Arizona republican., 1909-08-19
BEEF TRUST PLANS
 DEFEATED BY TAFT
WHY HIDES WERE MADE FREE.
Inside Facts Regarding the Contro-
 versy Over That Schedule.

It is known to the newspaper read ing public, says the St. Louis Repub- lie. that the Payne tariff bill, signed by President Taft Thursday, abol- ished the 15 per cent duty on hides; but it is understood by very few who glanced hastily over the accounts of the attack on the proposed free hide clause and the steadfast stand or President Taft in it's favor. that his victory means the defeat of a plan, al ready well advanced beyond the pre- liminary stage, to destroy the business of 300 independent shoe manufacturers and make the industry one of the sub feet domains of the empire of the beef trust.
 Through many years of steady ad- vance in the price of hides-amount- ing to 100 per cent from 1893 to the spring of last year-the packers have watched and waited for the strategic moment to begin the taking over of the shoe industry. Last March they believed it had arrived. Between March f. 1908, and July 31, 1909, the price of live cattle advanced per cent, but the prices of the heavier grades of leather advanced from 90 to 120 per cent.
 At the end of this period the pack CTS controlled 20 per cent of the tan neries of the United States and the profits of the independent tanner were rapidly becoming a thing of the past At first the packers disguised their tanning interests, but during the last six months the Armour Leather company has boldly entered the mar ket-the stage of secrecy had passed.
 The victory of the shoe manufactur- CTS has been won in the teeth of the opposition of the Aldrich forces, solely through the personal influence of, the president The beef trust had the senate majority body and soul. On the last day of the fight Senator Ald- rich announced his unalterable op- position to the abolition of the duty.
 St. Louis Manufacturers Pleased.
 St, Louis manufacturers are na- turally much elated over the result, and none more so than Jackson John son, president of the Roberts, John son & Rand Shoe company, and chair man of the literature committee of the national organization of shoe manufacturers, who has worked carly and late for that clause in the tariff bill with which was bound up the very life of the shoe industry. MT Johnson said yesterday to a repre- sentative of the Republic:
 "The fight of the shoe men was only incidentally a tariff fight in the usual sense of the term. We were fighting for the very life of the indus try Without an open market we saw no way to prevent the packers trust from successfully swallowing first the tanneries and then the shoe fac tories of the United States. It was no mere matter of volume of profits with us. It. was a question whether there were going to be any profits at all.
 For several years the packing inter ests have had. an eye on the shoe in dustry; it struck them that it would be a good thing to control all the steps of the process, from beef on the hoof to the shoe on the foot From 1893 to the spring of 1908 the prices of leather gradually and steadily climbed higher until at the end of that period they were 100 per cent higher than at the beginning of it. This is an impor- tant point. for it proyes that the tre- mendous advance since March. 1908. was not the reaction from a time of low prices.
 "On March 1, 1908. prime cattle sold at t6.50-pe hundred; on July 2S. 1909. they sold at $7. rise of about per cent. But during that time the prices of the heavier grades of leather in creased from 90 to 12O per cent. On the first date packers heavy hides were worth cents a pound; on the last they brought 17N cents
 The advance on native cows hides