Steaks, Monopoly and a Puget Sound Meat War
Seattle and Tacoma wholesalers are cutting prices and opening shops, while a Tacoma meat man blames a slump in demand and a fight to control the trade.
The story, cleaned up
A cleaned-up reading of the newspaper page: spelling and layout repaired, one story lifted off a crowded page. It follows the original closely but it is not a transcription. The original page is below; read it if a detail matters.
TACOMA, July 23.—[Special.]—Another meat war is brewing between Seattle and Tacoma wholesale butchers. A few months ago it was understood a meat monopoly had been arranged for, and the advance in the price of steaks, which occurred about that time, seemed to justify the impression. The secretary of the Pacific Meat Company says, however:
"Last season meat was sold cheaper than ever before, and it now looks as if the low prices would prevail again. Frye & Bruhn, of Seattle, came in here last season and opened up shops right and left, and cut prices. Meat sold for almost nothing. Later they closed most of the shops, all in fact except one, and now they are opening up another large shop here. This competition seems to be the result of a falling off in business. Three years ago about 120 cattle were slaughtered daily for the trade on the Sound as far north as Port Townsend and Bellingham Bay. Now, however, sixty cattle per day, all told, supplies the demand. A large number of people have moved away, of course, and many who are here do not eat as much meat as they used to. Some of the small wholesale and retail dealers believe, evidently, that this falling off in trade is due to some scheme which the large wholesalers are working to catch the trade. As a result, new shops are opened in the vain hope of getting lost business. There is money in the wholesale business, if the trade can be controlled. At present, however, we are selling the best kind of beef at wholesale, dressed, for from 4 to 5 cents per pound. We pay from 2 to 3 cents for cattle, live weight."
“There is money in the wholesale business, if the trade can be controlled.”
The argument is strikingly familiar: a handful of wholesalers, a suspected monopoly, falling demand, and new shops opened to capture lost business. Puget Sound’s meat trade then, like its grocery and delivery markets now, ran on thin margins and control of supply.
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