542 TWENTY-SECOND ANNUAL YEAR BOOK— PART VII 



our desire to serve in that connection. We do not think we are spending 

 the money of all the state to benefit a certain class, when particular people 

 are doing particular things, and you can bet your boots that we are going 

 to give them all of the assistance we can, and nothing makes me feel bet- 

 ter than for the co-operative shippers to say that we have been rendering 

 them some real service in that connection. 



There is one point I want to make to this gathering growing out of our 

 experience there. I think I can state the nub of our experience in a very 

 brief way. With relatively few exceptions it is our belief that you cannot 

 have a really good, efficient local association unless that association is 

 connected with some larger, more comprehensive, if you please, overhead 

 type of organization. There are so many problems, the whole purpose of 

 the co-operative shipping movement, the entire co-operative movement, is 

 to start a process of improvement in the method of handling that busi- 

 ness; the standardization or improvement of quality, and in time the 

 equalization of shipments. That is what has made the success of all the 

 organizations which have made conspicuous success in the marketing 

 game. The local association, we have found pretty definitely, in most 

 cases moves in the opposite direction, if it is left to its own unguided 

 course, but welding those things into a strong regional organization, it is 

 possible to work out in the handling and assembling of that shipping work 

 a degree of standardization and economy, a limiting of unnecessary jobs, 

 a greater economy in the handling of finance and insurance, a reduction in 

 risks, and all of the general functions which are performed by central 

 associations in their duties, can be worked out and are in process of work- 

 ing out today with this relatively young state association; but if the 

 farmer, as we said a moment ago, is going to accomplish anything, it is 

 by having a strong representation in Washington that speaks for the 

 farmers as a group. It is going to give adequate financial service, and 

 wants not merely that efficient service at the local bank, but that over- 

 head organization which takes the surplus longer-time obligations of the 

 different banks and funds them and lends them outside of the state based 

 on Iowa agricultural security, and we propose to show that nothing can 

 be better secured than that. 



If you are going in to accomplish the considerable things, not the 

 miracles which may be accomplished through the large-scale marketing 

 under co-operative auspices, the very same thing applies and you have got 

 to operate the live stock industry as one unit in the state of Iowa, or as 

 one unit in the state of Minnesota, as Mr. McKerrow said. I wish I could 

 have the reporter turn back and read again Mr. McKerrow's remarks about 

 how the unified support of any agency is absolutely essential if it is going 

 to render service. 



And so it seems to me, gentlemen, that is the message, if I could 

 bring you any message today, that I would sum up. I think we have 

 scraped the bottom. The figures show that the readjustment, not as rap- 

 idly as we would like, very slowly in some of our principal products, yet 

 is coming; that the outlook for the future is that the farmer is getting to 

 the point where he can hold his own; that beyond that there is every 

 reason for one who studies carefully to believe that the worst is over and 



