The Coconino sun., 1919-01-17

United States and especially to th, residents of our industrial towns an, cities of an abundant supply O : wholesome food at the lowest price that will assure it's production is , matter of the greatest importance. | |. has an especial and immediate inter } est to which we earnestly ask your at , tention.
 An alert and informed public opin
 ion is essential to the right determi
 nation of the issues involved. The
 immediate issue is the relation of tn,
 five big Chicago packers to the con. : sumers of meat and animal products
 and to the producers of the live stock
 from which these meats and other
 products are obtained. Involved in
 this issue also is the marketing of
 many other important food products.
 It is an issue vital to the whole na-
 tion and to every interest concerned,
 and the rights and welfare of every
 interest should be thoroughly under
 stood, impartially protected and wise
 ly promoted.
 The interests of the big packers
 have now for many months been pre-
 sented through paid advertisements
 and special articles which together
 constitute an unparalleled publicity
 campaign conducted by experts in the
 art of influencing public opinion and
 costing enormous sums of money. Neither the consumer nor the producer
 can compete effectively with these
 methods, although they ultimately pay
 the bills. The consumers are wholly
 unorganized and the producers are
 practically unorganized. Both must
 depend upon the independence of the
 American press and upon its intelli-
 gent devotion to the public welfare.
 Upon the great body of farmers,
 stock raisers and feeders rests the
 task of producing beef, pork, and nut
 ton to feed the consuming populations
 of American towns and industrial and
 commercial centers. The months and
 years which these producers must
 spend in raising and fattening a meat
 animal for market is to be contrasted
 with the hours or days or weeks ne-
 cessary for slaughtering and dlstrlbu-
 tion, so does the total investment Tn the ranches, farm buildings, live stock
 feeding plants, in corn lands and Tn the production of feeds of every sort, surpass the investment represented lh the packing house and dlstrlputlVe agencies. While the raising and pre- pairing of meat animals for market re- auires the labor ot many millions oI families scattered throughout the length and breadth ot the country, the big packers are small and inter- related group frInged by relatively few minority stockholders employing some thousands of wage earners. Inc producers have been and to large degree still are unorganized, proud hitherto of their economic and polltl- cal independence, flatterlng Ihem- selves that they constituted one or the most stabilzing uncontrolled el- ements of free democracy. By con trast the power of the packers ana distributors of meat has been conceh- trating itself for decades consclousl!, steadily and silently into a few handS whose control is rapidly being extend ed and fortified by the domination ot the meat industry of a large part or tbe world. 1t is also being rapidly ex- tended to other important food prod- nets. The producers have long known that these processes were at Work: They have known that community ol interest and concert of acton among the large packers had confessediy ex, isted. They have believed that 1t had continued to exist and that 1t operat- ed to their disadvantage. They dii- fered among themselves in thelr De- liefs as to the degree and character ol of the monopoly and as to the rehe dies for it. They did not dlt1er m their conviction that the great anu sudden fluctuations that occurred Tn the prices paid for live stock at the great central markets were due to ma and not to the normal op- eration of economic laws. They knew that these violent fluctuation usually | meant huge profits to the buyers and serious loss or even irretrievable dls- aster to the seller, whose live stock once shipped to such a market must be quickly sold to avoid the mounting cost of care and keep. But it was not until the price of every other essential (and many a non-essential commodi- ty) except live stock had mounted Tn reSDOnSe to the ekLTdOTulldi uc- mands of war that there swept over the farms and ranches of the country a great wave of realization as to the full effect of the autocratic power en- trenched at the central markets and of determination to submit to it no longer. The present situation is the result. After strenuous opposition from the packers the federal investi- pation was ordered, the facts disclos- ed and sthe remedies are now under 
 Statements published by the pack ars in advertisements and special ar ,icles as to the fraction of the meat in America which is hand ed by them, and the implied or ex- conclusion that therefore a control cannot be exercised, ire derived from figures which in- dude not only local butchering but all 50 meats eaten on the same ranch or within the same farming community which produced them. Such state nents are misleading. The fact that i've large Chicago packers completely dominate all supplies of meats moving rom the producing districts through : he preat markets to the ever-increas-