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Show filfflf SUBJECTS niiiii PACKERSPRDBE Letters Introduced on Variety Va-riety of Matters by Attorney Attor-ney Heney Before the Trade Commission. INQUIRY TO BE OF INDEFINITE LENGTH Further Documents Await Decision of U. S. Circuit Court Before Being Touched Upon. CHICAGO, March 1. Letters introduced intro-duced toJay in the federal trade commission's com-mission's investigation of the packing house industry, as read, before Examiner Exam-iner B. 11. Manley of the commission by Francis J. Heney, its counsel, touched many subjects and concerned such widely separated items as the Argentine Ar-gentine labor troubles, leaky cans of corned beef, specifications for army and navy bacon, gift packages of soap ana toilet articles, and the quality of a large consignment of hams rejected by the navy. The reading consumed more than the usual session, and at times was varied by comment from the examiner or Mr. Heney. At its completion adjournment was taken until next Monday. - No hint of the probable duration of the inquiry was given. The letters and documents introduced this week are all exclusive ef the papers taken from the private vault of Henry Yeeder of Swift & Co. by Mr. Heney on a. search warrant. war-rant. Depends on Appeal. Whether these letters "from the vault'' will be presented in the investigation inves-tigation depends on the outcome of an appeal to the United States circuit court of appeals, by which Mr. Yeeder is seeking to recover possession of the papers. The appeal is set for argument next Wednesday. ; .At the outset today Mr. Henev said he would revert to the published attack at-tack of Everett C. Brown, president of the Chicago Livestock exchange, on retail re-tail meat dealers and a similar attack which, he said, had been made on retailers re-tailers by the big packers. He read into the record a letter from Thomas E. Wilson of Wilson & Co. to M. E. Kequa, August 31. 1917, then acting as first assistant to Food Administrator Ad-ministrator Hoover. "Mr. Wilson was acting on authority delegated to him by the big packers,'"' said Mr. Heney. Discussed Reduction. The letter discussed reduction of the cost of meat to the consumer, and referred re-ferred to a suggestion of saving expense ex-pense on each pound bv putting the retail re-tail beef sales into the hands of the packers. The Wilson letter said in part: I think that by more intelligent handling by retailers the price of the meat could be reduced to the consumer 5 cents the pound. The same result might be effected effect-ed by elimination of a large proportion pro-portion of retailers not now necessary neces-sary in handling the product to the consumer. The letter also suggested that licensing licens-ing retailers might be effective in reducing re-ducing the consumers' cost. Mr. Heney told Examiner Manley, who is presiding at the hearing, that Everett C. Brown also "insists that retailers be licensed and regulated.'' Several Chicago retail butchers yesterday yes-terday vigorously objected to Mr. Brown's statement attributing profiteering profit-eering to the retailers.- |