The Wisconsin tobacco reporter. (Edgerton, Wis.) 1877-1950, 1912-01-05
BARES SECRETS OF
The MEAT PACKERS
Attorney for Some of Defend
ants on the Stand.
Grosscup's Injunction Caused the Con-
tempIated Combination to Col
Iapse-Terms of the Pro-
posed Agreement.

The jurors at Chicago in the trial
of the ten indicted Chicago packers
heard more of the inner secrets of the
old beef pool, when Albert H. Veeder,
attorney for some of the defendants,
resumed the witness stand. Mr.. Wee
der had told Of the proposed s750,0O0,-
600 beef trust planned in 1902, but
which failed because of Judge Gross
cups injunction.
AS climax 10 the remarkable story
drawn from him he produced, on de-
mand of Mr.. Butler, the contract en-
tered into by Gustavus F. Swift, J.
Ogden Armour and Edward Morris on
May 81, 1902, whereby they agreed tc
pool their enormous interests for
great combine
AS guaranty of good faith each de-
posted 81, 100000 in securities with the
Illinois Trust and Savings bank. This
financial scheme was abandoned New
o. 1902, he said, because the eastern
bankers (Kuhn, Loeb & Co. and the
late E. H. Hartmann refused them a
loan of $90,000,00O. They we're at the
point of signing the loan contract
when they decided the trust" i'm
practical because of the Grosscup in
junction against the packers.
By the terms of the contract the
packers not only planned to pool their
interests ON a pro rata basis, but
agreed to sign over all properties east
of the 105th meridian of longitude, or
Denver. Col.
The three packing groups were to re-
ceive half Of the tangible values of
half in preferred stock. A bonus of
$25,000000 preferred stock, to be split
on the pro rata basis, also was to be
issued, and each was to receive in ad-
dition common stock amounting to
twenty-five times their net receipts for
yearly period.
In supplemental contract produced
by Mr.. Veeder, it was agreed by Swift,
Armour and Morris that the pro rata
share should be on the following basis:
Armour interests 400 per cent
Swift interests ..........37.5 per cent
Morris interests ........ .22.5 per cert
Afterward, it is said, the appraisers
reported tangible assets as follows:
Swift ... $85, 600, 900 or 1870 D. C.
Armour ...... 100000 or 40.11 p. C.
Morris ....... 24,OO0,000 or 1919 p. C.
In the aggregate the total bond, pre-
ferred stock and common stock issue,
would have amounted to over $3.50, 000,-
00U. The half of a hundred or more
corporations named in the contract,
which were to have been pooled"
does not include the twenty or thirty
packing concerns which since that
time have been brought in by the
packers.
These concerns now go to make up
the National Packing company, the
S15,000,000 corporation of odds and
ends corporations, which the govern
ment alleges is the mother of the beef
trust" and which the packers admit
came to life through the failure of the
naturalization of the $750,O00, 900 COM
bine.
Merger of five large packing plants
by the J. Ogden Armour Edward Nc
ris and Gustavus Swift interests and
the failure of the Schwarzschild and
Sulzberger to be taken over into the
combine because of financial stress in
1903 were also revealed by Mr.. Wee
der.
He produced copies of these con-
tracts, and when asked for originals
said he did not know where they were
at present.