PROCEEDINGS CORN BELT MEAT PRODUCERS' ASSN. 525 



tore them out; said they didn't want them. Our shipping association 

 went to the legislature, after having figured — not blindly, but having 

 figures on our shipments showing that when the troughs were taken out 

 we were paying for more corn and that the surplus corn would have 

 amounted to $5,000 a year, while at the same time we got less value out 

 of the hogs to which we fed the larger amount of corn, so we passed a 

 bill providing that hog troughs should be put back in the stock yards, 

 and we got them, and we have them in today, and I think we are going 

 to have them in right along. 



We had passed thru the same periods that every other market, or 

 practically so, has gone through at which you market your product. We 

 found that whenever the commission merchants wanted to raise their 

 rates, they didn't ask the men that pay the bill, but they simply went 

 ahead and put in the rates. Whenever the stock yards company wanted 

 to raise the price of corn or hay or yardage, they didn't ask the producer 

 to sit in with them and consider that problem, but they raised their 

 prices. Our shippers went before the legislature and said that the time 

 had arrived when we must have a board of arbitration in Minnesota that 

 will settle these problems, determine a fair rate on feed and on commis- 

 sion charges, and we passed the bill, which is under the jurisdiction of 

 the railroad and warehouse commission. Well, then, in the natural 

 course of events, of course, would come the court procedure that you 

 farmers all know from experience is the resort of those who don't want 

 to have these things go through. Two years ago the bill was passed, and 

 we are going through a series of court proceedings. The first thing was 

 when the commission lowered the commission charges, and the first case 

 was brought under the claim that the yards were under the supervision 

 of the federal government, and that case went along and was decided 

 last April. The Lever act went out of effect on March 3, so federal con- 

 trol ended at that time. Then the commission established the rates — 

 and the law provides for reasonable rates. Well, they took it to court 

 on the word "reasonable," and it is still in court. (Laughter.) It is the 

 same way with feed. We are paying $1.25 a bushel for corn up in Minne- 

 sota. You aren't paying any less in Chicago or Sioux City. We have 

 faith in winning both of these cases. We, still further, have other liti- 

 gation pending, but I am not going to go any further into that situation, 

 but this is what happened: Our farmers got tired of going through the 

 series of court proceedings and fighting every step of the way; they 

 believed that too many people were engaged in the commission business 

 on account of the high rates, and as long as the commission merchants 

 were not willing to take a fair rate of commission charges when the 

 producers' live stock had dropped 10, 20, 30, 50, 75, 100 per cent, that they 

 were going to see if they couldn't operate and do their own business 

 more efficiently than supporting the enormous amount of men that were 

 living on the live stock producers, and about that same time the Com- 

 mittee of Fifteen was appointed; but our asscoiation went ahead and 

 orgsnized and organized on practically the same plans as the report of 

 the Committee of Fifteen. 



Now I want just briefly to tell you of our organization, for the piorpn.?'? 

 of trying to convince the farmers and the Com Belt Meat H-qcsucv.'^' 



