PROCEEDINGS STATE AGRICULTURAL CONVENTION 141 



ment to handle this corn. They don't object to the appropriation but these 

 people want to handle the funds. They want this corn to go through regu- 

 lar marketing agencies and reap a profit from it. At least that is the 

 only explanation of their attitude. 



Now just a word about relief agencies and about the possibility of ex- 

 panding the corn market. A year ago the American Relief Association 

 through Mr. Hoover had planned to put on a campaign and solicit corn 

 from the farms of Iowa and other states for the relief of central Europe. 

 The plan was to sell this corn on the markets of this country and to take 

 the proceeds and invest it in food supplies and other goods. The American 

 Farm Bureau Federation took this matter up with Mr. Hoover and after 

 some negotiations he changed his plans. We convinced him that corn is a 

 good food, that even it won't hurt children to eat corn products. We con- 

 vinced him that the products of our corn mills would be desirable and 

 that the American farmer did not want to give corn, and it was unfair to 

 ask him to give corn to further depress the markets of this country. What 

 we wanted was to get the corn out of the country. He finally consented 

 to that and through our organizations collected about 700,000 bushels of 

 corn. This corn was processed in the mills of this country by American 

 labor, the by-products sold and the proceeds put into other corn. A record 

 was kept of every bushel of that corn from the time it left the station 

 until it was loaded on the ship. We had a selfish motive in that as well 

 as a humanitarian motive, and the selfish motive was the advertisement 

 of corn as a food product. 



I wonder if we have gotten any results? I want to assure you that 

 we have, although it is not yet six months since the last of these ship- 

 ments reached Europe. I cannot tell you how much the results are but I 

 can tell you that as a direct result of that gift corn one single nation which 

 received less than one-third of the shipment of corn has placed a single 

 order for 8,900 tons of American corn products and they tell us that many, 

 many other orders are coming because that corn proved a most satisfac- 

 tory food in their time of need. As an interesting sidelight we required 

 that as many of the different products manufactured from corn as possible 

 be included, so a considerable quantity of corn oil was sent over. They 

 said, "We can't use that corn oil, we don't know what to do with it." But 

 when they got it over there they found they had a large number of Jewish 

 people who were suffering who could not use our animal fats because of 

 their ecclesiastical requirements. They distributed that corn oil to these 

 people. It met their every ecclesiastical requirement and was absolutely 

 satisfactory and as a result a number of orders for corn oil for use 

 amongst these people in Europe have been received in this country. 

 So with regard to Russian relief it is another opportunity not only to 

 relieve humanity but to open up new markets for our great American 

 cereal. 



I really think this corn situation deserves a most careful study at this 

 time. Not only do we have this large surplus but in the past two years, 

 or from January 1, 1919, to January 1, 1921, there was a decrease of 

 1,299,000 horses in this country . That decrease was largely in the towns 

 and cities. A working horse will eat three tons of corn and three tons of 



