New-York tribune., 1919-07-12
international Domination
of Supply Is Intended.
Federal Trade Board
II epOrts to President
Preventive Laws Urged
Big Five'' Said TO Sway
762 Firms and Produce
About us Commodities


Part of its report to the President
on its investigation of the meat in
dustry, bearing on Extent and
Growth of Power of the Five Packers
in Meat and Other Industries"
"An approaching packer domination
of all important foods in this country
and an international control of meat
products with foreign companies seem
certainties unless fundamental action
is taken to prevent them" the report
says.
"A fair consideration of the course
the five packers have followed and
the position they have already reached
must lead to the conclusion that thew
threaten the freedom Of the market
of the country's food industries and
Of the by-product industries linked
Herewith.
The meat packe. control of other
foods will not require long in devel
opirg."
Adequate Laws Demanded
Declaring "the history of the pack
ers' growth is interviewer with ILLEGAL
combinations, rebates and with undis-
closed control of corporations" the
report also urged the Importance of
full publicity of corporate ownership
for all industries.
Pointing out that the Big Five"
jointly or separately WELD con-
trolling interest in 574 companies
minority interest in 95 others and un-
determined interest in SO, total of
I62 companies, and that they produce
or deal IN some T75 commodities, large
y food products, the report gives this
picture of growing packer invasion
or related and unrelated industries:
In addition to meat foods they pro-
duce or deal in such divers commodi-
ties as fresh tomatoes and banjo
strings, leather and cottonseed oil,
breakfast foods, vim fzz, curled hail, ,
pepsin and washing powders.
Seeking New Fields
They have interests large enough to
be a dominating influence in most of
the services connected with the produc-
tion and distribution of animal foods
and their by-products and are reaching
out Tor control not only OF substitutes
for animal food, but of substitutes for
other lines into which the integration
of their business has led them
They are interested in banks from
which their competitor packing houses
borrow money; IN mpanies supplying
machinery, ice, salt, materials, boxes,
etc, to themselves and their eompeti-
tors; they are principal dealers on the
prices Of ssndard nenadses cured afpa frode prod
ucts are determined; they >or their
subsidiary companies deal in hides,
cleo, fertilizer material and other
crude animal by products; purchase
from other packers these crude by
products, and themselves carry the
manufacture thereof to a further stage
than most of their competitors.
They are important factors in the
leather industry, in oleomargarine and
lard substitutes, in cottonseed oil, in
fertilizer, in soap. in glue, etc. Their
vast distributing system, with the ad-
vantages arising from the control OF
private cars, cold storage and a net
work of branch houses, has enabled
them to extend their activities on a
large scale into poultry, eggs, cheese,
butter, rice, breakfast foods, canned
vegetables, soda fountain supplies and
other lines.
The Armour Interests
individuals of the Armour family
are owners OF grain and elevator COM
panies and J. Ogden Armour and the
president Of one of the Armour sub
salaries are important stockholders
in a company producing from mineral
deposits in Utah a substitute for pot
ash as an element of commercial fer
tiliZers.
81. Ogden Armour is also a promi-
nent factor in the American Interna-
tional Corporation, with its shipping
and shipbuilding interests, its import
and export companies in various lines,
its interest in a company organized to
develop cattle raising, meat packing,
quebracho extract and allied bust
nesses IN Paraguay; its control of q
large tea importing company and d
sugar machinery corporation, and its
minority stock in the United Fruit
Company. Some of Swift & Co.'S sub
salaries are growing tropical fruits
in Hawaii a subsidiary of Wilson Il
Co., Inc, has reached into the salmon
fisheries of Alaska, and a Morris con-
Germ cans shrimp taken in the waters
of the Gulf of Mexico. Cattle brought
from Central America are slaughtered
by or for some of the big packers at
Mobile and Jacksonville. In England.
France, Italy, Holland and other
European countries large meat dis
tributing companies have been organ
lied by the packers to sell the meats
from their plants in the United States,
Argentina, Uruguay, Paraguay, Brazil
and Australia"
The Big Five" the report shows,
have control of or interest in publ:
utility corporations in Sioux City,
Kansas City. South st. Paul. Portland,
Ore; South San Francisco, South St.
Joseph, Mo-; Hill City, Mimi; Fort
Worth, Tex, and Chicago.
The reason why the packers are
seeking control of the substitutes for
meat-the foods that compete with
meats-are obvious" says the report.
If the prices of substitutes for meats
are once brought under packer contro!
the consumer will have little to gain
in turning to them for relief from ex-
cessIve meat prices"
Judged conservatively to trade
estimates the Big Five handle at least
half of the poultry, eggs and cheese in
the main channels of interstate COM
merce,' the report states. Most est
mates place the total production in
dressed poultry and eggs controlled by
the packers a higher percentage.
The Big Five" the report shows,
sold in 1916 through their branch
houses alone nearly 10000 600 pounds
of poultry 90 600 600 DOunds of b,1t+er