400 TWENTY-SECOND ANNUAL YEAR BOOK— PART V 



cause whenever it became understood that Uncle Sam intended to issue a 

 warehouse receipt for whatever amount of corn was there deposited, in- 

 stantly every bushel of corn in the state would appreciate to that price 

 and we would start again the wheels of industry in our state. But that 

 v/as condemned as socialistic, and, as I said a while ago concerning the 

 other program, it would be discountenanced if conditions were normal, 

 but I have in my mind and heart the thought that the farmers in Iowa 

 have got to have relief and I am willing to stretch any constitution and 

 any law in order to afford them relief at this time. 



These are some of the things that I think are proper to be considered 

 by this great organization. I congratulate the farmers of the country that 

 they are establishing and maintaining these great organizations. I believe 

 that there has been more accomplished for agriculture in the past three 

 years in our national congress than in any period of years previous in the 

 history of our country, and it has been because the Farm Bureau and the 

 Farmers Union and the Grange and the Society of Equity and the other 

 great organizations of agriculture have been at Washington and been on 

 the job. These are all things that I think you ought to consider and con- 

 fer among yourselves about. Take up the question of taxes and help us 

 find some solution of the situation that now confronts us. Nobody ought 

 to be allowed to escape his fair share of the burdens of our government, 

 but we don't want to pay more than we should, and we don't want any 

 discrimination made in. favor of anybody. 



Last summer we made and engaged in a systematic and laborous effort 

 to ascertain the value of railroad properties in Iowa. It is true that in a 

 great majority of cases the railroads themselves do not contribute anything 

 toward informing the public as to what their fair value is. Some months 

 ago the railroads themselves filed with the Interstate Commerce Commis- 

 sion a statement of their value for the purpose of rate-making. You know 

 that under the transportation act it provides that rates shall be fixed upon 

 the valuation of the railroads at such figures as would afford them a re- 

 turn of BV2 or 6 per cent, so that it became necessary for the Interstate 

 Commerce Commission to ascertain the value of the railroads of the coun- 

 try. They went down to Washington and filed certified statements as to 

 their value. I remember the Burlington railroad asserted that it was 

 worth 451 million dollars, and the Interstate Commerce Commission fixed 

 the rates upon that valuation, and you, if you are a shipper farmer, and as 

 a farmer you are a shipper, you are paying the present scale of freight 

 rates upon that valuation. When we came to make our assessment last 

 July, the whole company of railroads appeared there and I was amazed to 

 discover that they were almost all ready to go into insolvency. They 

 came down there and represented that while they had made that state- 

 ment to the Interstate Commerce Commission, it was radically too high, 

 and that the real value was something less than one-third of that amount. 

 A very interesting thing occurred. I remember the Illinois Central rail- 

 road company — and I don't speak in disparagement of it, because it is a 

 splendid company — certified to the Interstate Commerce Commission that 

 its property was worth 284 million dollars and the rates were fixed on that 

 basis. In the Ijearing before the executive council, Mr. Talbot, the tax 

 commissioner of that railroad, represented to us that it was worth less 



