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Show PACKER MERGER STUM DOUBT Officers of Government Reserve Re-serve Decision As Asked By Armour WASHINGTON. Nov. 16 DoclBlon with regard to th- postponed absorp tlon by Armour and Company of Morris Mor-ris and Company, another of the Chicago Chi-cago "big five" packers, was reserved today by government officers before whom tlu- inut t i wiL.-, placed Wednesday Wednes-day by J. Qgden Armour. Mr Armour's proposal is belns carefullv studied by officers of the departments of agriculture and jus-tic. jus-tic. to determine tho relation oi the proposed merger to th' general statute. stat-ute. Including thi newly enacted packers' pack-ers' and stockyards' control act. Ill ;!; IN V FN I'M ENTS Consolidation of Armour nnd Company Com-pany and Morris and Company would result in the creation of the largest slngl corporation in tlx packing industry in-dustry in the United States. Latest available information is that Armour and Company has a capital stock of $150,000,00ti, the same as that of Swift and Company and several sev-eral times that of Wilson and Company, Com-pany, or Cudahy and Company, tho others of the "big five" packers. Tho capital stock of Morris and Company is placed at $40,000,000. MorrlB and Company now opera packing establishments at Chicago! East St L.ouls, St Joseph, Kansas City, Oklahoma City and Oman;:. Aside iruni its many distributing stations sta-tions in this country, the company has similar stations in London, I'nrln, Liverpool. Rotterdam, Antwerp Hamburg, Ham-burg, Heme, Chrlstlanla and Havana, Cuba Tho plants of Armour and Company are at Chicago, East St. Louis, South Omaha, Sloux City, Denver, Kansas City. Fort Worth, St. Joseph, Jacksonville, Jack-sonville, Fla.. and St. Paul. RESEMBLES STEEL ( SE The merger proposal put forward by Mr. Armour, recalled soin-what similar proposals laid before the government gov-ernment departments recently by the heads of the independent steel corporations corpo-rations Mr. Wallace's statement Indicated, In-dicated, however, that because of opo-cial opo-cial legislation, namely, the packer control act which is administered by the department of agriculture, lao packing industry stood in a different ! position. Despite Mr. Morris' statement that his company wag not participating in tho conferences here, information today from authoritative circles in 1 i -cafed it was that concern which Ar- 1 mour u,nd Company seeks to absorb-It absorb-It was also understood that Mr. Armour Ar-mour expects an early decision from agriculture and justice officials bo-fore bo-fore whom he had laid details of his plans. So far as could be learned. Mr. Armour Ar-mour had no engagement to see officials offi-cials of the federal trade commission with regard to the proposi d consolidation consoli-dation It was said today that under the packers' and stockyards' act. supervision su-pervision of tho packers had been taken out of tho hands of tho trade commission and placed directly under un-der the department of agriculture. |