646 IOWA DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE 



The Bureau of Markets was already represented in most of the live 

 stock markets thru its market reporting organization and its representa- 

 tives so engaged were immediately instructed to perform the additional 

 duties of interpreting these regulations to the trade considering com- 

 plaints from those locally affected by the regulations, making such local 

 adjustments as were found to be within their scope of authority, and to 

 cooperate with the various factors mutually interested in the mainte- 

 nance of good service. A force of supervisors for all the other markets of 

 the country was organized as rapidly as competent men could be found, 

 and in a short time more than one hundred stock yards were licensed 

 and arranged into districts, and nearly 400 commission firms, 800 traders, 

 100 order buyers, 250 packers, and over 1,000 concerns doing two or more 

 of these classes of business had been licensed. 



The relative importance of the various abuses which have come 

 within the range of this authority vafies, but many of them have been 

 extremely serious when viewed from the standpoint of the live stock 

 producer and shipper. Licensees have been found guilty of committing 

 offenses as great as the theft of live stock, which, of course, resulted 

 in a cancellation of their license. Making false returns to shippers on 

 the part of one firm and the deliberate accumulation of a large profit from 

 its feed account on the part of another resulted early last year in the 

 distribution among live stock shippers of these two firms of approximately 

 $38,000. There are now pending in the department about twenty-three 

 cases involving a total of approximately $70,000, which amount repre- 

 sents the accumulation in feed accounts ranging from $1,000 to $13,000 

 in each case and covering a period of about sixteen months. These cases 

 involve the markets at Chicago, East St. Louis, Kansas City, Fort Worth, 

 St. Joseph, Sioux City and St. Paul. 



There are six of these cases in Chicago in which the department 

 after it had completed its investigations, reached the conclusion that 

 there had been a violation of the general regulations governing licensees 

 and that the money which had been thus acquired rightfully belonged to 

 the shippers from whose accounts it had accumulated. The department 

 realized that it did not have authority to enforce an order to restore 

 these funds to their rightful owners and that its authority consisted only 

 in the revocation of licenses, so that the conclusion was reached that the 

 ends of justice would be more properly served and sufficient punishment 

 visited upon the offenders if this money was prorated among the shippers 

 consigning stock to them during the period covered by the investigations 

 as had been done in a previous case involving this same question. No- 

 tices were sent to these firms extending to them such an overture, with 

 a statement that the alternative would be the revocation or indefinite 

 suspension of their licenses. Upon receipt of this notice, they sought the 

 aid of the federal court and enjoined the secretary of agriculture from 

 revoking their licenses or in any other manner interfering with their 

 business until the matter could be heard by the court. At this hearing, 

 the court overruled the department's motion to dismiss, but the depart- 

 ment appealed from this decision. This appeal was recently dismissed 

 and the department is now considering the whole matter with a view to 

 taking such action as will be consistent with the views of the federal 

 court. 



