OCR Text |
Show TALKS OF LIVESTOCK ! CONDITIONS i UTAH i Traffic Manager of Cudahy Company Is Pleased With Outlook. J. A. McXaughton, traffic manager of the Cudahy Packing company, arrived ar-rived in Salt Lake yesterday to look after the final details of remodeling the old Intermountain packing plant in North Salt Lake, which is to be occupied oc-cupied bv the Uudahy , company with its big plant about March 1. While in the city Mr. McNaughton is the guest of J. David Larson, secretary secre-tary of the Commercial club. Work on i the new plant to be operated in Salt Lake is progressing rapidly, Mr. Mc-Naughton Mc-Naughton finds, and he stated last night that everything will be in readiness readi-ness for the company to start operating operat-ing on a largo scale by the first of March. In talking of why the Cudahy company com-pany selected Salt 'Lake as the location loca-tion for its western plant, Mr. Mc-Naughton Mc-Naughton said: We chose Salt Lake for the reason rea-son that it has been the recognized livestock center for the intermountain intermoun-tain country for years. The old yards fvere established here in 1891 and it is the only place in this section of the country where there is anything like an open market. We found that the Intermountain I plant, constructed in 1906 and destroyed de-stroyed by fire and rebuilt in 1907 had' been "lying idle for many years and the owners of the plant were anxious to recover something out of their investment. Iu view of the?e conditions it seemed the proper prop-er thing to modernize this plant, rather than construct au entirely new one. If our competitors will be willing to conduct their business on a small margin, as we operate, the public and the territory will he well served. The packing industry is entirely too important to the public pub-lic to permit it to be monopolized bv any one interest. It should be conducted along lively competitive lines and selfishness is a thing that should not be. permitted to enter into this business. WTe are coming into this territory in self-defense and are going to' protect our own interests. ( As a matter of fact, the Cudahys had a distributing and processing plant in Salt Lake for many years, and for years bought the hog supply sup-ply and shipped it to their packing plants. We had such a plant here for thirtv years. Up to the past five or "six years we enjoyed a good business, but the farmer and stockraiser found it profitable to feed stock and we found business here dwindling to zero on account of local slaughtering and the sale of goods at less than we could afford af-ford to sell, hence we had the option op-tion of abandoning the intermountain intermoun-tain country and surrendering the trade we had built up after thirty vears of effort to local competitors competi-tors and writing off our extensive investment, or of locating a packing pack-ing plant here, aud, as you know, we selected Salt Lake as the logical logi-cal location. Asked in conclusion what the prospects pros-pects were, in his opinion, as to a decrease de-crease in the price of livestock, Mr. McXaughton said: It looks to me as though the price of livestock is on the higher level and it seems improbable that it will ever drop back to the old-time old-time prices. We may Fee hogs down to 7 or 7Vl cents, but that will probably be the limit as far as prices are concerned. The livestock raiser wall have every incentive to produce livestock. |