524 TWENTY-SECOND ANNUAL YEAR BOOK— PART VII 



of stock a year, veal calves, a few hogs, and some canner cows, and so on, 

 is not a man that keeps in touch with the market. I can show you many a 

 community that formerly maintained two, three, and sometimes four local 

 stock buyers who bought from the farmer his cutter cow that might have 

 been a canner at from ten to twenty dollars less than she would have 

 Drought on the market. That condition started the co-operative shipping 

 association. We talk about Litchfield, Minn., as the first shipping asso- 

 ciation locality, I went into the hotel there one day, and the hotel man 

 didn't know who I was. I said: "Well, how is the local shipping associa- 

 tion getting on?" "Oh, I don't know," he replied; "pretty good, I guess; 

 but I don't like it very well." "Well, why not?" I asked, and he said, "You 

 know, I used to be able to slip out here in the country and buy a veal calf 

 or a hog, withoift much trouble, but now when I go out to buy something 

 from these darn farmers he says to me, 'I don't know what the market is, 

 but I know I will get what«it is worth by shipping through the local ship- 

 ping association, so I guess I'll ship.' " That's a pretty good indication of 

 the work being done by that co-operative association. And from that 

 nucleus the local shipping association has grown until today 80 per cent 

 of the live stock marketed through South St. Paul goes through the local 

 shipping associations. It has grown from the little producer to the larger 

 producer, and it has developed, as I say, most satisfactorily, and I am 

 hoping to see the time when every Middle West farm will market its live 

 stock through the co-operative shipping association — not necessarily that 

 you shippers that are shipping carloads of hogs or cattle will get more 

 money for those certain carloads, but because this foundation of co-opera- 

 tive marketing is bound to grow and is going to be a factor still further 

 than merely the few benefits that might be gained through that local in- 

 stitution. 



There are many detailed problems with reference to the local asso- 

 ciation that I might go into, but I am not going to do it. We have a good 

 state organization; we have a state organization, in my opinion, that has 

 been one of the most tremendous forces for good of any farmers' associa- 

 tion in the state of Minnesota. Now, why? Because they took an interest 

 in the matter of service as a state organization, with the railroads, with 

 the local yard service. Then we went on to the state legislature, and I 

 just want to mention a few things that we accomplished through the 

 state legislature. Today our state Farm Bureau has become a great 

 force in Minnesota. We have got a coalition of the Farm Bureau and 

 the shippers' association, working hand in hand, the state shippers' asso- 

 ciation being the commodity organization for live stock. Now, just a 

 few things. You heard this morning that the packer control bill was 

 passed. Better than nothing — a good bill, a good start, but, in my 

 opinion, it is not enough. During the hearing in Chicago, ten days ago, 

 '• I had the opportunity of saying what I thought of it, and I will repeat 

 that the bill is a good bill, but it doesn't have teeth enough in it to pro- 

 tect the live stock producers of this country. We went before our state 

 legislature in Minnesota with our troubles. Well, this matter of hog 

 troughs doesn't make much difference, perhaps, in the yards. For a 

 time we had hog troughs in our yards for hogs, and then the companies 



