BEEF-TRUST PROSECUTION.

Dominion, Volume 4, Issue 1084, 24 March 1911, Page 5

BEEF-TRUST PROSECUTION.

NO FAVOURS. By Telecrapli—Press Association—Gopyricht - I Chicago^,}tfarch.,2?..._. If the indicted meat packers lose the tight they must stand their trial like ordinary people,. IMPRISONMENT IF CONVICTED. The Reading officers of the great beef companies in Chicago were indicted there on September 12 last by a Federal grand jury for violation of the Sherman AntiTrust law;. ,It is noticeable that in this case there was .no indictment of a corporation or firm. The responsible officers themselves must meet the charges. If convicted, they may bo imprisoned for one year. The list is as follows:— J. Ogden Armour, president of Armour and Co.; Arthur Meeker, general manager of the same company; Thomas J. Conners, superintendent of tho same; L. F. Swift, president of Swift and Co.; Edward Swift, vice-president; Charles H. Swift and Francis A. Fowler, directors of Swift and Co.; Edward Motris,' president of Morris and Co.; Louis H. He.vman, manager of that company; Edwarcl Tilden, president of tho National Packing Company, which is controlled and owned by tho Armour, Swift and Morris interests. Each of the ten men is indicted threo times. It is charged, first, that they aro engaged in a combination in restraint of interstate trade in fresh, meats; second, that they have conspired unlawfully; third, that they have monopolised the trade in fresh meats by unlawful means, and have eliminated competition both in the buying of cattle, sheen and hogs, and in the selling of meat,. The inquiry was made under tho direction of Judge Landis, who imtiosed the fine of 29,000,000 dollars in the Standard Oil case, and tho desired that persons, instead of corporations, should be brought to trial, if tho evidence was sufficient.