ARMOUR AND COMPANY.

Taihape Daily Times, Volume XII, Issue 3644, 3 December 1920, Page 4

ARMOUR AND COMPANY.

CHARGED WITH PROFITEERING

The following references to the charges against Armour and Co.. of the American Meat Trust, for profit- ' eering in New Zealand lamb, are contained in recent files of the "San Francisco Chroiiiele 7 ': ( ' 'NEW YORK, October 21.—The Federal Grand Jury, to-day, as the result of a secret* investigation conducted by an assistane of the Attorney-Gen-eral's Office, returned an indictment against Armour and Co., Chicago, packers, and against the officers of the company individually, charging them with profiteering in violation of the Lever Act. The company officers indicted include: J. Ogden Armour, president; S. E. White, vice-president; Herbert A. Phillips, manager of, the dressed sheep department in Chicago; Arthur H. Van Pelt, district superiutenf.cat in New York; "The indictment contains 137 counts, each of which describes a sale of New Zealand lamb at an alleged unlawful and unreasonable rate during April, May, June. The meat, it ia charged, cost Armour and Co. 18.46 dollars per 100 pounds; that the lowest it was sold for was 23 dollars and the highest 35 dollars. All the sales were made to customers in Manhattan and Bronx.''

"CHICAGO, Octolber 21.—Declaring that 'with our lamb business as a whole showing a loss, it seems a rather bitter joke to indict us for making too much money,' officials of Armour and Co. to-day issued a statement commenting on the Federal indictments returned in New York charging them with profiteering. The statement said: 'The reasonableness of profits cannot be judged by consideration of a few transactions. We made some money through the sale of New Zealand lambs, but we did not make enough on them to affect losses we sustained in the sale of domestic lambs, and with our lamb business as a whole showing a loss, it seems a rather bitter joke to indict us for makir.c too much monev..' "