The daily worker. [volume] (Chicago, Ill.) 1924-1958, 1926-06-03
PACKING-HOUSE
LORDS SEEK TO
DODGE BANKERS
Banks Have Packers at
Their Mercy
BY CARL HAESSLER,
Federated Press

Federated Press
Crawling humbIy before the Chi
eago bankers, shivering almost at
their own shadow, is the present fate
Of the once proud packer aristocrats
Of the stockyards.
Four men, two of them lawyers, one
metropolitan capitalist editorial
writer, the fourth labor reporter,
were exchanging notes on the once
Big Five of Packingtown: Armour &
Co, Nelson Morris & Co., Swift & Co.,
Wilson & Co., and Cudahy.
Armour Dodglne Creditors.
II wouldn't be in the shoes of any
of them" said the older lawyer to
his partner, both members Of a firm
that handles big corporation cases in
the Illinois and federal courts. Poor
old ]. Ogden Armour. Everybody used
TO be afraid of him and hate him for
his surly, snarly way OF putting thru
his win. Now he's glad to be alive
and prays that the Continental and
Commercial Bank will look the other
way when he has to pass their door.
I'm almost sorry for the fallen ty-
rant"
The Morrises.
His partner chuchled about the Nor
ris family which recently sold their
plant to the Armours, leaving their old
employees, who had relied on a COM
pany pension scheme, in the lurch. "Its
an awful comedown," he said, when
the Morrises have to count their nick
els. They sure were cleaned good
and proper, kicked out of bank direc-
torates, closed out of homes and forced
out of business. A dime has become a
very close friend to them"
Wilson & Co. was the theme Of the
editorial writer. The firm, which used
strong methods to gain control of
Schwarzchild & Sulzberger, an old
German packing establishment in Chi
cago during the war, had stumbled
along in receivership after the defla-
tion until finally the owners consented
to drastic writing off of watered
capital and recognized on what the fl
nancial writers termed "a capital
structure more in proportion to the
assets" The Cudahys had also pulled
in their horns.
Swlft's Embalmed Beef.
The labor reporter told his story of
Swift & Co., one of whose subsidiaries
had during the world war resurrected
some of the famous embalmed beef
of the Spanish war of 1898, and resold
it TO the army according to govern
ment chemist who spotted the stuff in
the army testing laboratory at Savan-
nah. He told further how labor pa
pers had printed the story, including
half dozen in New York and Chi
cago, without a peep from Swift,
whose chief, Harold Swift, was named
in the article as informed of the facts.
And then when an isolated woman edi-
tor of country weekly in Nebraska
had run the story, how Swift jumped
on her and tried to get her to retract.
The Federated Press, which had car
ried the original embalmed beef story,
thereupon repeated it, sent a marked
copy to Swift and challenged the com
pany to deny it. But not word from
the once naughty packer, the labor re-
porter added.
A Sorry Lot.
Eyes, they are a sorry lot" one of
the lawyers concluded. Nothing eff.
Gent about them either, in spite of the
money they used to make. During the
federal investigation right after the
war their carelessness got their law
yers into all sorts of trouble. Imagine
having them swear on the stand that
they had never discussed price fixing
with their supposed competitors and
then having government counsel trot
out the actual correspondence that
had been left lying around in the files.
No wonder the watchful bankers were
able to bleed them white and grind
their bones for fertilizer"