The Washington times., 1909-05-07
AN OPPORTUNITY FOR REAL
REVISION. NO. XIV.

If the American Sugar Refining Com
pany has done us the honor of noting
the series of remarks we have made
with reference TO the sugar industry
and the duties on sugar and is led to
Imagine that we bear it any special
ill-will, it is greatly mistaken. The
Sugar trust is entitled to a position
of bad eminence in the list of undesir-
able trusts 1t has distinctly criminal
record and one odorous of the worst
practices of decadent finance. But with
those things we have nothing to do
except to allude to them in a more or
less emphatic way to point our moral
and adorn our tale. Our point always
is that the tariff on sugar as it now
exists and is proposed to be continued
IN The Aldrich bill Is unnecessary for
the protection of any American in
dustry, and an indefensible burden on
the food of the people, and on many
manufactures and industries that are
based on sugar.
When the so-called independent re-
finer" or manufacturer of sugar re-
ceives a tariff protection that is un-
just, we are opposed to his graft as
thoroughly as though he was the most
criminal of trusts. The beet sugar
manufacturer, when he becomes a leech
upon the body polite, is as much
leech as though merged with the Have
meyer concerns We have referred to
the report of the British consul, Mr..
Wyndham, on the excessive profits of
beet sugar manufacturing. The truth
of Mr.. Wyndham's statements is
fsne out by the mushroom growth of
The industry, and the fact that when
the trust was fighting it in 1902, it
was so put to its trumrs to hold its
own against the beet sugar that it
actually sold on the Missouri river re-
fined sugar for 31s cents a pound, or
half cent below the price of raw
sugar in New York; None of the beet
men went out of business SO far as is
known, and the trust went after the
conttol of the beet sugar factories
rather than TO fight them.
Franklin Clartin, in an article in the
Century for January 1903, emphasizes
the beet sugar wrong in the tarif.
while pointing out the impregbALle
position of the trust. with the duty
on raw" says he, which is now useu
by the cane men only, and the duty on
refined, the beet sugar industry is pro-
tected by an unscalable wall, and has
thrived accordingly. It's finished prod
uct costs it only $3.50 a hundred; the
selling price is $500 OF $3.50, leaving
American beet sugar a profit of from
80 to $40 a short ton. The Sugar
trust, using cane instead of beets. av-
erages a profit of Sl4.5O a ton as
against the $50 or $40 a ton of the So
called Beet trust. Even at that rate,
It is figured by old refners no longer
commercially interested, the Sugar
trust, not to mention the Beet trust,
is unduly aided by the tariff"
Mr.. Clarkin took as the cost Of beet
sugar the figures of the Department of
Agriculture, the loving and partial par
entof the industry. Mr. Wyndham, max
ing an independent investigation, gave
as its cost only PA cents a pound. OF
The two results, we are disposed TO ac-
cept that of the British consul because
he had no case TO make out and no
prejudices to indulge. If he is correct
the profits on beet sugar under our
tariff were and still are from $50 to $50
a ton, rather than the prices given by
Clarkin.
The excessive capitalization of the
beet sugar industry led to the same
conclusion of excessive profits. Though
factories built by independents are
erected at cost of from 100000 to
$500, 600 each, six companies owned by
The 5set sugar end of the trust, are
capitalized more than $s4 100000. The
beet sugar production of the nation il
90 per cent of our total, the factories
producing it are capitalized at about
SlOO,OO0yO yO00-about the same proper.
tion OF water as in the Sugar trust
proper The beet sugar no more needs
the Siriff wall than the cane industry
OF course, in making remarks with
which the beet sugar men may take
issue, we do not conceive ourselves a,
in antagonism to the American farm
er. j. H. Kelsey, Michigan
farmer, told the Ways and Means
Committee that in growing beets h,
had been trying each year for a long
time to make back what he lost the
year before, but unavailingly. Tn,
factory took the profits Neither car
sny one deny that in examining int
the unjust profits of the beet sugai
industry, we are still IN the society o.