The San Juan islander. [volume] (Friday Harbor, Wash.) 1898-1914, 1910-03-04
true BILLS ARE
RETURNED
NEW JERSEY GRAND JURY FOR.
MALLY lNDIcTs MEMBERS
OF MEAT COMBINE.
Largest Packers in the
United States Held on Conspiracy
Charge Jury Finds Evidence OF
Huge Combine to Limit Supply OF
Meat and Poultry.

New York, Feb 26.-The "beef trust
of the United States, embracing six
great packing companies and twenty.
one packers, several of them multi.
millionaires, was indicted by a grand
Jury in Hudson county, New Jersey
this week, charging them with conspir
acy to limiting the supply of meat and
poultry.
The indictment is drawn under the
law of New Jersey which provides on
conviction maximum penalty of three
years in the penitentiary, $1,000 fine,
or both. The offense is extraditable
which means practically that the meat
barons either must successfully resist
extradition or come to Jersey City for
trial.
Pierce Garvin, public prosecutor. of
Hudson county, said that he would
forthwith notify the defendants of their
indictment and would be ready to force
extraditiOn in each case where the in
dividual concerned is not willing to
face trial.
List Of Defendants.
The defendants as named follow:
The National Packing Company.
Armour & Co.
Swift & Co.
Merris & Co.
Hammond Packing Company.
H. H. Hammond & Co.
Individuals: J. Ogden Armour, A.
Watson Armour, Louis F. Swift, Ed
ward F. Swift, Charles H. Swift, Ed
ward Morris, Ira N. Morris, Arthur
Meeker, Edward Tilden, L. A. Carton,
Thomas E. Wilson, Thomas J. Con.
ners, F. A. Fowler, L. H. Heyman,
James E. Rathgate, Jr., George ]. Ed
wards, Frederick B. Cooper, D. E. Hart
well, Henry B. Darlington, A. A. Fuller,
Lemuel C. Patterson.
Indictment AlIudes to "Others."
The indictment, which bristles in it's
arraignment of the men named, also
refers to divers others" as being re-
spOnsible. These latter, however, are
not specified.
The list of names, it will be seen,
represents the backbone of the great
packing industry of the country, con-
tanning as it does two Armours, three
Swifts and two Morrises, most of them
residents of Chicago.
The indictment brings to a climax
the first concerted effort in the East to
fix responsibility for the prevailing
high prices of food.
Jersey City, as cold storage center,
where the packing companies of the
West maintain vast warehouses in
which hundreds of thousands of pounds
of meat and poultry are stored, proved
fruitful source of Investigation. More
than month ago the inquiry by the
grand jury was started, cold storage
plants were inspected, witnesses were
examined Now the indictment is
handed up in the Supreme Court be-
fore Justices Blair and Carey.
The proceedings were formal in the
extreme and there was nothing dra.
matte in the presentation of the docu.
ment that will mean the trial by Jury
OF some of the most prominent men in
the United States, charged in effect
with cheating the public by manipulate
ing the food supply through the me-
dunn of cold storage.
The Specific ccharges.
Or this alleged manipulation, the in.
dlctment charges that the defendants
conspired within the jurisdiction of
this court, wilfully, unlawfully and fe-
loniously devising, contriving and in
tending for their own unjust, excessive,
immoral and unlawful profit and gain,
TO lnJure, defraud, prejudice, damage,
cneat, 1mpoverish and Cypress the pub
TIC and the people by cornering and
nmltlng the necessary and reasonable
supply OF meats and poultry for con
sumption by the public and the people
OF said city and said county, so as to
produce an artificial scarcity in the
supply OF said meats and poultry, and
TO greatly, excessively and extortion.
ately enhance and increase the cost
and price thereof
according to the indictment. an H.
regal agreement to control prices was
entered into by the defendants as far
back as March 1, 1908, when. it is
charged, meeting was held in. JERSEY
City at which the defendants "wilfully.
unlawfully, fraudulently and extortion.
ately" bound themselves to maintain
ana exercise control over a MONOPOLY
OF the meat and poultry supply and to
arbitrarily and unlawfully Increase
the price OF meat and poultry. and not
TO sell the meats and poultry except
at exorbitant prices agreed upon.
Market Got Little.
The indictment states that moro
driDlets of the supply were put on the
market at stated intervals, small ouan.
n II