United States Senate Select Committee on the Transportation and Sale of Meat Products

The Select Committee on the Transportation and Sale of Meat Products, also known as the Vest Committee, after its first chairman Senator George G. Vest of Missouri, was a select committee of the United States Senate from 1887 – 1921. It was established to consider various aspects of the meat packing industry.

History

The committee was formed in response to complaints by cattle producers and ranchers of abuse by major meat packers. It was the first investigation of the meat packing industry by U.S. Congress.DiLorenzo, Thomas J. The Origins of Antitrust Rhetoric vs. Reality. Cato Institute. Regulation Magazine. Vol. 12, No. 3. One of the committee's first hearings was in St. Louis in November 1888 to investigate allegations that the "Big Four" meatpackers in Chicago were trying to "freeze out" competitors.American Law and the Marketing Structure of the Large Corporation, 1875-90. In 1890, the committee issued a report that found no evidence of collusion by the major meat packers, but outlined various incidents of price fixing in the beef industry.The short story on meat packing consolidation in America.

The committee's report stated, in part:

The principal cause of the depression in the prices paid to the cattle raiser and of the remarkable fact that the cost of beef to the consumer has not decreased in proportion, comes from the artificial and abnormal centralization of markets, and the absolute control by a few operators thereby made possible.

In place of the old system when shippers and butchers went from one cattle raiser to another, competing in the purchase of cattle, there is now a concentration of the market at a few points ... So far has this centralizing process continued that for all practical purposes the [Chicago] market ... dominates absolutely the price of beef cattle in the whole country.Controversies in Livestock Pricing. Economic Research Service/USDA. Agriculture Outlook, December 2002.

Chairmen

Name Party State Years George G. Vest Democratic Missouri 1887-1893 Orville H. Platt Republican Connecticut 1893-1895 William B. Bate Democratic Tennessee 1898-1899 Richard F. Pettigrew Silver Republican South Dakota 1900 Vacant 1901 John W. Daniel Democratic Virginia 1902-1907 Samuel D. McEnery Democratic Louisiana 1908-1910 Murphy J. Foster Democratic Louisiana 1911-1912 Henry A. du Pont Republican Delaware 1913-1915 Carroll S. Page Republican Vermont 1916-1921 John K. Shields Democratic Tennessee 1919-1921

Sources

Report of the Select Committee on the Transportation and Sale of Meat Products, Senate Report No. 829, 51st Congress, 1st Session. United States Senate. Government Printing Office. May 1890.