High Meat

From the menus of some railroad dining cars and many a restaurant, beef several months ago made a silent but definite exit. From the tables of the poor, pork ("the poor man's food") has likewise long been absent. Reason for both these facts is, as every housewife knows, the current high price of meat. Last week choice steers were selling for $19.50 a cwt. in Chicago, highest price in 18 years, and angry housewives had to pay 47½¢; a Ib. for sirloin which they could buy two years ago for 36¢ and which cost but 52¢ in the boom year of 1929.

Present high prices are due to the unforeseen occurrence of heavy droughts in 1934 and 1936, just after the New Deal's Agricultural Adjustment Administration had slaughtered huge numbers of swine and cattle. Last week it became evident that others beside the consumer have felt this acute livestock shortage when Cudahy Packing Co., fourth largest in the U. S.. passed a dividend for the first time since 1924.

Smaller than the other three of the "Big Four" (Swift, Armour, Wilson), Cudahy suffered more because most of its slaughtering houses were in the drought area and it lacks its bigger rivals' range of by-products to tide it over. In the last fiscal year ending October 1936, Cudahy made $1,815,000 or $2.65 per common share. So far this year it has paid $1.87½ per common share. In passing last week's dividend, President Edward A. Cudahy Jr. explained: "Smaller volume of raw material, together with substantial increases in wages, various additional forms of taxes and increased costs of certain supplies, contributed to higher unit operating costs and made it increasingly difficult to earn satisfactory profits." Cudahy common last week dropped 15 points to $19.50 a share, low for the year.