, 600, 900 pounds was brought from our
insular possession and the remaining 81
per cent or 4.367 100000 came from for
eign countries. Forty-three million
pounds was the aggregate of the ex-
portation of sugar from this country.
The United States sugar record for 1907
was unique in that the quantity of that
product imported from foreign coun-
tries was larger than ever before; the
quantity brought from our island pos
sessions was larger than in any previ-
Gus years and the quantity produced at
home exceeded that of any other years.
The quantity exported was larger than in
any year of the past decade and the
per capita consumption was the larg-
est ever recorded an average of S2.6
pounds for each man, woman and child
of continental United States.
The production of beet sugar for the
first time exceeded the production of
cane sugar, the product of the year be-
ing cane sugar, 544, 100000 pounds, While
the production of beet sugar was $751;
The worlds production has prac-
ticaIly doubled in the past twenty
years having grown from II billion
pounds in 1887 to 30 billion pounds in
consumed about IS per cent of the
total world production of 1887 it con-
sumed % per cent Of the greatly in
creased production of 1907. Beets
tai produced. while twenty years ago
they supplied about one-third of the
total product
In 1903 after the passage of the
Elkins act the railroads in the pool
ing arrangement as to sugar shipment
from New York ceased to pay the
transfer allowance, holding it to be
unlawful. Then the American Sugar
Refining company refused to protect
the pool percentage in its shipments
of sugar, holding that the pool and
the transfer allowance were related as
service and consideration.
Subsequently the allowance was re-
stored by the railroads and actually
made retroactive for the shipments
forwarded during the period of its
discontinuance-
The allowance since that time has
been paid on a basis of two cents per
hundred pounds for carriage" all of
the railroads doing business out of
New York have operated under this
arrangement for allowance. In view
of these facts the commission holds
that the allowance is a rebate and
therefore unlawful. The conclusion
reached are argued at length in the
commission reports and the broad
intimation is made that the payment
of carriage or transfer allowances in
the circumstances set out hereafter
Will not be permitted.
mo order will be made at this
time" The report concludes. But the
commission will expect the carriers in
question at once to conform their
tariffs and practices to the principles
here announced"