10 THE SUGAR INDUSTRY. 



working on tropical leaf. The extent to which the vast semi-tropic fruit industry of 

 the south, southwest and Pacific coast would be injured by free trade with the East and 

 West Indies is self-evident. The fruits of the northern belt would also be affected. 



The production of sugar in the United States, already given a hard blow by the 

 annexation of Hawaii, would be most seriously interfered with. In fact, sugar raised by 

 the yellow and black labor of the East and West Indies, if admitted duty free, would prob- 

 ably annihilate our domestic sugar-producing industry. Louisiana and Texas alone can 

 produce cane sugar enough to supply the whole country. Beets for the manufacture of 

 sugar are now being grown with wonderful success in every state and territory from 

 New York and Virginia to the Pacific. Such factories as are already established for 

 the manufacture of beet sugar are doing splendidly over the Spanish war. Millions of 

 capital are now ready to embark in numerous beet sugar enterprises in twenty states 

 the moment Congress declares against free sugar from the tropics. 



Thousands upon thousands of farmers in the sugar-beet belt are eager to grow all 

 the beets needed to supply this country with all the sugar it consumes. Farmers realize 

 that at $4 to $6 per ton, sugar beets afford the new and profitable crop they so much 

 need. From both the agricultural and manufacturing standpoints, the beet-sugar indus- 

 try in the United States is way beyond the experimental stage, and with a continuance 

 of the present federal policy beet sugar offers one of the safest and most profitable 

 investments for capital, agriculture and labor. And this in face of the fact that the aver- 

 age annual wholesale price of granulated sugar fell from 7.6c per pound in 1889 to 4^c 

 in 1897, while to-day sugar is cheaper than ever before. 



SUGAR BEETS A PROFITABLE CROP. 



An acre of corn at the west, yielding 40 bushels of grain worth 15c per bushel, will 

 buy something more than 100 Ibs of granulated sugar at the grocery store. That same acre 

 of land devoted to sugar beets will produce 2,000 to 3,000 Ibs of refined sugar, like the 

 finest white sugar you can buy. The corn under such conditions returns about $6 per 

 acre for all the labor and capital invested in that crop. Sugar beets yield $25 to $50 per 

 acre, and while they require far more labor, they pay for it and leave a net profit of $10 

 to $25 per acre, which is handsome compared to the meager returns from corn, wheat, 

 oats, etc. 



SUGAR AND THE MONETARY PROBLEM. 



The country has been convulsed over the proposition of free silver coinage at 16 to 1. 

 The most ardent advocates of that policy have not proposed to coin more than 100,000,000 

 silver dollars per year. Now without discussing the pros and cons of the silver question, 

 no one will deny the benefits that would accrue by keeping at home the 100,000,000 of 

 (gold standard) dollars that are sent out of the country each year for sugar. If this 

 sugar is all paid for in money (instead of partly in merchandise), keeping at home this 

 vast sum would inflate our per capita circulation nearly $1.50 each year or $15 in ten 

 years, and in fifteen years it would double our present per capita circulation. Certainly 

 it would help to solve the currency problem to keep at home the money that now goes 

 abroad for sugar. 



THE CASE IN A NUTSHELL. 



The fact is that, after having given freely of our blood and treasure to drive out 

 their Castilian oppressors, Spanish proprietors in the East and West Indies now seek 

 a yearly bonus of untold millions from their deliverers. And certain combinations in the 

 domestic sugar, tobacco, trucking and fruit trades have entered into an unholy alii- 



