FOOD: Price-Raising War

Of each customer's dollar plunked down on grocery counters for potatoes, farmers get 47¢, for apples 33¢, for dairy products 46¢, for corn flakes 20¢, for soda crackers 8¢. Of each dollar spent for food a quarter of a century ago, the farmer received 52 to 60¢; in recent years his share seldom has exceeded 41¢.

To the trustbusting eye of the Justice Department's Thurman Arnold, this spread between farm and shop prices has looked wide enough to drive a good big Sherman Act investigation into. Last week, Arnold served notice on the...

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