THE BEEF TRUST.

King Country Chronicle, Volume VIII, Issue 670, 20 May 1914, Page 6

THE BEEF TRUST.

A SCATHING INDICTMENT.

A scathing indictment by Charles Edward Russell, a noted American authority:—"Threß times a day this power comes to the table of every household in America, rich or poor, great or small, known or unknown; it come 3 there and exacts its tribute. It crosses the ocean and makes its presence felt in multitudes of homes that would not know how to give it a name. It controls prices and regulates traffic in a thousand markets. It changes conditions and builds up and pulls down industries; it makes men poor or rich as it will, it controls or establishes or obliterates vast enterprises across the civilised circuit. Its lightest word affects men on the plains of Argentina or the by-streets of London. It fixes at its own will the price of every pound of flesh, salted, or smoked, or preserved meat prepared and st)ld in the United States. It fixes the price o£ every ham, every pound of bacon, every pound of lard, every can of prepared soup. It has an absolute monopoly of our enormous meat exports, dressed and preserved. It fixes for its own profit the prices the farmer of tha west shall receive for his cattle and hogs, and the prices the butcher of rhe east shall charge for his meat. It has in the last three years increased for its own benefit the expenses of every household in America. It controls or influences the prices of one-half of* the food consummed by the nation. It has its share in the proceeds of more commodities of daily consumption than ail other trusts, combinations and monopolies together, and the prices of these it seeks to augment for its own self. Its operations have impoverished or ruined farmers and stockmen, destroyed millions of investnaens, caused banks to break, and men to commit suicide, precipitated strikes, and annihilated industries.