PROCEEDINGS CORN BELT MEAT PRODUCERS' ASSN. 503 



20 per cent where they exceeded 50 cents a hundred, and no reduction in 

 rates where the rates didn't exceed 50 cents per hundred. Now, just what 

 changed the minds of the commission after this first statement was issued 

 by the examiner who heard this case, and who was in full sympathy with 

 it, and still stands by his guns? 



Then we went to the railroad officials, and as I referred to here, a con- 

 ference was called and this whole matter was laid before them, with the 

 hope that we would yet secure in the corn-belt territory at least some re- 

 duction — if not the full 20 per cent that we contended for, they would at 

 ieast give us some reduction in rates; but they refused to do it. Then we 

 again appealed to the Interstate Commerce Commission for a reopening 

 of the case on the grounds of discrimination against this section of the 

 United States, and the case was argued on that ground on the 8th day of 

 November, I believe, and up to the present there has been no supplemental 

 decision rendered in the case. 



That is the situation that we are confronted with. We can not account 

 for it. Nobody can account for why it was that there wasn't a reduction 

 in our rates, because when the advances were made they were uniform 

 advances of 35 per cent. The advance was made upon the live stock 

 shippers here in Iowa just the same as it was made on the people west 

 of the Missouri river, but when the reductions came, there was a reduction 

 for the shippers west of the Missouri river — that is, after you get out 

 about 100 miles, but no reduction east of that to the Chicago market. 



Minimum on Hogs in Iowa 



In the meantime, the railroads had appealed from an order of the Iowa 

 commission restoring the sixteen thousand pound minimum on cars of 

 hogs shipped to points within the state, and the case was heard by the 

 Iowa Board of Railroad Commissioners in January. In this case, your 

 organization was represented by Judge Henderson and your president, 

 and a number of witnesses representing both the Corn Belt and the Co- 

 operative Shippers, who gave valuable testimony in the case. 



In due time the commission handed down its decision again establishing 

 the sixteen thousand pound minimum as the standard on hogs within the 

 state. 



From this decision, the carriers appealed to the Interstate Commerce 

 Commission on the grounds of discrimination against interstate traffic, and 

 this case was heard by an examiner for the commission in Des Moines on 

 October 30, and no decision in the case has yet been announced by that 

 body. 



Just a little explanation concerning the minimum weights on hogs to 

 points within the state. In 1912, this organization conducted one of the 

 most exhaustive hearings ever held before the Iowa commission, which 

 lasted an entire week, and that question involved only state rates, and 

 wrhen the decision was rendered by the Iowa commission it established 

 a 16,000-pound car as the standard weight on cars of hogs shipped to 

 points within the state. That minimum prevailed up until about the close 

 of the war, when the regional director of railroads decided that these mini- 

 mums should be uniform. Iowa had a 17,000-pound minimum on interstate 

 business, and the railroad administration, by order, advanced the mini- 



