Newark leader. ([Newark, Ohio]) 1917-1946, 1917-12-22
PACKERS MAKE
IMMENSE PROFIT
By Jay Fox in Chicago Labor News

standards of living" asked Commits
sioner Garretson of j. Ogden Armour,
at the hearing of the commission on
industrial relotions.
"That depends greatly upon the in
dividual," answered Armour, "but
there are lots of them doing it. Yes,
sir, lots of them"
"But more of them have failed try
ing to-" persisted Garretson.
"I don't know anything about that"
was the answer.
Sure not. J. Ogden wouldn't care
to know, nor to admit if he did know,
that stock yard workers were living
on swill in order to swell his gigantic
stealings, politely called "dividends"
or earnings"
Last year, by dint of hard labor, ].
Ogden learned" $20,OO0,OOO; a fab
ulous sum for one man to absorb from
industry in the short period of twelve
months.
During the same period the Swifts
gathered unto themselves a like
amount.
Thus the intelligent American peo-
pie paid tribute of $4O,OO0,OOO to
two of it's captains of industry for
services that could be bought in open
market for $4,000.
l do not know that they did any
work for the $4O,OOO,OOO. l am mere
ly assuming that they did. l give
them credit for directing the affairs
of their companies; for which SER
vice they would be well paid at $4,000
each a year. And the balance of the
$40, 100000 might more wisely be di-
vided between the producers in high
wages, and the consumers in cheap
meat. But wisdom takes no part in
the common affairs of humanity. She
is monopolized by the men who count
their "wages" in millions.
| Mr.. Armour's "wages" amounts to
$385,0OO a week, or $64,166 day.
That is the "wages" paid by Mr.. Ar
mour to Mr.. Armour. But Mr.. Ar
mour is not so generous when he
comes to pay the toilers who do the
actual work. Two dollars day he
considers enough upon which to raise
a family according to the American
standard of living. "Lots of them
doing it."
It would take a worker nineteen
years to earn what Mr.. Armour draws
down in one day. For nineteen long,
weary years a toiler would have to
trudge each day back and forth to
the "yards," spending ten dull and
laborious hours in a sinking packing
house, to earn as much as Mr.. Armour
takes for spending couple of pleas
ant hours behind his mahogany desk.
Mr.. Armour's "income" is equal to
the combined wages of 32,083 stock
yard workers. There are 100000
workers employed at the stock yards,
and one man at the top draws down
more than two-thirds of them receive
in wages.
Are the services of Mr.. Armour
32,O83 times more valuable than the
average worker? Might not $4,000
man fill the job as we'll as Mr.. Ar
mour-who, by the way, didn't get the
position by competitive examination,
but by the mere accident of birth?
Mr.. Swift's $2O,OOO,OOO job has no
better foundation.
| It is we'll to remember these facts;
and if wisdom should ever enter the
mind of the common man he will the
better know how to follow her die
tates. AS the matter stands now the
Intelligent American people are pay
ling Armour and Swift $40,000,O00 a
year for the privilege of paying 40
cents a pound for their pork chops.
Of course we know that these two
gentlemen are notabe only pensioners
of the packing industry. There are
others. The combined "income" of
the big packers will mount up to
about $75,OO0,00O. And the intelligent
American people paid the vicious tax.
They pay ]. Ogden As cents pound
for the bacon his father used to sell
them for IL cents.
The intelligent American people are
being legally robbed on a scale be-
yond the widest dreams of the cap
italsts of our boyhood days. J. Ogden
learns" more money in one year than
his father accumulated in a lifetime
of shrewd manipulation of the pack
ing industry.
And labor has been robbed going and
coming; first as producers, then as
consumers. The average wage was
little below So day when pork chops
wer 10 cents pound.
Why has not the wages of labor