574 IOWA DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE 



— and I want to say parenthetically that the principals of the 

 packers, Mr. Armour, Mr. Swift, and all of them, came and met 

 with us and spent th« entire day in conference, and they were 

 anxious and willing to give their time and their best thought to 

 our problems — but here is what happened : No one yet has rep- 

 resented the farmers wdio has made a thorough study of the 

 situation. We don't know our own business. When it comes 

 to studying these price fluctuations, and what to do to meet them, 

 w^e don't have the information, and so we come and talk with 

 the packers and we say, "Something has got to be done," but 

 w^hat do the packers reply? They say, "Why, gentlemen, we 

 are losing tremendously on our cattle ourselves." We say, "We 

 are losing $50 or $60 a head on present quotations." And they 

 say, "Gentlemen, you don't seem to realize that we also are los- 

 ing — we are losing tremendously; we have lost $15,000,000 since 

 January 1st, notwithstanding this reduction in price." What was 

 our answer to that? What is the remedy for that? We at the 

 present time do not have any sort of program at all. But what 

 are you going to do about it? We have simply talked and have 

 done nothing. If a committee of producers is going to get any- 

 where, it will have to study the game from every angle — from 

 their standpoint and from ours — and then when we meet with 

 the packers and they make an assertion we wall have the evidence 

 to check the correctness of it. And so it is we should prepare 

 to meet the packers. Some people say, "Put your cards on the 

 table," but when we get there we don't have any cards — we don't 

 know anything about the situation. 



Now, there is a certain investigational w^ork that ought to be 

 done by the producers. It is not spectacular work, at all ; it is 

 not going to be work that the members of the committee can 

 perform, but it is going to be statistical work which when worked 

 out should tell you how^ the price fluctuations should be elim- 

 inated and how your hogs and sheep are going to sell for more 

 than the price of production. You cannot do that work yourself. 

 Go hire some competent men wdio have training in statistical 

 work, and economists, and then tell them to put their very best 

 thought and time on the i:)roblem to study it from the angle of 

 the stockman — the stock producer. We will say to such a man, 

 "We will give you clerks and adding machines and money, and 

 we want you to study this from our angle, and whenever you 

 find out something that you think we ought to know about, call 

 us together and tell us wdiat the wise thing to do is." If that 



