The Bridgeport times and evening farmer., 1919-08-11
FIVE CONCERNS HAVE CONTROL SAYS KENDR|CK Power Of Leaders Tn Beef Packing Industry May
 Be Shorn CONGRESS HAS
 REMEDY BILL Does Not Want Feeding of Nation Placed In Hands
 of Few

of multiplying profits to the packer.
 Only the producer who was for
 tunately situated that his losses were low has been able to withstand the pressure of conditions. Hundreds, if not thousands, less fortunately situ- ated have gone to the wall.
 No man needs to be told that during this period the price of meat for the table has been increasing year by year. It is true, of course, that the
 cost of living has been advanced in every direction, but the reports of the Department of Labor shows that the price of meat has advanced out of all
 proportions to the prices of other foodstuffs.
 While, except for certain per1oes or
 prosperity, the producer. on the one haEd has been waging a hard fight for success and the consumer, on the other, has found 1t increasingly diff cult to supply his family with meat, the Iniddleman, the packer, has been growing enormously rich Poor's Man ual for 1918 shows that Armour-s profits increased from Se,02S,196 in 1913 to s21,293,564 in 1917; that Swift's profits for the same years in creased from $9,25O,00 to S34,65o,- 900
 In 1914, according to the United States Census Bureau, the meat pack ing industry was the largest industry in the country The value of its pro duets in that year totalled more than one billion six hundred million dollars, as against a total of little over nine million for the iron and steel indus try, the next in size. J. Ogden Ar rnour told the House Committee on Interstate Commerce a few months ago that in 1918 his company alone, did a. business of sS61, 100000, and Swift's sales, one of the packer attor- neys from Chicago told the Senate Committee on Agriculture. totalled
 more than S1,00o, 100000.
 How has the business grown up and how does it come that few "bis packers'' hold the dominating posi- ton in this industry that they have to- day?
 The answer is to be found in the numerous investigations and prosecu- tions which have taken place in the last twenty years and in the adm1s~ sions of the packers representatives before the Congressional Committees this year. It may be summed up m s4 single phase: Pools and combinations in restraint of trade" Explaining the documents which were found in his vault by the Federal Trade Commis- sion year ago. Henry Veeder, attor- ney for the Swift interests, told the Senate Committee very frankly bouI these old combinations, so that there is no dispute about the facts.
 At least until the year 1902, the packers were in com bination among themselves to monopolize the market It was during this period of growth that they were enabled to gain the ad- vantages and the size that now give them the mastery of the food business of the country. They control tho stockyards and they control the refri- gerator cars. By their ola poo:s they crushed competition and by their pre- sent ownership of the marketing and distributing agencies of the country, they maintain supremacy.
 It is only of incidental importance. whether they have absolute ly abandoned all their old practices. as they claim. and are actively com peting among themselves or whether, as charged by the Federal Trade Com mission, they still manipulate the livestock markets and defraud both the producers and consumers"
 They do control the industry today because of the advantages which they gained in the past.
 As have repeatedly stated, I have no desire to punish anybody for the sins of the past. My interest all lies in the future, and that is why in the bill which I introduced at the last ses- sion of Congress- and which is now before that body again in slightly diff ferent form 1t is proposed that the big be deprived of tho ownership of the stockyards and that refrfgera- tor cars be made common carriers to be supplied on equal terms to any shipper who makes reasonable de- mands for them I am convinced that if the packer is stripped of the ad- yantages which he now holds, conn petition will be restored in the food business of the country and in the fu- ture no mans table need go without meat.
 The substantiate this view let me re- fer to the tetstimony of J. Ogden Ar mour at the Congressional hearings. to several different in- quiries propounded by Representative Slime. then chairman of the House Committee on Interstate Commerce. MT. Armour asserted that there are 9 great many Independent packers in the field and they all make more mon- ey than we do," that '.the little packer doesn't have the expense of the big packers" that while the little packer makes a greater percentage of profit than the big packer his profits are not so large in the aggregate as the big packer will make" Finally, in ex- blaming why, in his Judgment, theSa being the facts, it is not in the interest of the government to stop the growth of the big packers and encourage the little ones who do business at 50 much less expense. Mir. Armour declared'
 That won't work out. The smaller packers have a local sphere or a linn- tied territory only and when they go, beyond this. their range of expense in- ;reases beyond the pro rata unit that exists within their limited territory, And upon national basis the small packers expenses would increase ana would be at least as big. if not big ger than ours-probably bigger-be- ;ause of our great widespread volume if business. our very efficient system of distribution and the consequent economies in our costs of doing bus ness"
 In a prepared statement which ho
 ibmittsd to the conaEnitteeA MrS .Ar-