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About East Oregonian : E.O. (Pendleton, OR) 1888-current | View Entire Issue (July 4, 1916)
EIGHT PAGES DAILY EAST 0 REG ONI AN. PENDLETON. OREGON. TUESDAY, JULY 4, 1916. PAGE SEVEN fSTi ft 's America's Yellow Gold That Gilds It Story of Sisal is Story of Binder Twine Inquiry at Washington Means Many Millions to U. S. Farmers: By Charles M. Carroll CUlkt Agricultural Exltmion Dttmrlmtnl, Inttrnational HarifMfr Co. EVEN n..w, after a tragic time of political turmoil thai has b'ouftt Da rcit of Mexico ,'o ecor j$1 -u.ii one Stato of the un 'hsppy rep ublic remains prosperous lar-off Yucatar down under the sweat ing troplci, on Its low-lying, sun-, drenched peninsula upthrust from isth mian America between tho Gulf and ;he Caribbean s turquolso blue. For -we thing, Yucatan li remote from .e seatH of government that aro tho MUM of revolt and rapine; for tho jther thing, it has bcuo;ucr. and hencquon Is gold, the "green gold of Vucatan." Hencquen's other name is sisal, which la easier to say. You can't v :ry wi ll mispronounce that MUM, It tOSttda us it looks. In Yucuti.i sisal troVs In un ahundanni and of ai ex illence not yet approached In any I her land. It Is the world's chief OWM of sisal simply. Seven-eighths of Yucatan's export trade is In sisal; tireo fourths of Its population of 300, ' 00 and odd people take their living Vom It. Nor Is It a pinched and narrow liv ing, as far as figures go not. at least, for the sisal pla-ilcrt. Our own rela tively populous California, for exnm ple, takes pride MM) rente and some of its prosperity out of the $10,000,000 a year that its cines product in pale vellow gold. Ihe sisal of Utile Yuca an. with only enough people to nake a fair-Blzed American city, returned better than that four years ago and has done much better since. Accord ing to the Mexican year book, t'io sisal exports of Yucata'i in 1912 amounted to $21,430,01). The United States eag 'erly absorbs virtually all lie: sisal Ciat Vucalan can send up from sleepily busy Progreso -tho world's greatest sisal port, and Yucatan's only real port of commerce In the chunky freight ers that carry this rich and u.ilquo trade. It Is the yellow gold of the Ameri au farmer, the cash from his golden wheat and other grulnB, that gilds Un 'green gold of Yucatan." For sisal I. her ts essential to the American spin . rs, who must turn cut something .ike' II.H.0C0 tons of bind Si twine a ear to be fed Into the harvesting machines that gather the grain crop of America -lh machines that have insd- wheelen bread the food of the World and the cheapest thing we buy; Ithsl have initde America a. land lef plenty, une granary of the world; Und thai seep all r,-eples (rrrywkr from go'ng hungry. WfltCUt binder twine, aarvcaUnf D chines could not be used; and 85 per cent of Amer ica's binder twine Is ,made from the sisal of (tropical Yucatan Millions of dollars have neen spent In search for a substitute fiber for sisal. Wire-grass, flax, paper and many different libers !i a v e been expensively tried and found wanting. Manila hemp- tho abacn !of the Philippines Is the only other !tlbor that will adequately serve m stead of sisal; and Manila, as they call It In the trade, is loo costly. It is a better fiber than sisnl for rope and icordago, but typhoon da ge, the scar city of ocean tonnage, Japan's grow ing demand, and tho wartime shortage I A hova , , tm hi II , 'rt to SClld Ul WIID IWJlT, w " Manila up and keep it up. Also, rich little Yucatan Is our next-door neigh bor with Progreso only six hundred miles from rail-end at San Francisco. So sisal stays master of the twine market and Yucatan queens It over sisal. Smoothly balled, neatly baled and 1 corded, each ball ticked with the aiak I er's guarantee of 600 feet to the pound, !tbe ileal of Yucatan cornea to the jgralnflelda of America. You assutn- Ing that you are a farmer order what twine you think you'll need and get it; the neatly corded bales are tossed out to you. There Is nothing in the me chanical evenness of Its winding, in its freedom from knot and Imperfec tion or in its warm brown tone to sug gest "green gold" or to bint at the colorful tale that unwinds between the Vucatan slBal field aid the American farmer. A ball of American binder twine is as staple as a pound of sugar - and as prosaic. Now and then you may have read in your newspaper that there Is some kind of an inquiry afoot at Washing ton as to Yucatan slaal some talk of a monopoly; of rising prices of tho liber; of tho oppressed and iioverty smitten planters of Yucatan; of wit nesses with Spanish-seeming names telling of their struggles to make a living. You may have tried to match up these brief, vague and apparently pointless reports with intimations in your (arm journals that "binder twine is going up," but It all seems far off and unimportant. But If you could have dropped in on some of the sessions of a Senate Sub committee at Washington during the last few weeks you would have heard things to open your eyes and awaken your interest - your self-interest. The room Is that of the Senate Com mittee on Agriculture and Forestry. There sits a Subcommittee of Sena tors Kansdell of Louisiana, as chair man, QroflM from tho great wheat state of North Dakota and Wadsworth 0( Imperial New York. They are In quiring Into the matter of the importa tion of sisal o::d its sale in the Cnited States. By tl.e slow, patient process of examination and cross-examination the three Senators are getting down to the answer of the sharp and perti nent query from America's agricul ture: WHY IS BINDER TWINE HIGHER? HOW MUCH HIGHER 18 it florxo? The senate subcommittee's inquiry began February 17, 1116, and went on Intermittently for about ten days of actual testimony taking. March 27 was the date set for the resumption of tho hearing, t'p to this writing almost nil the witnesses have been thoso called by the Yucatan government , sisal monopoly. It is fair enough to term It that, for tho fact of an abso lute monopoly Is freely admitted by those who control It and profit by It. They lean back on the plea that they are safe from prosecution or Inter fcrence under the Sherman anti trust law because the sisal combination, though financed with American money, jy"v OKs? iz&j ,' ' "'- A typical sisal field in Yucatan Catting the ripened leaves. Jj ' 1 1 lii n m iH CiL : ss&wr i wm formed in Yucatan and not In the I nited States. Llttlo direct testimony has beer, heard from the side of the Americans who must pay all the monopoly's profits. On the last duy of the Inves tigation's first phase, however, one witness for tho farmers was beard Warden Frnnk S. Talcott of the North Dakota Stato prison. In tho course of his tertlmony he said: 19 The fin'uhed Product of Yucatan Sisal A Ball of American Binder 1 wine "And I want to impress upon you, in this testimony, thai al though i am representing cur lit tle Institution and the twine plant, that tho big question is tho amount of twine consumed by the farmers of that state ami what it will mean to them. You can tiguro what It will mean. If it is two cents more this year, it MM a half million dollars out of the pockets of tho farmers of North 1'ahota avne. if any or ganization, without attempting to say who, or what, or under what control, has a monopoly upon sial liber, should say, We will want you to pay a cent more next year,' every time that they raise the price of sisal fiber it costs the farmer a cent, and It costs the farmers of tho Str.te cf North Ta kota a quarter of a Bflltoo dol lars. There is no question about that." There is plenty of evidence to be had in support of that clear statement of the sisal situation. From its 6a;a!l beginning, about thirty-live years ago, tho sisal indus try of Yucatan operated throiiKh an open market until last year. Its price was llxed by the law of supply and demand. Morula, the capital of Yucatan, was the world's sisal market. Some of the big producers built ware houses a:.d dooks and spur trae!;s and, in addition to handling other exports and imports, becamo naturally mer chandisers of their own and their neighbors' sisal. The industry flour ished. The plantations widened. From 4'.i0.tiu4 hales in 1900 the exports grew to 9G4.863 hales in 1914, The plant ers grew rich. In Paris uuu other pleasure places of Kurope some of them came to be known as the "hene quon kir.gs." Quite logically, there were attempt! to control the market artificially. As sociations of various sorts were forme 1 to regulate the Industry. Hut these at tctnptl were never more than indif ferently successful. In U'12 one of the last legislatures that sat in Yucatan created the Comision Regnladora del Mercado de Heuequen, which is, in English, commission for the regulation of the sisal market or "Regulating Committee." as it is generally called In the 1 nited States. Rut not until the summer of MIS did the Regulating Committee come to con sequence nnd power. The governmen tal turmoil of Mexico had at last spread to far-off. prosperous Yucatan. Rapid scene shifting of polities and reshuffling of the cards bad put in ab solute power Gen. Salvador Alvarado. A "poor planter" of Yucatan direct ing the transports' tion of sisal leaves to the decorticat ing mill. military commander and governor of Yucatan by virtue of the appointment of First Chief Venustiano Canaan. Under Governor Alvaradp the regu lating ccmr-iitee obtained a 100 per cent control. The open market for eia.il was closed hard and fast. New Yor'.i offices were opened by the Commit tee. No planter could sell, and no con sumer could buy, excopt thresh the Regulating Committee, But It took an American, a railroad man of Yucatan, to see the way to an even more prolitable monopoly to a tighter grip on the "green gold of Y'u caten." This man came back home hunting capiial. He found hi3 open ing in New Orleans, where two bank-' ers saw his wealthy dream as ht saxr it only with him left out. H led them to Dr. Victor A. Rcndon, a Yu eateean long resident In the United States, and to Covernor Alvarado. and then the railroad man faded away into the background with a, minor Job under the Fan-American Commission Corpo ration. By November 191."., the sisal monop oly was Complete the production an 1 thamarliet controlled, to the lart bale pound and shred, by tho Regulating Committee, backed and headed by Mili tary Commander and Governor Alvi rado. whose will Is the only law of Yucatan. That is the Yucatan end c the monopoly. On the American end is a tinam.n company, compose 1 of a few banker and their associates. It is the fan American Commission Corporation, ti.o handiwork of the New Orleans bank ers to whom the American railroao man took his dream. It has fl.OOl cash capital, with $1,000,000 commou stock paid for by the trausfer of a contract which the New Orleans bank ers had secured from tho Regulating Committee. In return (or Its guaranty to find such loans as may bo needed to move the sisul crop, with fiber warehoused lu the I nited States a: security and with interest at current market rates, the Corporation take s bonus commission that will yield it from $400,000 to $1,000,000 a year 4a to 100 per cent a year on its caakj cspiial. i Of course the monopoly has put up the price of sisal. From an average of IVi cents per pound it has already I gone to 7 cents. An agent of tha Regulating Committee has been quot ed as stating that it would be I cento a pound by July 1st. 1916. The man ager of the Regulating Committee la the Cnited States is o". record as say ing th.-.t he End Ul associates could mcks the pries lo cents a pound i$ they saw ct. And binder twine prlcee have climbed with ths price of sisal. Thai :s inevitable. There are at least eight een competinj twine manufacturers! I including chjbt State prisons Nona I of them takes or can take more thai a reasonable mLaatactunng profit out of binder tine. The consumer tha American fa.xtr must pay the ln Crease. Already it amounts to from $3,000,000 to $5,000,000 this year; what R nay bo next year no man can telU foal is why there was an outcry frora the country ; that is why the three Sen atoraara patiently unwinding the torf ! of thud, digging after the facts of tha , i Yucatan monopoly that takes ail it , income cut of the C cited Stairs and all Increase of Its prorlte out i tha bn-eches pocket of Mr. Ami r:c4 Firmer. It Is a serious enough matt..- tb a) , story of sisal, but it has its funny sida : tuar;'a a Joke in it. The joke Ilea in the Bonnp i; jua : A Cation of high and higher price. 1 hat Justification is the relief of tho "poverty cursed ' sisal planter of Yucatan from the low prices of tho I open market system. Part of the Juko In the fact that under these "op I ivi conditions" the sisal Industry j doahlsd ill volume and output in four- J tSM years The other pari li thatj than are about 200 sisal planters la i ,u!u:i 100 poor gertiem. n dividing a crop worth $lu,000,OM a year' Two. hundred men to share with a coterio of American hankers and their asso ciates the added protit of from I3.0U0,-, 000 to IfcOOO,1"'!) a year, taxed out of the American farmer by this benevn-' ;.t Mexican monopoly!