Rocky Ford enterprise., 1914-11-13
WILL R. MONKMAN. Publisher
FRIDAY. NOV. 13, 1914
Subscription Rates,
TURN THE OTHER WAY
Finger of Scorn Should No Longer
Point to Beet Sugar Producers

I
week comes the following special
correspondence to the Enterprise
which makes interesting reading at
this time:
Prosecuting attorneys have a very
bad habit of making announcements
ahead OF their Investigations, and this
applies to them all, from the county
attorney to the Department of JUS
tice of the United States. If the at
torney generals of the past dozen
years had all the people in Jail they
have threatened to put there, then
the jails would need to be a great
deal larger than they are now, and
there would be surplus of office
rooms in many OF our principal cit
| les.
Every time any extraordinary con-
dition of business effects some phase
of trade the Washington headlines
startlc the country with the news
that some one is going to jail" AZ
ter that the investigation is started,
and i'll the long run the matter us
udlly ulCS out.
Immediately upon the breaking out
of the European war it was announc-
ed that the United States government
would send 4 lot OF people 10 Jail foI
boosting food prices. After this SEN
sation had been worked to the limit,
to satisfy the public clamor against
increased prices, Investigations were
undertaken by the department of JUS
tice, and aside from a few remote
cases OF price-fiNing in local com
munities, the most notable being
among few merchants in the capt
tai itself, no ground has been found
upon which to base prosecutions, and
though three months have elapsed,
no one has been scud, arrested, or
restrained in any way.
Now there either has been price
| fixing and boosting, or there has
not. In any event the finger OF
scorn" has been kept pointed in the
direction OF the beet sugar pro-
ducers. 1t may be all right to in
woke the threat OF the law against
lawbrcakers. but ii is equally an in
justice to brand people as such. and
threaten to Jail them when the in
designations all disclose that the
charge was unwarranted in the be
|
cuser apologies; in public affairs the
people are expected to remember on
| ly the sensational threat and forget
the fiasco that follows.
As though the beet sugar people
had not suffered enough. they were
accused of initiating sugar prices in
| August when they had no sugar to
speak of on the market. The Calf
ornia beet crop came into the market
about September | and almost i'm
mediately the prices OF sugar began
to drop. The hour of the refincrS'
monopoly was over, and sugar prices
began falling off by the quarter and
half cent pound. But the invcsti-
cations al Washington which en-
phasi2ed the sugar situation above all
other food, products disclosed at al
most the outset that with the Euro
pean supply shut off Great Britain
rushed its orders to Cuba, to New
York. and everywhere that sugar
could be found, until she had "bulled
the market
Naturally there arose question as
to the supply for the United States.
and under such pressure there was a
natural rise in prices. The big sea
board rehncrs who handle imported
sugar and who had large supplies on
hand bought at low prices from for
eign growers were the only ones in
position TO make large profits out
of the situation Prices remained
high until the beet sugar raised in
the United States brought the market
back to normal And still the Wash
ington' government overlooked the
Operations of the retincrs and inti-
mated that the domestic producers
were to blame. There is more than
a suspicion among observers here
that politics had something 10 do
with this course of action