Evening public ledger. [volume] (Philadelphia [Pa.]) 1914-1942, 1918-07-01
HALE THEM INTO COURT
The Beef Packers Must Defend Themselve
Before Jury Against the Damning
Charge Of Profiteering

| before Jury Against the banning
Charge of Profteering
NOW we know why beef has gone to
~ fifty and sixty cents pound, bacon
to forty-fve and fifty cents and lamb
and pork to prices twice what they were
two years ago.
The revelations of the Federal Trade
Commission, based on an investigation
at which the packers were allowed to
present their side of the case, are
astounding. The five great packing COM
panes have made profit during the last
three years of $121 100000 in excess of
their normal gains. The profit of Nor
ris & Co. is reported as 263.7 per cent
on its capital stock, whereas its normal
profits have been SO per cent. Armour
| e. Co. increased their capital stock from
| S20000,000 in 1916 to S100,000,O0O, with
the result that its percentage of profit
was reduced, but none of the five compa-
| MES has earned less thar 27 per cent and
| the profits have ranged for all of them
except Morris & Co. up to Al per cent.
On their face these statements of fact
Justify the conclusion of the commission
that these packers have preycd upon
the people unconscientiously."
The commission is not content with
charging exorbtant profits. 1t accuses
the five packing companies and their
subsidiaries with "manipulations of the
market that embrace every device that
is useful to them without regard to
law"
There is prima facie case against
them. Every householder knows that
the prices of meat have been and still
are cxorbitant. He has been told that
the demand of the armies and the high
cost of feed and labor have made it nee
essary to put up the price. And he has
believed it. But the evidence from the
books of the companies themselves that
an excess profit of more than $12O,OOO,-
900 has been made in three years, a
profit amounting in the case Of one COM
pany to more than $50 per cent, makes
it impossible longer to accept these eX-
plantations.
The evidence as it stands is proof of
unconseionable greed at a time when
every patriotic citizen was expected to
make sacrifices. There can be no justifi
cation for it in the minds of men not
warped out of proper balance by the
commercial spirit run mad
The nation will not be content until the
Attorney General has hailed the accused
men into court and has presented the
evidence gathered by the commission to
a jury Of householders and permitted
them to find verdict in accordance with
the facts.
If these men have violated the law in
this crisis they should be sent to Jail for
the remainder of their natural lives.
Whether the law is broad enough to
cover their case or not, they have been
guilty, on the evidence as it stands, Of
stabbing the nation in the back. They
have made it more difficult for us to live
at home and more difficult to feed our
armies in the field. They have robbed
the poor of the food needed to maintain
them and have reduced the value of every
dollar received in wages or salary by
the great midde-class population.
This is an offense the enormity of
which it is difficult to magnify.
Proof of guilt in court should be fol-
lowed by the seizure by the Government
for the duration of the war of the plant
of every packing company and its opera
ton in the interests of the public. The
stock raiser would then get a fair price
for his cattle and the consumers would
get meat, confident that it was heing sup
piled at the lowest price consistent with
fairness to the capital actually invested
The commission also charges the
millers, the oil refiners, the bituminous
coal operators, the United States Steel
Corporation and other industries with
making excessive profits, but the greed
of the men engaged in these enterprises
has been petty in comparison with that
of the meat packers. But if they are
guilty they also should feel the hand of
the law.
Profiteering is a moral crime today,
for it weakens the nation when it is
straining every nerve to win the most
stupendous war of all history. There are
laws under which the little men have
been punished. We shall know in time
whether there are any laws big enough
to reach the great offenders.
The profteerng packers will now find