The Co-operative news. [volume] (Everett, Wash.) 1917-1918, 1918-01-10
EXPOSE OF SUGAR TRUSTS
POWER BARES METHODS OF
THE FOOD ADMINISTRATION

in American best sugar corporations
will profit heavily through it's share
of the higher price loot realized by
the beet sugar capitalists, estimated
by Mr. Spreckels at about $62,000,-
600 on the current crop; that the
price agreed upon by the sugar COM
mittee for the 1917-1S crop of Cuban
sugar is n higher price than has
prevailed for years; that it is much
above the price received for the 1916
II crop, which brought fabulous prof
its to the plantation owners; and,
finally, that the food administration
through the food adMinistrs TONS SUI
gar committee controlled by the Of
ficials of the Sugar Trust is at.
tempting to saddle high prices on the
people of America for years to come.
In order to coerce sugar refiners
who refuse to accept the profiteer-
ing DEGREES of the food administra-
ton adjunct to the Sugar Trust, Mr..
Spreckels charged that the sugar
trust adjunct to the food adminis-
tration Is making use Of the power
to revoke the licenses Of the re-
calcitrant refiners. ard that under
this coercion he had been compelled
by his sugar trust competitors to
close down his sugar refineries.
The price which the sugar refiners
committee Of the food adminissa-
ton agreed to pay themselves and
their colleagues in Cuba for the
|1917.18 sugar crop was five cents a
pound, which will mean, he said,
from eight to nine cents for the
consumer.
The working people are little in
terested in the fights between
Spreckel's Federal Sugar Refining
Company and Pabst's American SUI
gar Refining Company. Each Of
these concerns may be set down as
ruthless exploiters Of the working
people compelled to sell their men,
tai and manual labor power TO the
Spreckels-Pabst combinations in or.
der to live
The consumers likewise should take
AS little interest in those fights as do
40 ~~ashiee spsstSA aoastitnta
the great body Of consumers.
-. a.
But the exploited workers and the
consumers should take vital inter
est in the policy of the United States
Food Administration. 1t was estab-
lished, according to assertions made
time and time again on the floors Of
both Houses Of Congress when the
food control bill was under consid-
GRAFTON to reduce the cost of living
to the working people in order to
stave off industrial revolts. Hoov-
erized, the Food Administration is
being used as weapon by the own
ers Of food commodities to fasten
upon the backs Of the workers
through the legal DEGREES of their
privately owned food administration
the price schedules agreed to among
themselves in the profiteering Or
CARNATIONS known as manufacturers
and dealers.
State and Cities Have Power
Each State in the United States,
regardless of the food control law,
has the undoubted authority to estab-
lish it's own sugar committees just as
it has already established public
service commissions to fix the price
charged for those necessities.
Each municipality. likewise, has
the power to organize it's own food
control committee made up exclusive.
ly of consumers for the protection of
consumers.
Let the Socialists and workers get
busy locally for their own protection
against the business mans club
known as the United States Food
Administration.
CDkIN OH KENT DIV