Gloucester County Democrat. (Woodbury, N.J.) 1878-1932, 1911-09-28
ORR WASHINGTON. LETTER.
Bv CLYDE HI. Tavenner .

The farmers OF pennsylvania SOLO
forty weight million dollars worth OF
potatoes in New York city last year,
but they were not worth forty-eight
millions to the farmers. That lis
what the New York consumer paid for
them. The farmers got three and a
half millions.
This statement was made by menu
bers of the Pennsylvania grange
who visited New York city to study
market conditions
These grangers discovered that a
cold storage chicken, weighing a
pound and half, sold for a dollar
in Madison. For that same kind of
a chicken the farmers received twelve
cents a pound. The farmers paid 5
cents each for apples, and offered to
sell the vendor from whom they
bought them all he wanted for two
dollars a barrel. Eggs, which the
farmers sold for % cents brought As
cents when purchased by the con-
.sumer
This vast difference between what
the farmer gets and what the con-
sumner pays represents the unearned
profits that flow into the pockets of
the railroads, the express. companies,
and the food trusts. The railroads
get theirs in the form of excessive
rates which go to pay dividends on
watered stock. The express COM
panies get theirs by reason of the
fact that one supine Republican adj
ministration after another has re-
fused to put them under decent
regulation, and the food trusts get
theirs by maintaining unnecessary
storage houses, through which they
create artificial shortages. and
boost prices.
Nearly all the perishable food sup
plies which go to the cities are car
ried by the express companies, or the
equally monopolistic refrigerator
lines of the food trusts. Thus the
consumer pays double haulage bill.
AS soon as these products reach the
cities they are turned over to the
food trusts and placed in cold stor-
age, where they are kept until a
shortage" is created. Then up go
prices.
g IF all the. eggs now held in cold
storage were placed on the market
tomorrow. said member of the
grangers, the price of eggs would
tumble two-thirds
What is the remedy?
Democratic members of Congress
believe that one remedy lies in the
Strengthening of the Interstate COM
merce law, to enable the government
to reach-and jail some of the own
ers of the criminal food trusts and
transportation monopolies.
1t is significant that the farmers,
for the first time in years, are get
ting together on the high price
question They know that while their
own products are bringing more
than formerly, there still is tre-
mendous gap between what they get
and what the consumer pays. They
propose to find out where the trouble
lies, and it is more than certain that
their Investigations Is soon as they
are started, will lead them directly
to the headquarters. of the unpunish-
ed trust magnates who control the
railroads., the food trusts, and the
express monopoly.
But in the meantime, thanks to the
Supreme Court, from which there is
no appeal, restraint of trade is not
restraint as long as it is reasonable"
NO WAY TO STOP THIS TRUST.
For years and years the sugar
trust is known to have stolen from.
the government. Bylaws of false
weights and tricky springs to cheat
the scales, and by bribery of govern
ment officials, this rapacious trust di-
verted into its own Golfers millions
of dollars that should have gone to
the government in revenue. The trust
was caught red-handed in it's thieve-
ry, yet no body was punished; no body
went to JAIL
The government finally put stop
to the revenue stealing. The doctored
springs were taken away, and the cor
rupt customs collectors were dis
adopt new methods in order to main
tain its inflated dividends, so recently
it sent out wall about short
CROP and now sugar prices are almost
as high as they were during the Civil
war The sugar trust is determined
/ to get sit's."
WHERE THE MONEY GOES
What becomes of all the money the
big trusts extort annually from the
American people? Everybody knows
they exact millions in tribute each
year and If stranger from Mars we're
to read the newspapers of this coun-
try, he would wonder how the trusts
could get strong boxes big enough to
store away all the money they take
from the people.
Recently an enterprising statistic
ian, figured it out that American heir
,eses the majority of whom are the
daughters of American trust magnates
permit their broken down titled
foreign husbands to enjoy the income
from one and three-quarter millions
of dollars.
This money, if spent by parents in
America, by whom it is earned, would
educate annroximafaly q million chill