The Abbeville press and banner. [volume] (Abbeville, S.C.) 1869-1924, 1909-08-11
KINGDOM OF KILLING
RULED BY ARMOUR
NINE MILLION CARCASSES
A YEAR.
Mostly Animals Meet Death Stupidity
and Without Resistance What
Becomes of Their Lives?

The soldiers of the modern kin!
are standing armies of workingmen
not armies of fighting idlers. Rookie
feller's millions and Armour's mil
lions are millions invested and rein
vested in labor; in building, in addins
to the actual visible wealth of thi!
country. That wealth belongs to the
country and to the people of the
country. 1t is subject to this dispo,
sition by taxation or otherwise. 1t is
fortunate for the people that these
kings, unlike the old kings, do not
waste human labor with courts,
retlnues OF servants and organized
dissipation, do not waste human life
IN wars, but use their energies simply
along the lines of organizing industry
and increasing tangible wealth. 1t
! might be worse with a people as
supine as our own.
1t is a fact, of course, that Armour
does not really own this great world
wide butcher business. The stock
yards W him. He was born with
the big load upon his back. He tells
you quite simply: II inherited this
business; I did not create it. I have
tried to do as we'll as I could with it.
1t just happened that 1 had a smart
father and a rich father"
In so vast an industry, bigger than
all the men that manage it, sugges-
lions seem rather foolish coming from
outside. But there are some things,
it would SEEM, that Armour and the
other big packers could do easily, at
once, and without unreasonable sacri-
flee. They might make the prices of
beef to consumers uniform and rea-
Sonable.
No women or children should, un-
der any conditions, be permitted to
witness the killing of the animals.
1t is a dreadful thing to see long
lines of little boys and women and
little girls walking through the
slaughter houses, watching the stick
ing of pigs, the stunning of steers,
and all the horror of blood. The eff
feet is brutalizing on the children,
and for the mother of an unborn
child to witness so horrible a spec !
tacle is a shameful crime.
Some legislator in Illinois should |
start the movement to prevent this.
The packers themselves would do it,
but they say: IF we close up our
slaughter houses, or keep any part
Of the public out, we shall be accused
Of having things to hide"
1t is a great kingdom of death over
which Armour rules. There are huge
buildings for killing, surrounded with
pens in which the sheep, hogs and
cattle are confined, waiting for the
fatal hour. In M place hogs in thou
sands are driven into pens. Below,
hidden under a platform, there is a
cracking Of whips mingled with
Squeezing and grunting. You look
down and see a man, black from head
to foot with mud, rushing about
among the half-crazed swine. He
has a huge blacksnake whip in his
hand, with which he drives them to
the narrow entrance that leads to
their death. In the last pen there is
a great revolving wheel. Each hog
is seized and hooked by one hind leg.
The turning wheel lifts him in the
air; he is passed on to a wheel that
slides along a rail, and then comes
one knife thrust and death.
The killing of the sheep, fortunate
ly, is hidden; it is too pathetic for the
sight even Of modern civilization.
The killing of the cattle is less noisy
and shocking than that of the swine.
The big, heavy, fattened steers walk ,
slowly into pens. Heavy hammers
stun them, and as a rule, they bleed 8
death without regaining conscious +
ness. :
The Blood Could Be Heard. ,
But there is certainly room for i'm I
provement in the killing. And if the ,
improvement can be made it should {
made-if necessary, under compul-
Out Of every ten steers slaugh- i
tered one or more invariably require q
more than one blow for the killing. 7
This means suffering. and it is un- I
necessary. The spending of a very =
little extra money, two or three cents d
/ carcass perhaps, and probably less. t
would pay for the fitting on each head I
If an apparatus that would make the O
leath blow absolutely certain. +
Study of the animals as they 90 to r
heir death would disturb the calm O
belief of the individual who thinks 7
hat an animal has no soul, no real =
ife, no thought. 1t is true that a y
great majority of the animals die STU
,idly and without resistance. Among =
he swine, whose shrill ~sauealinss :.
answer the cracking whip and the
turn of the fatal wheel, there l.
to be, fortunately, little or no ;,
Of what death and danger
mean. 1t is not always so. One day
he harmony Of the killing bed" was
lastly disturbed by one small, black
zig. Huge creatures, double the black {
'ig's size. were walking through the D
loor, resisting only feebly as the y
hains were put around their hind +
egs and they were jerked up to II
leath. This little black pig had II
'ther ideas, another character. No D
zero in human life ever fought more a
for his life than did that
mall creature. AS soon as he en- q
cred the fatal pen he dashed at the Is
in charge, flew at his legs, drove a
i'm out of the pen, finally climbed up "
yer the backs Of the other swine.