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Some
Things Never Change
May 21, 1909
Wadena (Saskatchewan) Herald (Used with permission):
Afraid
of Beef Trust, Tentacles Coiling Around British Market
Report of governmental committee is of alarming
character – apprehension lest United States companies
gain control of Smithfield market – packers’ plans
subtle.
London – Fear that
the United States beef trust is coiling its tentacles
around the British market and also gaining control of
the United Kingdom’s great source of meat supply,
Argentina, is expressed in a government report made
public recently. The
report (was) submitted by the departmental committee
that was appointed in 1908 to investigate the meat trade
at home and abroad, especially with relation to
combinations among packers and shippers.
Most of the trails
the committee found led them across the Atlantic into
the Union stockyards at Chicago.
Volumes of testimony were amassed with the aid of
witnesses gathered from all parts of the world, and
special investigators, secret and otherwise, were sent
abroad to run down every feature of the inquiry upon
which first hand information was desired.
And so, although
representatives of the United States packing houses who
were examined, denied that any combination existed in
the United States or United Kingdom, the committee sets
down its doubts in these words:
“It is almost incredible that Armour and Co.,
Morris and Co., Swift and Co., and the Hammond Beef Co.,
the last named representing the National Packing
company, should be in combination in the United States
and in competition in the United Kingdom.”
The report asserts
positively the belief of the committee that a beef trust
exists in the United States and that the four Chicago
companies named are its components.
Also it says the same four companies are allied
in such a manner in England that they may eventually
gain absolute control of the Smithfield Market itself.
Deep concern is also expressed lest the grip of
the meat trust on the Argentina market will become so
strong as to put British shipments from that country
completely in their hands to the detriment of the
English importer.
According to the
committee’s conclusions, the methods of the allied
packers are subtle in the extreme.
Their footsteps are everywhere well covered, the
investigations found, and there is no actual evidence
brought before it to prove that the Americans were in
combination to control the British trade.
Nevertheless, the
documents set forth as a moral certainty that the big
four of the Chicago stockyards fix prices by an
iron-bound system and regulate imports in the United
Kingdom.
February 19, 1995:
Hog
waste is polluting the groundwater.
New evidence shows that hog farm wastewater lagoons are
leaking. But environmental regulators don't have the information
or the authority
they need to protect drinking water.
February 21, 1995:
Corporate
takeover.
Corporate farming has taken over the swine industry the
way chain stores took over retailing, and contract farms
are the new franchises. North Carolina farmers are
borrowing heavily to raise pigs for corporations.
February 22, 1995:
Murphy's
law.
During his 10 years as a state legislator, Wendell
Holmes Murphy became the nation's biggest hog producer.
And he helped pass laws worth millions of dollars to his
company and his industry.
February 23, 1995:
Hog-Tied
on Ethics: a News & Observer editorial
February 24, 1995:
Money
talks.
Some of their neighbors say that hog farms stink; pork
companies call it the "smell of money." Find
out what Eastern North Carolina is getting out of its
new status as Pig Country, U.S.A., and why some people
want the growth to stop.
Putting
the hush on hogs: a News & Observer editorial
February 26, 1995:
Pork
barrels.
Follow hog-industry contributions to some influential
positions in government. Do the connections add up to
undue influence?
February 28, 1995:
When
hogs come first: a News & Observer editorial
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