The Coconino sun., 1921-01-28

FL PASO.-The administration element of the American National
 Livestock association lost its first
 skirmish here when its opposition to resolution endorsing Henry c. Wall ace, of Des Moines, Iowa, for secretary of agriculture was overridden by a vote of the convention. The vote en- dorsing Wallace came after charges had been made on the convention floor that opposition to Wallace came from the big meat packers.
 Taken as a whole, today's session of the convention was bad one for the big packing companies. During the discussion of the Wallace resolu- tion several broadsides were fired in the direction of the big packers, while earlier w. w. Turney, of Fl Paso, president of the Cattle Raisers' asso citation, had arraigned the "big five" and amid cheers of the delegates had declared that the stockmen could not "join hands with the packers"
 SThey tell us," declared Turney, "that in the business of the packer there is absolutely the sharpest kind of competition-that they actually fight each other. The American Meat Packers association reports come to me, but 1 have never discovered in them any divergence of opinion. Now you men have divergence of opinion, you have differences, you have hot arguments, but have never heard of a disagreement between the big five ones, or the PA little ones.
 "They tell us not only there is the strongest kind of competition amongst them, but that the big fellow and the little fellow individually and collec- lively have no more to do with the sale price of the product than you have. In other words, that Swift, Morris, Wilson and Cudahy have not more to do with naming the sale price of their wholesale product than an outsider.
 Statement is Assailed.
 "Let's see how that statement works out. The packers have given us the information that this has been the most disastrous year almost in their history. It has been said that the great credit due the packers was that they absorbed your product when it came, fat or lean, when it came by thousands or by millions, that they always had the money and always paid you something for it whether they needed it or not. During this | past fall animals of every kind and price remained in the Kansas City l stockyards and in the Chicago stock | yards eating forty dollar hay that cost | fifteen dollars cut year before last un- til they grew so thin that they al- most blew away, and no packer, no speculator and no country buyer ap- peared to take them off your hands. | So that great pronouncement that | they never left one unbought has been exploded.
 "The packers tell us that it was a bad year, and yet, MT. Louis Swift | says that by figuring around a little, pulling here and pulling there, he was able for the year 1920 to declare a dividend of twelve million dollars net eight per cent on about $150,00O,- 900. Where did the $150,O0O, ,OO0 come from? Who made the $150, ,O00,- 900 upon which, during a panic, dur ing period of world distress they can declare $12,OOO, ,0O0 dividend and what will they be able to do if some body doesn't look after their busi- ness?
 "And while they were making this big dividend they gave you nothing for the hide; they allowed you noth- ing for the other byproducts worth because they said they were non-salable. If hides come back, or partially come back, they have them now stored by the millions. If fat comes back and the price doubles, you never hear of it, though you lost it when you sold your animal.
 "The same men are grouped with the great leather companies doing business in New England. These great leather companies, when hides are so low, down at my shipping station, off, fer me dollar for grown hide and fifty cents for a calf hide. Notwith- standing this depreciation of hides, leather manufactured into harnesses and everything that you use is just about where it was before"
 Urges Better Cattle.
 Concluding, Turney declared the