Perth Amboy evening news., 1918-07-06
CD
Your Shoe and Meat Bills

The Federal Trade Commission has completely and honestly torn
the cover off the whole mess Of proLGerman and antiAmerican prof
iteering in big business. The commissions report is a mass of figures
going clear to the bottom land up to the top in the matter of cost
reaped since brave men began giving their lives to make the world
safe for democracy. The report is the most startling accusation of
big business profteering ever made, and it is staunchly backed by
evidence. 4
It points to the enormous war profits wrung out of the meat in
dusry by the "big FIVE packers. 1t reveals the excess profits made
by coal barons 1t charges the large flour milers with exacting i'm
mense war profits at a time when the farmer producers were regu-
lated by governmental price fixing. 1t goes all through the list in a
most methodical and painstaking manner, telling who has been prof
iteering and how much. The commission exonerates some large bust
ness institutions of ~proAteering charges and does not hesitate to cx
press its opinion when it finds hands soled by unpatrotic profit
taking.
"These packers says the report, shave preyed upon the peo-
Pile unconscionably." And again
Some oft (profteering) is attributable to inordinate greed and
barefaced fraud"
This lack Of patriotism upon the part of some big business con-
Germs is measured in dollars and cents of profits. For instance, the
packers are a few hundred million dollars short of being real pa
trots. So too the commission places upon the wrong side in this time
of war the profteering coal barons, steel magnates, copper companies,
little children must live.
No honest person can read the commissions report, study those
figures of profits, and not come to the conclusion that these profteers
have helped the kaiser in this war against the nations fighting for
freedom, for all, forever. They have increased the cost of living both
here, in France, Great Britain and wherever American products go to
snd in fighting this war. By thus increasing the living cost to taHen
their own pocketbooks in such greedy fashion they have done their
best to weaken the morale of the people and the soldiers fighting for
us. They have done all they could to make the burden of war harder
if TIT AIutTlCd ptOp1 W DcdI.. 1HCy ave UcCu VI BICdbcI dShSC
ance to the enemies of democracy than the whole collection of pro-
German Germans and antiwar Socialists in these United States-and
they have done this not for principle but for dOnarsl
All this the Federal Trade Commission has barred. It isn't pleas
ant. No uncovering of such rottenness and disloyalty could be pleas
ant. But it had to be done. 1t would have gone on, growing worse,
until it might have threatened the very fabric of the nation and in
siLed defeat lover there
Fighting America owes a debt Of gratitude to the Federal Trade
Commission for this report. Every honest American who places pa
triohsm above profit cannot but applaud the commission which so
have been dug into the mire of profteering.
A significant fact about this report Is that it was unanimous. No
member found reason for a minority report.
Concerning the meat packers the report says:
Give meat packers, Armour, Swift, Morris, Wilson and Cudahy
and their subsidiary and affiliated companies have monopolstic con-
troll of the meat industry and are reaching for like domination in
other products. Their manipulaions of the market embrace every
device that is useful to them without regard to law . " I" How
ever delicate a definition is framed for 'profteering' these packers
lave preyed upon the people unconscionaby."
The report shows that the aggregate average pre-war profit
1912 1918 and 1910 of Armour, Swift, Morris and Cudahy was
~$l9oo00OO. The wa started in August, 1914. In 1915 these four
$360o0000 excess and in 1917 $~6S,000OOO excess over the pre-war
period.
1915 to 1917, and of this 1921 100000 represents excess war profits.
The commission says much of this excess profit is due to higher
prices rather than TO increased volume of business by weight.
In other words they took advantage of the war to soak the peO-
pie who eat their products.
Some folks may have wondered why they have had to pay such
-Tageous prices for shoes, when there has been more leather than
ever before.
leather market. And the Federal Trade Commission reports to the
United States Senate that net profits in 1915 we're much higher than
"a 1914 and that in 1916 net profits were IN several instances two
three, four II even five times as large as in l9l5.'
One striking instance is cited of a company whose net profits
rose from $~644,3909O in 1914 to $~3,576,54427.
On January II, 1917, a check for 1915, 7s7 was mailed to j.
OGDEN Armour as a dividend of SO per cent. o n his stock in the
Eastern Leather Co, the selling branch of the Armour leather bust
1t also develops that Swift & Co. control six leather and tannery
companies.
understand what happened to your meat and shoe bills, and who
made it happen.