THIRTY CENT BREAD 77 



that agents were then sent forth to contract for all 

 available, products at the arbitrarily fixed quota- 

 tions. 



On the same day Representative McKeller of Ten- 

 nessee, who charged the cold storage men with re- 

 sponsibility for high prices, assailed the Department 

 of Agriculture for publishing a report which he de- 

 scribed as an effort of the department to whitewash 

 the cold storage men. 



Investigations, all of them resulting in the same 

 conclusions, have been conducted in Massachusetts, 

 Missouri and Pennsylvania, as well as in New York 

 and Illinois. In spite of these investigations and 

 their findings the egg situation remains to-day in the 

 same condition in which it has existed since cold 

 storage became a national institution. 



§ 54 — ^THB BANKS 



Powerful banking interests are seriously involved 

 in the conduct of the egg business. In New York 

 City the bankers loan the gamblers 75 per cent, of 

 the value of the eggs in storage. In Chicago the 

 bankers loan the warehousemen a hundred cents on 

 the dollar for every egg stored. These loans are 

 secured by constantly rising markets, and depend 

 exclusively upon the regular, uninterrupted annual 

 advance in values which begin to make themselves 

 felt on a progressively increasing scale from the mo- 

 ment the egg is slipped into the refrigerator until, 

 within a period of from six to ten months later, it 

 emerges as "strictly fresh." 



The question of prices is of universal interest. 

 For the poor it is a matter of daily and often of 



