The Shingle Trust Faces a Revolt
Independent dealers refuse to join a new price-fixing association, setting the stage for a showdown in the regional timber market.
The story, cleaned up
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As usual when an effort is made to organize trade for the maintenance of prices by any plan of the nature of a trust, several of the shingle dealers and manufacturers have refused to have anything to do with the new organization. The independent dealers—Graham & Patten, Carstens & Baker, the Rainier Cedar Shingle Company of Seattle, and S. A. Gibbs & Co. of Tacoma—definitely refused to join. The objectors claim the association's price-fixing does not give dealers fair play and leaves a margin too small to pay expenses and a living profit. Association officers call them 'scalpers' who wish to cut prices to the limit, and threaten to treat them as outlaws by selling only to association-aligned dealers. The outsiders hope to keep the market disturbed until the weaker members of the association break away.
“We propose to run our own business and have no fear of not being able to buy enough to fill our orders, nor do we intend to cut prices either.”
The late 19th-century struggle between independent merchants and industrial 'trusts' mirrors current debates over corporate consolidation and platform monopolies in the Pacific Northwest economy. Then, as now, the tension between maintaining livable margins for small businesses and the desire for market stability defined the regional timber and housing supply chain.
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