Camas Prairie chronicle. [volume] (Cottonwood, Idaho) 1901-1917, 1910-02-11
LARGE FOOD HOARD.
VALUE OF FOOD in STORAGE
is, $S,OOO,OOO,OOO
Chicago Packing Trust Investigation
Results in Exposure of Tremendous
Storage of Products Food Enough
to Fill Market Baskets of 100000
Families for Months.

Chicago, Feb. 7.-While the Ameri-
can people are engaged in the mighty
meat strike to force down the increased
cost of living, there is locked up in
the beef trust IS cold storage plants
enough food to feed every man, woman
and child in the United States for
months.
This tremendous food hoard is valued
at $4,000, 900, 900. Tons of meat and
other necessaries have been accumulat-
ing in the strongholds of the robber
food barons for two, sometimes three
years.
The Chicago packing trust and it's
affiliated trusts in every corner of the
country have amassed this frozen noun
tain of food in order that the people
may pay increased tribute to monopoly
Il and extortion; at the same time its
leaders are deploring the appetities of
those they refrain from feeding that
their own greed may be gratifed.
The facts in the cold storage situation
are amazing. The figures that follow
are not guesses, but the estimates of
the packing interests themselves, which
have been obtained from inside sources.
The surprising thing is that they have
leaked out at this time, when the fed
eral grand jury in this city is inyesti-
eating the great national food CON
spiracy and seeking to indict and inn
prison the rich and powerful ring
leaders.
These figures from the books of the
food trust, showing the amount of food
stuffs now in cold storage, constitute
the only needed proof to show the cause
of the higher cost of living. They show
the beef trust and it's affiliations to be
protected in their miserly course by
the knowledge that the tariff will not
permit the foreign producer to come
into the United States and undersell
them. Under lock and key the food
hoard is being held until the day comes
when prices are raised still higher. But
here are the astounding figures. There
are 100000 cattle carcasses in cold
storage. Other stored meat in these
great cold warehouses the country over,
includes 100000 calves, 25,OOO,OOO
sheep and lambs and 5OO0O,O0O hogs,
not counting the human ones engaged
in the packing industry.
In 70 fish freezing plants there are
fish valued at $25, 100000. They win be
liberated on the market at Lent. In
other cold storage plants controlled by
the beef barons there are held 1900, 900
eggs, 130,000,000 pounds of poultry and
fruits, and miscellaneous articles of
perishable food worth $5O,O00,OOO.
There are millions of pounds of pota-
toes, turtles, eels, cases of canned goods
and milk, butter and cheese. This last
item alone is being boarded to the ex-
tent of $1oO,o00,o0O.
There are 9O,O00,00o people in the
United States, counting in the farmers
who will never demand any of this
frozen food. This makes 20,000,000
families or less whose market baskets
must be filed every day or two with
food to replenish the larder. The cost
of this food that the market baskets
carry has risen and risen.
"Scarcity of food the packers here
have cried at the complaining women
with the market baskets. But accord
ing to the trust s own cold storage fig
ures these quantities of food per family
are held by the monopolists: Beef, ago
pounds; eggs, 7 1-2 dozen; veal, As
pounds; poultry, 6"12 pounds; mutton,
48 ga pounds; fruits, $3.50 worth /;
lamb, 7 1-2 pounds; fish, $1.25 worth /;
miscellaneous, SIS worth.
There is enough fresh meat stored
to provide every family in the United
States with two and half pounds of
it every day for year This is more
than the average family consumes. The
value of the entire hoard of food per
family is $3.50, and for each person is
nearly as great as the average wealth
of the country per capita, which is $3s.
And the figures used in division are
for all the families in the country.
Many families raise all their own meat
and vegetables. So it is the dweller
in the cities, the wage Garner, who is
going to pay the price that the robber
barons want before they will unlock the
doors of these storage warehouses.