The Topeka state journal. [volume] (Topeka, Kansas) 1892-1980, 1917-08-17
Flour and Other Commodities
Take a Sudden Drop Here.
CriscO Down $2.45 a Case i'm q
Few Days.
EVEN SOAP is CHEAPER
Local JObbers Said To Have
"Perishable" Combine.
Kick by Retailers Cuts Water
melon Price in Half.

High prices in the Topeka whole
sale and retail food markets are
breaking. From far away Washington
the hand of Herbert Hoover, formally
approved this week by President Will
SON as food director. is reaching out
into Kansas and placing breadstuffs
on the tables of consumers at prices
lower than last week.
Flour and criscoes, both grain or
seed products. are the first commodi-
ties to show a decrease in price. Since
Hoover and his grain corporation
were confirmed this week, the price
of flour in Topeka has slumped 81
hundred pounds. today's quotations
show Flour that cost 1870 for AS
pound sack last week can be pur-
chased today for $500 a sack. On the
jobbing market, 4S-pound sacks have
fallen from $3.50 to So
Big Crisco slump.
The break in criscoes has been
nothing short of spectacular Since
Monday the jobbing price has crashed
from $40 a case to $7.55 a case,
drop of s2.45. Crisco is cotton seed
oil product.
Grain products are not the only
things affected. Livestock products,
altho there has been no reduction in
meats, and Chicago reports it will go
higher, seem to be weakening. Soaps
have slumped from so to rs cents
case on the wholesale market. Re-
tailers may now buy soap that last
week cost S475 for 81 and $4.25.
With the break in staple prod acts
beginning, and assurance that there
will be a fairly good supply of fruits
and fall produce, the outlook for the
consumer in Topeka today was bright
err than for months. Prices for such
products promise to be reasonable,
providing wholesalers and retailers dc
not make them exorbitant on their
own initiative.
Jobbers i'm Combine?
Confidential information that al
1 leges an informal combine" among
a number of Topeka commission
| men and jobbers has come to the
| State Journal from several sources re-
| Gently, however. This information is
| to the effect that the commission men
are not competing, and taking steps
not to do so, as to various comm cd
| tiles which are shipped in. Each
day, it is said. these commission men
manage to eat lunch or dinner togeth-
er. and informally talk over the
trade"
There is one condition that is no.
| ticeable on the Topeka commission
market this summer more than in pre-
vious years. That condition is that
when one commission man has a car
of peaches. watermelons or other per-
ishable commodities, the others are
SentTdlly just OUT. ne one mar
| controls the market without competi-
| ton.
Grocers declare they have no desire
to get 'in bad" with the jobbers. Sew
| eral made a kick Saturday, il is
| known, on the price of watermelons,
however, and from Saturday night to
/ Monday morning the price of that
commodity dropped from cents to
l cent a pound.
| Prices Go Higher.
! Chicago, Aug. 17.-Civil war prices
/ for meats were outdone today
| Consumers were paying the highest
prices in history for beefsteak, beef
| roasts, pork loin, ham, bacon and
lamb. according to leading Chicago
| retailers
Relief from the steadily advancing
prices can only come with a reduction
in grain prices, now in the hands of
Herbert c. Hoover, they said.
| Wholesalers can see only one rea-
son aside from supply and demand''
! for these increases. They said the
! western grazing lands have had an
| abundance of rain and afford the best
pasturing in years. Cattle raisers are
| therefore presumed to be holding back
the supply. fattening them for still
| bigger prices.