The Leon reporter. (Leon, Iowa) 1887-1930, 1910-02-17
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attention TO the SITUATION, and as a
result much interesting information
and many pertinent facts have been
brought to light which discloses that
American food products are sold
much cheaper abroad than at home,
the same as is the case with Ameri-
can farm machinery and almost
every other article made in the
United States. The New York Sun
finds that the retail price of Ameri-
can beef in London is much cheaper
in London than it is in New York.
Loins sell in London for Is to 10
cents, in New York for % to 2S
cents; round steak in London costs
. to 20 cents, and in New York 20
to AZ cents; chuck brings II to 16
cents in London, and Ia to IS cents
in New York.
The Baltimore Sun is impressed
with the fact that American flour and
bacon are sold cheaper in Canada
than in the United States.
The Philadelphia North American
adduces figures to show that the beef
trusts stock explanation of high
pricesa diminishing supply, is not
true 1t shows that from 1899 to
1909 beef cattle in this country in
creased, in round numbers, from %
million to 40 million, or 70 per cent;
sheep increased from 80 million to
sc million, or 43 per cent; swine in
creased from SO million to sd mil
lion, or 40 per cent. During the same
period population has increased 20
per cent Meat products, therefore,
have increased from two to three
times as much as population.
Senator Bristow of Kansas aids the
press in it's researches as to facts by
coming forward with the sapient sug-
gestion that the price of meat ought
to, be less than it was twenty-five
years ago if for no other reason than
that the waste has been eliminated
'When / was boy" he says, "25 per
cent of the carcass went to waste.
Now nothing is wasted, not even the
blood"
All these facts Notwithstanding
the price keeps on rising, and the
to Americans at home than it is to
Londoners across the seas.
Yet it is nothing new or surprising.
The facts are stale. They have been
pointed out, over and over again, by
Democratic newspaper and cam
! paigners, in any number of cam
| paigns.
The beef trust is getting enor-
mously rich by robbing the American
people Armours declared a 35 per
cent dividend for the last fiscal year.
And in ten years they have created
a surplus, out of earnings in addi-
ton to dividends of 70 millions of
dollars on 20 million capitalization.
| Other great packing concerns are
doing quite as we'll. Is it strange
if prices are high? Is it stranger
they are higher right here in St.
Joseph than in London?
And aren't the steel trust and the
oil trust and the sugar trust and the
| harvester trust and the wooden trust
and all the rest of them doing Just
| the same as the beef trust is doing?
Aren't they all gouging the Ameri-
can people, and haven't they been do
( ing it these many years past? And
| haven't these same American people
| authorized them to do so, and rati-
| fled their doing it, by their votes at
the polls every time they had a
chance?
The United States isn't getting
poor; it is getting rich. The farms
are growing more productive. The
| factories and mines are pouring out
their wealth of products in increas-
| ing measure each year. Man for man
the American people are producing
greater wealth each year than they
did the year before. New inven-
tions, better machinery, improved
processes, scientific farming, the elm
| nation of waste, all these things
are combining to increase our wealth.
Every American family, because OF
this greater productiveness, should
be able to live better, and save more
money, than ever before. This would
be the case if there were a just dis
tribution of the riches we are pro-
ducing.
And there is the seat of the whole
trouble. The plain people produce
more wealth by their labor than
they ever did. But they are getting
constantly diminishing share of
what they produce. And con-
stantly increasing share is going to
their exploiters, the trusts. This is
what makes plutocracy such as the
world never saw before at one ex-
treme, and millions of people who
have 70 boycott meat; who can't
wear wooden clothing; who can no
| longer save for old age and rainy
day; who have to put their wives
and daughters to work in shops and
| factories and offices and stores; who
have to take their sons out of school
and put them to work while their
bones are yet soft and their bodies
| tender, at the other extreme.
And the one and only remedy that
| the people of America have tried, as
a cure for this gross and palpable
| injustice, is to keep on voting the
Republican ticket-St. Joe Observer.