The Idaho Republican. [volume] (Blackfoot, Idaho) 1904-1932, 1920-09-10
THE IDAHO REPUBLICAN

pie east OF west. lney profess u
be anxious to protect the people OF
the intermountain country but at the
same time they were holding them
up for the freight both ways and CIV
ing them the hard end of it as COM
pared with the customers outside OF
the intermountain country.
In conducting any trial, of course,
the plaintiff puts on its evidence first
and the defendants come afterwards.
The sugar company is the defendant
in the case l have referred to and 1t
has not beet heard yet. When we
hear their evidence of course that
will be likely to modify our very en-
phatic opinion about matters as they
stand today.
Affecting Price of Beets
1t has been said that the price of
sugar would stay up while the farm
ers and common people were buying,
and that it would be down by the
time the sugar beets were selling and
the payment was being made for
beets. That was perfectly safe pre-
diction because things always run
that way with all kinds of products.
The price of sugar has been declin-
ing for many weeks and it is a per-
fectly natural thing to be expected.
Just how much of this is due to arti-
fetal manipulation to take advantage
Of the people we shall probably never
know, but people who are blaming
the Utah-Idaho Sugar company for
running the price down are unfair to
them. The Utah-Idaho Sugar COM
pany produces only one and half
per cent of all the sugar consumed
in the United States. For every
hundred pounds consumed in the
United States the Utah-Idaho Sugar
company furnishes pound and
half. People who own and control
so little of COMMODITY are unable
to fix the prce and it Is absurd to
charge that the UtahIdaho Sugar
company is running the price of
sugar down, but it is just here that
the Utah-Idaho Sugar company in
jures itself. If they can raise all the
sugar possible and yet only produce
very small percentage Of the total
consumption of the United States,
there was no excuse whatever for
them to try to crush out the indie
pendent factories operating or seek
ing to operate in Idaho, as they did
at Payette, Nampa, Rigby and sew
eral other places. Since there was
abundant market for the sugar and
since a sugar factory was good |
thing for any community there was |
no excuse for them to be trying to |
push out those who sought to go into
communities where there was no
sugar factory and establish one.
Why Sugar Price Fluctuates
1t is my belief that the reason for
the greatest advance in the price of
sugar last year was that President
Wilson did not permit us to buy the
Cuban crop and it went to the specu-
lators of foreign countries, as we'll
as our own. When the price of sugar
went skyward it produced frenzied
condition of the markets. People
who were able to buy a sack of sugar
TO lay away, did so. Spectators
who thought there was a chance to
make a lot of money on sugar went
% buying it and storing it. That in
;ensified the demand for sugar,
created demand that was based on
frenzy rather than on the need for
actual consumption. Then came the
'everse condition. The well-to-do
people who had bought sack of
sugar apiece which they did not need
we're not coming back to the markets
or dollars worth of sugar as they
lid in normal times. Spectators
Who were storing sugar began to
wonder whether they were doing the