The Great Cookie Trust: How Seattle's Cracker Kings Tried to Control the Market

An arrangement is being consummated between the four leading cracker companies on the Northern coast for the formation of a trust to do away with the ruinous competition and low prices which have prevailed for a long time. A.M. Brookes, president of the Queen City Cracker Company, stated: 'It is not with a view to advancing prices to an unreasonable point, but to avoid the fierce competition which has been kept up to the detriment of the trade. We want a fair, legitimate profit on our business, and we have not been getting it. We have been actually going backward. We want to employ labor and pay decent wages, but the present prices will not admit of it. The price of flour has advanced, but no advance was made in crackers owing to this competition. We simply abolish the discount and establish a uniform price, so that when a man buys goods he knows that no one else can buy for less from some other company. The consolidated organisation will be known as the Portland Cracker Company.' It is understood that the organization will incorporate, and the property of all the companies will be turned in as stock at an appraised valuation.