Evening times-Republican. [volume] (Marshalltown, Iowa) 1890-1923, 1909-05-15
SUGAR TRUSTS TOLL
PRICE OF GIVING PROTECTION TO
COMBINED FACTORIES TO-
AIS s141,ooo,ooo.
MICHIGAN BEET PLANTS
SEND UP HARD-LUcK CRY
Consumers Paying Royalty Of Cents
Per Pound in Order to Foster Beet
Sugar Industry, Which Is Declared
to Be Hopeless Failure in This
country-opinions of Some Experts.

Washington, May 15.-It is apparent
that the whole case of the sugar trust
for the retention of high tariff upon
sugar Is being made to pivot on two or
three states in the region of the Great
Lake, chiefly Michigan. All the evil
dence SO far submitted on the side Of
the trust clearly indicates this. All the
argument of the trust agents is of the
same tenor. All, or nearly all, of the
trust agents here lobbying for the re-
| tention of the high duty hail from the
same Great Lakes country, and they
appear, not as trust representatives,
but as the eloquent defenders of 3d.
600 Michigan farmers who raise an an
nual average of four and seven tenths
acres each of sugar beets.
When the hearings on the sugar
schedule were conducted by the ways
and means committee of the house,
several sugar people We're present, and
they claimed to represent widely diver
slfied sugar interests. But when the
time came for the different individuals
to testify the duty of revealing the
cost of the manufacture of sugar from
beets was invariably left to the wit
nesses from Michigan.
Millions to Help 81 Factories.
Beet sugar people from the west
were on the stand, but none of them
n no jr,1, y;
about the cost of making sugar 9th
ers, they said. would testify upon that
point. And others did. But they were
invariably Michigan men. The price
per pound for the manufacture Of beet
sugar was stated by them as rang
ing from 5000 TO $.0416, leaving d
very small. margin out of which to pay
freights and profits when sugar sold
in New York for s0465. The western
men had much to say about the high
price of labor in their portion of the
country, but offered no details regard
ing the cost of a pound of sugar
In fact, it was not until Claus A.
Spreckles, an independent refiner, went
upon the stand, that the information
came out that the western localities
suited to the production of beet sugar
turned out their sugar at not more
than 212 cents a pound; and that the
demand for the protection of American
labor engaged in sugar production was
also piece of buncombe, when it was
known that much of the western sugar
was produced by oriental labor and all
OF that of the southern states by ne
groes, whose labor rights and wage
returns We're always at the lowest
point possible, quite regardless of the
tariff
So then, as the case is made up, the
sugar hard luck story upon which the
whole demand for high duty rests,
depends upon the sixteen factories in
Michigan, the four in Wisconsin and
one small one in Minnesota. These, it
is shown, would have to go out of bus
mess if the tariff on sugar is taken off
OF materially reduced. The situation,
therefore,, is that every human being
in the United States is made to pay
an extra rake-off of s1.65 per year, or
total annually of s141,793,35950 in
order that these twenty-one factories
may continue in business Yet the to-
tai output of all the beet sugar fac
tories in the country, sold at the whole
sale price in New York, amounts to
only s43O37.44S64 annually.
Beet Industry Weak One.
| 1t is apparent from all the testimony
submitted. even by the beet sugar peo-
pie themselves. that it is fallacy to
believe that the production of sugar
from beets i'll the northern states can
ever be an independent commercial
success. The natural field of sugar pro-
duction Is the tropics, and all the evil
dence shows that in 1000 years the
beet sugar producers of the states
about the great lakes will still have tc
have high protective tariff in order
to compete with growers of cane in
the tropics.
The experience of Germany, Austria
and the other beet sugar producing
countries appears TO be the same. They
have to protect their factories with {
high tariff and they afflict their home
people with high priced sugar while
they sell their surplus in the world
markets at the going rates, no matter
how low they may be-a thing the SUI
gar trust also does on those occasion!
when it has a surplus.
F. r. Hathaway, of Detroit. repre-
senting what are known as the trus
factories of Michigan, before the way
and means committee, told of the ex
cessive duties maintained on sugar b.
the beet sugar producing countries o
Europe. Some of these tariffs, he said
ran to more than cents a pound
DO those countries produce al! the.
consumer" asked Judge Crumpacker
of Indiana.
Protection Is Costly.
Eyes, sir" replied Mr.. Hathaway
"1f it is urged that, by reason Of sucl
protective tariff they are able to sell a
a lower rate for export than for HON
consumption, it must be remembers
that it is the price of their expor
sugar with which we must compete i
the United States, and this for the las
eight years has averaged s2.38h pc
hundred pounds for granulated sugar.
Thus it is demonstrated out of tn
mouth of beet sugar expert that 70
eight years the people of the Unite
= States, have paid at least 2 cents
pound more for their sugar than woul
hhave been the case had the Unite
States never entered this hopeless gam
of trying to force a temperate climat
! to compete in the production of a Gro
Of rank and favored growth in the trol