LIVE STOCK BEEEDEKS' ASSOCIATION. 241 



take any who are interested. What is the plan? The plan in reorgan- 

 izing the live stock interests is to have everyone interested in it, in any 

 way, shape or form, connected with it. And have the organization ap- 

 point a general committee of five or ten or eleven, whichever they like, 

 and then this committee will appoint one man who will serve on the 

 central or executive committee, and they will appoint a secretary or 

 chairman, or both, and employ a sufficient force to make that central com- 

 mittee a bureau of information. With this to bring its influence to bear 

 on the agricultural department it will extend its work in a great many 

 directions. The truth of the matter is tliat this industry has been a lit- 

 tle one-sided. It limped a little on the live stock leg. It has been doing 

 a gTcat deal for the farmers and grain growers and planters, but it has 

 not yet quite reached what it ought to towara the live stock interests of 

 the country. We should have a correct record kept in regard to live 

 stock. There should be statistics kept. At the present time no one 

 knows very much about this. We do not know whether we are coming 

 out ahead or behind. The commission man does not know; no one knows. 

 We want to bring about stability. When a man buys a steer for three 

 and one-half cents per pound he wants to know with reasonable cer- 

 tainty that if he feeds it properly and attends to it properly he will get 

 from five to five and a half cents, or whatever it may be. He wants to 

 know with a reasonable degree of certainty what will be the outcome of 

 the whole affair. A man would like to know what a cow will bring him 

 in the course of a few years. At the present time no one knows any- 

 thing about it. Now, this great central committee that I speak of will 

 represent the railways, the packingiiouses and this association, and when 

 any question comes up it will be referred to the members of this special 

 committee which represents these interests, and if it is possible for an 

 ad,ustment by face-to-face, heart-to-heart talks, there will be this cause 

 of friction removed. No one gives up any legal rights; no one gives up 

 the right to appeal to the Interstate Commerce Commission; no one gives 

 or saj's anything about the anti-trust law, but as intelligent, patriotic 

 people living in the beginning of the greatest century the world has ever 

 known, we want to see if we can not arrive at these things in a fairer, 

 better, broader and more business-like manner and in a more Ameri- 

 (?an spirit. 



Now, gentlemen, I am delighted to find that you are ju'st organizing 

 here. I want to say that this is just what should be done in every State 

 in the Union. Next week at Denver appeals will be made on behalf of 

 the live stock interests in everj^ State, and appeals will be made to the 

 live stock interests to get themselves shoulder to shoulder and prepare 

 to act with intelligence, and elect representatives, and endeavor to bring 

 about an adjustment of all these questions — all of these difficult questions. 

 There are lots of them in the way. 1 anticipate a regular row from one 

 end of next week to the other in attempting to settle the matters and 



16— Asrri. 



