604 IOWA DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE 



must protect the just rights of labor if you don't expect to have an up- 

 heaval in this country like you have witnessed in other nations. It is 

 something that cannot be guessed off; and I have noticed that the author 

 of that bill that passed the senate has subsequently crossed it out of the 

 bill. 



The labor question is going to be an issue, probably, in the coming 

 presidential campaign. I do not have the solution and I am not going to 

 try to give it to you. There are other questions that I have been worrying 

 with that I am going to give you my conclusions about before I get 

 through. Your questions on the farm, I think, may be properly divided 

 up into two great classes: First, what are the most efficient methods of 

 production; and, second, what is the best way of disposing of and dis- 

 tributing those products? One problem is just as big and important as 

 the other. I don't think I can be of much help to you on the first class; 

 I cannot show you folks how to farm most efficiently, because I am not 

 . an agriculturalist. Judge Ben Lindsay tells a little incident that hap- 

 pened in Denver some time ago, that I heard related. A minister was 

 trying to find the postoffice, but without much success, and he asked a 

 newsboy to show him the way. The newsboy showed the preacher the 

 way to the postoffice, and after this favor had been performed. Instead 

 of being generous and buying a newspaper or giving the youngster a 

 nickel, or something, he said to the boy: "I'm going to preach over In 

 that tabernacle tomorrow night, and my topic is going to be, 'The Way 

 to Heaven.' I would like to have you come around and hear me." The 

 boy looked him over and replied: "Oh, shucks, a man that can't find 

 his way to the postoffice would have a hell of a time showing me the 

 way to heaven." (Laughter.) I don't think I could assist you much by 

 trying to show you the way to farm. 



On the other group of problems — efficient methods of distribution and 

 marketing — there are many questions and phases: legal, economic, etc., 

 that arise. You folks have employed an attorney who is expected to 

 wrestle with these questions that affect the industry as a whole as they 

 arise throughout the year, and I have been trying to do that for a good 

 many years. It is my duty to make a report to you of what has been 

 done, and what is pending. You are entitled to know what I have tried 

 to do. In that connection I want to refer for a few moments to the very 

 interesting and remarkable address that I have just listened to by Mr. 

 Wallace. His portrayal of the necessity of a research bureau along eco- 

 nomic lines illustrates the frame of mind that I was in when I went to 

 Chicago, with regard to transportation. I felt that the public, in going 

 Into controversies involving railroads, were handicapped because of in- 

 adequate facilities. At that time, I am safe in saying, there wasn't one 

 attorney trying commerce cases in the United States, outside of the em- 

 ploy of railroads, that had a rate and statistical department working 

 under his direction; and, on the other hand, there wasn't an attorney 

 for one important railroad in the United States that didn't have an or- 

 ganization of that very character under his direction. The result was 

 that when these controversies arose, one side came forward with elab- 

 orate statistical demonstrations of the conclusions for which they were 



