Liberalism: Power, Economic Crisis, Reform, War 85“Big Four” meatpackers, some which still exist, were Wilson, Armour, Cudahy,
and Swift, and they controlled the industry, selling meat in the United States
and Europe. In 1879, however, Italy restricted the import of U.S. pigs due to
disease [much like many countries banned British beef in the 1990s due to
Mad Cow Disease], and France followed suit in 1881. By the late 1880s,
almost all of Europe barred American meat from its markets, which was a
great loss of profit for American meat companies. So the packers themselves
acted, cooperating with public health officials to fix the problem. In 1883,
the government established the Bureau of Animal Industry in the Department
of Agriculture to clean up the industry, and in 1891 Congress passed the first
Meat Inspection Law. Meat was now being certified as safe by the govern-
ment so the European bans were lifted. Still, the Europeans were wary of U.S.
meat coming into their countries.
To the Big Four, which controlled from 50 to 75 percent of the meat mar-
ket, the problem was with the smaller meatpackers. Since they made fewer
sales and had less money, they were more likely to sell beef or pork that might
have experienced some spoilage or was not as good as that sold by the big
packers, who were wealthy enough to discard bad meat instead of selling it.
The smaller packers could not afford to do that, so they often sold meat that
was borderline safe or even going bad. Once more the Big Four sought gov-
ernment help, and by 1904, the year The Jungle came out, 73 percent of beef
was being inspected and in some areas, like Chicago and Fort Worth, the per-
centages were higher. The smaller packers were resisting inspection, however,
and the big meat companies resented what they saw as a competitive disad-
vantage because the number of smaller packers had increased by over 50
percent between 1899-1909. So when Sinclair went to Chicago to study the
stockyards, the Big Four saw a chance to take advantage of the public alarm
and uproar over the bad meat to convince the government to pass the laws
to demand meat inspection. Once in effect, the smaller packers could not
survive the costs associated with the new standards and the losses of markets
due to their inferior meat. While Upton Sinclair may have disgusted
Americans with his tale of rotten meat, it was the big packers, especially the
Big Four, whom got the government’s attention to pass inspection laws. As
with the other industries, the result was that the people got a better deal, but
the smaller companies were driven out of business, competition was elimi-
nated, prices rose, and the big producers had forced reform from the top down