PROCEEDINGS CORN BELT MEAT PRODUCERS' ASSN. 527 



handled twice as many cars as the highest producing firm on the market; 

 the next month we handled three times as much; the next month nearly 

 four times as much, and in the first four months we handled 236,570 head 

 of live stock, and the firm next to us handled 81,900 head. So much for 

 business! 



We handled in the first month in dollars, $502,000; the next month, 

 $788,000; the third month, $1,207,000, and the fourth month, $1,399,000, 

 or a little better than a million dollars a month. 



I am just going into these details to show you that in spite of, perhaps, 

 the greatest opposition that almost anybody or any farmers' organization 

 ever had, the farmers put it over. We had a big organization of sales- 

 men. We had to, to start, and we had more business the first week than 

 anybody else there. They said we were going broke; we couldn't pay 

 expenses. The first week we paid for our labor; the second week we 

 recovered all expenses; the third week we laid money aside, and today 

 we have $26,000 out at interest that we don't need in the business, and 

 besides this, I told you the railroad and warehouse commission estab- 

 lished a lower rate, 25 per cent lower, than the old lines wanted to charge. 

 We stepped in and accepted the railroad and warehouse commission's 

 25 per cent lower rate. If we had charged that high rate that the others 

 are charging today, we would have laid aside for the farmers of Minne- 

 sota and the other states marketing there approximately $40,000. So 

 much, then, for the business and the financial conditions. 



Now, then, how about the organization, and what benefits should the 

 farmer derive? You save a little commission, a thousand or twelve hun- 

 dred dollars a. week. That is a little something. In my opinion, the 

 greatest benefit that the farmer can develop out of these terminal mar- 

 kets, and I hope to see it within another year, is most of the large ter- 

 minals organized with co-operative marketing associations of which the 

 biggest feature is the stocker and feeder department. Sure, the old line 

 fellows went around the country; they had their men out in the country, 

 and they told the farmers that these farmers down there were weighing 

 cattle to themselves; they didn't know where these cattle were going to, 

 but they were weighing cattle to themselves. Of course, in some men's 

 minds, not understanding hcrw the thing works, there was confusion, and 

 they said, "Well, by gosh, that's funny!" Wouldn't you rather have a 

 stocker and feeder department established at Chicago to handle your 

 stocker and feeder cattle than to support 200 speculating firms? I 

 would! Wouldn't you? If you were a farmer out in the country and 

 you could develop in Chicago a bunch of salesmen in your stocker and 

 feeder department of reliable, honest men, that were absolutely checked 

 up on, were working for a salary and not for every dollar that they could 

 pull out of your pocket, wouldn't you? I don't know of a harder thing 

 for a man who wants to buy stocker and feeder cattle than to walk down 

 the alleys and have 200 people tackle you and not know what kind of 

 stuff would be pawned off onto you. I don't say all speculators are like 

 that, but all speculators have got to live, and who is supporting them? 

 I want to say that we can handle at South St. Paul all of the stockers 

 and feeders at one twenty-fifth the cost that the farmers are now paying 



