The Washington times., 1909-05-12
A CHANCE FOR REAL RE-
VISION. NO. XIX.


II may be all right for the American
10 be liberal-in proper case To
a deserving charity, we should be the
last to set bounds, if the benevolence
proceed from the American people as
their hearts dictate. As to whether
the American Sugar Refining Company
the Sugar trusts a deserving recip-
lent of charity, we leave for those who
have followed with the varied crime
and unscrupulousness of its history.
We hand over to it under our tariff
schedules trife of Sl25, 100000 a year.
This cannot be protection to Ameri-
can labor" within the purview of the
Republican platform, for the Sugar
trust expends less than one-fifth of
that sum in labor, and the difference
between the foreign labor which it uses
mostly in this country and the foreign
labor its competitors abroad use over
there cannot amount TO more than a
fiftieth of this tariff bonus to the
trust. Hence We must give it to In
sure "a reasonable profit to the Amer
lean manufacturer" Inasmuch as the
entire capitalization of the trust, water
and all, is only some Sl45, 100000, the
unTeasonableness of this profit, if there
IS any such quality in it, does not con-
sist in its being too small. Perhaps
we had better not try to account for
the gift except as an evidence of the
sbounding love for the Sugar trust in
the minds of the people-of the Com
mittee on Ways and Means of the
House and the Committee on Finance
of the Senate.
IL being a matter of love, perhaps
we might properly look into the mat
ter of who our sugar sweetheart is
When the oil schedules were under fire
in the Payne bill, Mr. Payne himself
never had the nerve 10 speak for them
Mr.. Cannon in person took the floor, ii
viii be remembered, for "the independ-
ents." Mr.. Aldrich's Standard Oil pred
Elections are well known. It may be
a matter of interest TO many to know
that in conferring ON the Sugar trust
this little honorarium OF eight or nine
figures, there is every reason 70 believe
we are making the gift to Mr.. Rookie
feller and his associates. For the Sugar
trust seems 10 be controlled by Stand,
ard Oil quite as completely as the
Watefs-PieTee Oil Company turned out
20 be down in Missouri.
We haze seen how the Sugar trust
captured the beet sugar business oi
the country. The capture of the Sugar
trust by the Oil octopus is not so vel
known, but is therefore all the more
interesting. It all came about through
a battle of the twin oetopi for tn,
control OF the glucose business. Thirty
years ago there were some fifty glueos,
factories in the country, making q
sugsr used largely for adulterativ,
purposes The Sugar trust wanted t,
do its own adulterating, it seems, fol
it went cunning for these profitable
mills. Glucose is made from corn, anC
20 is starch; so the starch and glucos,
businesses were in many ways allied
In 1897 the Glucose Sugar Refining
Company waS formed, merging six bi,
plants in Illinois and Iowa, with j. P
Morgan, Marshall Field, Hartman, anc
the Matthiessen's Of glucose fame il
the deal Three years later the Ma
tional Starch Company got itself form
ed 10 take In two other big glucos
mergers, and two starch trusts By thi
time, it viii be noted, the process o
swallowing each other had made tn
glucose and starch concerns pretty bic
II was a psychological moment, an,
out OF the general drawing togethe
came the Corn Products Company, con
trolling about all the glucose aud stare
companies in the country, with tn
Sugar trust in control Of the whole.
Suddenly something stuck in tn
Sugar trusts throat. It was a subsidi
ary company Of the National Stare
Company which the Standard Oil Com
pany had got tentacle about b
controlling just shade more than hal
it's stock. 1t had good sugar refner
ready for business, too. 1t was rlrmor
ed that STANDARD Oil was about 70 Ell
gage in the sugar business. Will
National Starch stuck IN America
Sugars throat, these rumors sent Suga
stock of from l55 to l03. The cor
eern that had had hard time con
peting with Arbuckles and Spreckel
would surely go down in struggl
with the Rockefeller colossus. Th
was the Sugar-Oil furry of 1901.
When it was over, it was found tina
the Rockefeller Rogers -Archbold- Flal
Ter crowd had become the "main hold