The Washington times., 1911-06-18
WHAT THE SUGAR HAS
REALLY COST COUNTRY.

The Sugar trust investigation is
bringing out some striking information
in answer to the oft asked question of
what such a combine of greed really
costs the country. The investigators
find its capital S0OyOOO,OOO, on which it
pays per cent; total, S6,3O0,OOO
year. 1t appears that about two-thirds
of the capital is water, so two-thirds
of the dividends. or S4,2O0,O0O, repre-
sent extortion from consumers.
That's quite a premium for the pub
lie to pay. But, in fact, it is only
drop in the bucket. The dividends paid
do not represent the cost of maintain
ing this machinery OF eXtortion. We
must 90 farther into the matter.
Before it paid dividends, the trust
was compelled to earn other millions
to be piped into the capacions pocket
OF HavemeNer, in his private capacity.
Havemever was czar of the trust; but |
he was not big, stockholder. He sold |
his trust stock, owning when he died
only nominal number of shares. He
knew better way to make money out
of the trust than to draw a paltry Z
per cent on shares.
Being absolute master, Havemeyer
made his great money by buying things
at reasonable prices and selling them
| to the trust at obnoxious figures. The
National Sugar Refining Company was
formed for the purpose of selling to
| the trust. Havemeyer came into con-
troll of it and capitalized it at S2O,OOO,-
| boo Most of that was water. He sold
| s. 900 900 of the Sl0,000,000 of pre-
ferred stock to the trust for nearly
! S. 900 900 of the trusts cash. That got
this money out of the trust treasury
into the Havemeyer pocket. The trust
got no adequate value for its invest
ment. The only way it could stand the
strain of such constant drafts was, OBJ
viously. by making, out of its business,
in addition to its dividends, the other
millions that Havemeyer took away
| from it by such deals.
Havemeyer bought up other re-
fineries, in his private capacity, and
sold them to the trust of which he was
president; always at a fine profit to
Havemeyer; always at a price which
meant more extortion from sugar users
in order that the trust might pay this
loot and yet keep up its dividends. He
bought beet sugar stocks and turned
them over to the trust at good profits
to himself. Everything he did for the
trust seems to have been done with the
view to lining his own purse at the eN-
pense of the trust. When he died he
was a tremendously rich man-but not
a large owner of sugar shares. He
made his wealth, not out of dividends,
but out of looting the sugar business.
To Havemeyer the trust was huge
mill into whose hopper raw sugar was
poured. 1t was ground into profits. One
pipe drew off S6,3OO.00O of dividends;
another drew off millions to the Have
meyer Golfers, IN profit on refineries
sold to the trust: another drew off 9th
er millions in profits to Havemeyer's
terminal at Brooklyn, Yet other
streams poured profits into the Have
meyer strong box. in consideration of
Havemeyer's purchases of cooperage,
timber lands, and endless other things
for the trust.
Thus. following the trusts history
for the thirty years he dominated it,
! we find that the dividends it paid, ex-
orbitant as they were when compared
: to actual investment, were only an in
, cident; the loot was the thing. Have
/ meyer, Searles, and other insiders got
away with that. Dividends were too
tame for them; too slow and modest
The Sugar trust probably was the
; worst example of this sort of blood
i sucking of profits; but there have been
plenty of other examples in the his.
( tory of uncontrolled combinations
What such combination really taxes
the country is represented by the wa.
ter in shares, plus the loot extracted
from it. In the case of the Sugar trust
: it is total to stagger the imagina