PROCEEDINGS CORN BELT MEAT PRODUCERS' ASSN. 593 



Q. What is your attitude toward these tax-free securities? 



A. That is a personal matter that doesn't interest the crowd here. 



Q. I mean your company ? 



A. We won't take any stand on the proposition. As a personal 

 matter, I think there are too many of them. If you shut off the tax- 

 free feature, you will have to pay more interest for your towns and 

 counties to get money. 



Q. Maybe we wouldn't spend so much then. 



A. That would be a good thing, then, if you didn't spend so 

 much. 



Q. I would like to ask how a man could finance himself in se- 

 curing young stock. Would he have to give a mortgage on his 

 stock? If he should, suppose in the meantime that stock should 

 probably be changed two or three times. Do you have to pay off 

 one mortgage when you sell your stock and then get a new loan or 

 can you extend that over a given period of time ? 



A. Now, you know that as well as I do, I think. You know 

 that is a feature of the banking business in this state; that is very 

 intricate and has been the cause of great loss, not only to the men 

 who borrow but the banks that lend. For that reason, we have 

 decided, so far as the present management of this company is con- 

 cerned, that loans on live stock of that kind must be made through 

 the bank, because loans of that kind, to be safe and conservative — 

 and that is the kind of company we will be — must have men close 

 to it to keep track of it. I have loaned several hundred thousand 

 dollars on live stock, and, believe me, I could tell you stories until 

 midnight of what we have to go through on that proposition, and 

 some of you men have had actual experience on the other end. In 

 the past two years the banks of this state have taken large loss, and 

 the men who bought the cattle have taken large losses. I regard 

 the cattle-feeding business as a profession. One man you could 

 safely lend to for feeding purposes, while his neighbor, as good a 

 moral risk as the other, would not be such a good proposition. I 

 have loaned money to two men on adjoining farms, and each of 

 them has put in two or three loads of steers on his farm, and one 

 of them has made money while the other one has lost, and they are 

 good grain farmers. The cattle-feeding business is a profession; 

 you can not pick it up over night, and you can not go into it and 

 make money the first year; it is going to be an expensive lesson 

 for somebody to get a man started. That is one of the great troubles 



38 



