TWENTIETH ANNUAL YEAR BOOK— PART VII 651 



Mr. Bray : I couldn't say whether or not it would be possible. 



The Chairman: Would it have been probable, then? 



Mr. Bray : I think there was some difficulty with regard to 

 the authority of the live stock exchanges to make some such in- 

 vestigation. Am I right about that, Mr. Stryker? 



Mr. Stryker (Omaha Live Stock Exchange) : With your per- 

 mission, Mr. Chairman! Speaking for our organization, I want 

 to thank Mr. Bray for the clearance given the Omaha market. 

 We have absolute power and authority to investigate the books 

 of any of our members where complaints are made of dishonest 

 practices. If any shipper to the Omaha market — I speak of 

 Omaha because I don't know in detail the rules of the other mar- 

 kets — if any shipper to the Omaha market feels that he has been 

 aggrieved, he will come to me or my office and I will guarantee 

 to show him every detail of every transaction with which he has 

 been connected on the market, and if any irregularities show up, 

 then our organization will punish, and punish more severely than 

 can the Bureau of Markets, the derelict member. Unfortunate- 

 ly, we cannot keep everybody clean. There is a bad egg in many 

 cases, and with them we do our best. We found a bad egg on 

 our market a number of years ago, and the Bureau of Markets 

 might have revoked the license of the firm. We did more than 

 that, we expelled him from membership ; we canceled their mem- 

 bership, and we have prevented any of our members from em- 

 ploying those expelled people. We don't propose to allow on 

 our market any man who has been convicted of dishonest con- 

 duct, or to remain in business. Now, once more reiterating my 

 answer to you, Mr. Bray, we have the machinery for investi- 

 gating any complaint made either by the Bureau of Markets or 

 any shipper to our market on any transaction occurring thereon, 

 and we shall be glad to invoke the aid of that machinery wher- 

 ever matters, or little bad spots, are called to our attention. 

 (Applause.) 



Mr. Stafford (Chicago Exchange) : In answer to that gen- 

 tleman's question — those two firms. are out of business and always 

 will be out of business, and no members of those firms are em- 

 ployed by any other concern. I want to say further that our 

 exchange has the same machinery that Mr. Stryker tells you of 

 Omaha. 



I would like to ask Mr. Bray if he didn't find in the Chicago 

 market a very substantial number of firms that their feed ac- 



