180 TWENTY-SECOND ANNUAL YEAR BOOK— PART III 



of the credit situation. I think they have been more helpful than people 

 generally realize. 



In addition to these laws they enacted a law which for the first time 

 brought the packers, and the stock yards and the live stock commission 

 merchants under Federal supervision. That law is now in force, but part 

 of it is being held up temporarily by an appeal to the courts for the pur- 

 pose of testing the constitutionality of the law. The appeal has been made 

 by the commission merchants. There were reports when the law was 

 enacted that the teeth had been taken out of it, that the amendments 

 adopted by the Senate had almost emasculated the law. There is nothing 

 to that kind of talk at all. It is a very strong law. It gives all the super- 

 vision and all the power that anyone who is sensible of his responsibility 

 under it cares to exercise to begin with. It gives power to go in and 

 examine that whole business, meat packing and live stock marketing, all 

 along the line and if it stands the attack now being made upon it, witliin 

 a year or two we will be able to speak from accurate knowledge of the 

 conditions affecting live stock marketing and meat packing. It gives the 

 supervising agency authority to go so far as to fix charges in the stock 

 yards and fix commission rates, authority which has never been given over 

 any large business except in times of war. 



As I say the commission merchants have attacked the constitutionality 

 of the law on the ground that they are not interstate agencies and that 

 therefore Congress has no right to impose restrictions which that law im- 

 poses. The case comes up as a test case from the Chicago yard. Every 

 time we have one of these periods of agricultural depression there are 

 always large numbers of people who attribute low prices very largely to 

 the operations of the boards of trade. All of us practically here can look 

 back to the depression previous to this and remember this same sort of 

 agitation. There has never been enough exact knowledge about the opera- 

 tion of these future exchanges to justify such legislation as has often been 

 proposed and certainly no knowledge which would justify putting them 

 out of business forthwith as some people think should be done. The act 

 which Congress passed gives us the same sort of authority over the ex- 

 changes and very much the same authority that the packing and stock 

 yards act gives over the packers. It gives us authority to go in and 

 examine everything that is going on on these boards of trade; to study the 

 effect of future trading on prices; to go into the books of every individual 

 concern. We have authority to require them to make such reports as we 

 think are necessary to enable us to get at what is going on there, and if 

 that law stands up within a year or two we ought to be able to express 

 an intelligent opinion based on solid facts as to the effect of future trading 

 on these open exchanges. That law also has been attacked by a small 

 group of traders on the Chicago board of trade who are attacking the con- 

 stitutionality of the law, and on much the same grounds as the attack on 

 the packer law. The Supreme Court yesterday issued a decree which sus- 

 pends in part all activities in enforcing that law and then has set the case 

 for hearing on its merits on January 3rd. 



I am speaking of these things to try to make it plain that the people in 

 Congress have been trying sincerely to do whatever seemed to be practical 



