unloadedcomplaints in the vein of an Iowa cattle feeder who was convinced that the packers colluded to destroy his profits. The man explained that he received Chicago price reports via telegraph and knew when stockyard supplies were running “light,” a signal that cattle prices would rise. When that happened, he loaded his livestock and himself onto the next train to Chicago. And it never failed, he complained: by the time he got there, receipts were running heavy and he couldn’t get the price he wanted for his livestock. He was convinced that the Big Four were manipulating supplies so as to manipulate price. It did not occur to the man that other cattle farmers read the same telegraph reports and made the same decision to head to Chicago, thereby turning a cattle shortage into a glut. Another witness had gone to Arizona in 1883, hell-bent on grabbing his share of the cattle bonanza. By his own admission, he was “entirely unfamiliarwith the business,” but that did not stop him. He bought cattle and took them to Kansas City, where the dressed-beef kings offered him what he regarded as an insultingly low price. More experienced sellers advised him to take the offer, but the would-be cattle king decided to outsmart the packers by taking his livestock straight to the East Coast. No one would buy it there, he complained, and that, too, he blamed on the long arm of the “Dressed Beef Trust,” which he believed shipped its cheap beef east and employed a “local stool-pigeon” to pass the goods off to butchers. That kind of testimony, which dominated the hearings, confirmed what the committee’s members, all of whom represented cattle-producing states, already believed: the packers were robbing cattle producers at one end and driving up consumer prices at the other, all to satisfy their greed.
Phil Armour beggedto differ. He and the other packers had been subpoenaed by the committee, but only Armour showed up. After days of hearing complaints from ranchers, farmers, and butchers, and given that the senators had thus far demonstrated little understanding of how stockyards, meatpacking, and meat retailing worked, Armour’s testimony must have sounded like the words of an alien being. Where other witnesses focused on their small piece of the stage—the butcher shop, the ranch, the stockyard—Armour described an industry that was international in scope and boggling in its complexity. He regaled the committee with statistical evidence of the global demand for cowhide; discussed the taxes that hindered the manufacture and sale of American oleomargarine; described livestock production in New Zealand, Australia, and South America; explained changes in consumer demand in foreign markets; and tallied the amount of beef and mutton imported into the United Kingdom in 1888 as well as the price of tallow in New York City and “oleo oil” in Rotterdam.
A no-doubt statistics-dazed committee finally managed to steer Armour toward what it viewed as the main point. Had he and the other beef packers practiced collusion in order to monopolize the nation’s meat supplies? No, said Armour. There was no monopoly and no collusion. The beef men “combined” for the same reason as railroads and livestock shippers: if they did not, price wars would drive them to ruin. What outsiders regarded as collusion, insisted Armour, was simply smart business. The prices he paid at Kansas City or Chicago were based on the supply at hand, the supply en route, and the type and number of cattle he needed. If someone showed up in Chicago “with a couple of car-loads of steer from Kansas,” and Armour knew that “a thousand more” were “coming in from the West,” he behaved as would any smart businessman: he adjusted his buying price. “We do the best we can to buy cattle as cheap as we can,” he said. “We are here to make money. I wish I could make more. If I knew of any method of making more out of cattle I should certainly do it.” And, he
Phil Armour beggedto differ. He and the other packers had been subpoenaed by the committee, but only Armour showed up. After days of hearing complaints from ranchers, farmers, and butchers, and given that the senators had thus far demonstrated little understanding of how stockyards, meatpacking, and meat retailing worked, Armour’s testimony must have sounded like the words of an alien being. Where other witnesses focused on their small piece of the stage—the butcher shop, the ranch, the stockyard—Armour described an industry that was international in scope and boggling in its complexity. He regaled the committee with statistical evidence of the global demand for cowhide; discussed the taxes that hindered the manufacture and sale of American oleomargarine; described livestock production in New Zealand, Australia, and South America; explained changes in consumer demand in foreign markets; and tallied the amount of beef and mutton imported into the United Kingdom in 1888 as well as the price of tallow in New York City and “oleo oil” in Rotterdam.
A no-doubt statistics-dazed committee finally managed to steer Armour toward what it viewed as the main point. Had he and the other beef packers practiced collusion in order to monopolize the nation’s meat supplies? No, said Armour. There was no monopoly and no collusion. The beef men “combined” for the same reason as railroads and livestock shippers: if they did not, price wars would drive them to ruin. What outsiders regarded as collusion, insisted Armour, was simply smart business. The prices he paid at Kansas City or Chicago were based on the supply at hand, the supply en route, and the type and number of cattle he needed. If someone showed up in Chicago “with a couple of car-loads of steer from Kansas,” and Armour knew that “a thousand more” were “coming in from the West,” he behaved as would any smart businessman: he adjusted his buying price. “We do the best we can to buy cattle as cheap as we can,” he said. “We are here to make money. I wish I could make more. If I knew of any method of making more out of cattle I should certainly do it.” And, he
Similar Books
