PROCEEDINGS CORN BELT MEAT PRODUCERS' ASSN. 571 



big subject and it can be discussed at great length, but it seems there 

 must be some way out for the farmers so that they will brighten up and 

 feel encouraged to buckle up their belts another notch and begin to buy. 

 When 40 per cent of our population begins to buy, it is going to start the 

 factories, and the persons taken on emplyoment there will turn their 

 wages back into food products and other necessities and one end will 

 help the other, and gradually we will get the whole circle going and 

 prosperity restored to this country. 



There are two proposed solutions of this problem — take your choice. 

 There is a possibility that both of them will be worked out side by side. 

 But before the farmers can see much hope for agriculture, there must be 

 some reduction in farmers' costs, such as railroad rates. We are told 

 that the railroads of the country are today paying for help more than 

 their total income before the war. According to official reports before 

 the war the railroads of this country were paying for labor one and one- 

 half billion dollars a year, which is an average of fifteen dollars for every 

 man, woman and child in the United States. At the close of the war wages 

 had gone up rapidly, but were then' raised still higher, until they reached 

 a point above three and one-half billion dollars a year. The railroads, 

 therefore, were paying more than double what they had paid before the 

 war — they were paying two billion dollars more than they had paid, and 

 that two billion dollars means about twenty dollars for every man, woman 

 and child in the United States every year. 



The railroads have made thousands of changes in their tariff rates, 

 and, thanks to the efforts of the farmers' organizations, some of those 

 changes have been very much to the advantage of the farmers; but until 

 railroad labor is willing to stand by the farmer and with the farmer, and 

 with the business man generally, and accept their share of this deflation, 

 we will be up against an exceedingly hard proposition. (Applause.) My 

 friends, they are good fellows; they are splendid men — they are just 

 looking out for themselves, as is perfectly natural, and I do not know 

 what influence will be brought to bear to bring them into line. But they 

 are not the only ones. Some business men must do better, and there 

 are others who are holding on just as tenaciously to their war income. 

 The miners haven't come down much yet, and some of the men in the 

 trades. They are all good fellows, but they don't see it right, and I do 

 not know anything that can be brought to bear upon them so effectively 

 as public opinion. Why is it that the armament conference is a success? 

 I think it is very largely due to the splendid leadership of President Hard- 

 ing and Secretary Hughes, but it is chiefly because of the public opinion 

 of this country and other countries which is centered upon it almost to 

 a man (applause), and the air vibrates to that fact, and they respond to 

 it. Why was it we didn't have a railroad strike a few weeks ago? Vari- 

 ous explanations may be given, but the real explanation was that the per- 

 sons concerned on both sides of the question knew absolutely that the 

 American people would not tolerate it, and so there was no strike. 



And once in a while we have to become aroused to such situations and 

 develop a public opinion and in fairness and kindness press home the 

 fact that we must all work together in this period of rehabilitation, in 



