TWENTIETH ANNUAL YEAR BOOK— PART VII 659 



he is one of the men that we look on as a railroad man who is 

 really the friend of the stockman. I don't know how we can pay 

 a higher compliment to him than that. 



ADDRESS BY J. L. HARRIS, UNITED STATES RAILROAD ADMIN- 

 ISTRATION. 



Mr. Chairman, Members, and Gentlemen: I assure you that it affords 

 me great pleasure to be with you, and I want to say that last year when 

 I was invited out by your president I thought he felt sorry for me and 

 wanted to get me out of Washington for a few days. The high cost of 

 living and a few other things being responsible, got me out here and got 

 me into trouble the first thing. (Laughter.) After I had met with the 

 members of the association and they had told me some of your troubles, 

 I couldn't imagine that all that had been said was true, and yet, after 

 I got into it with Mr. Sykes and this committee that came to Chicago, I 

 found not only that what they had said was true, but much more — the 

 half had not been told. 



I am going to ramble a little bit, remembering what Mr. Bray has 

 just said, what Mr. Thorne said yesterday, and particularly a few things 

 that I have in mind from knowledge and acquaintance at Washington, of 

 which, in a measure, I want to warn you gentlemen. I have been in the 

 live stock business all my life as a feeder and a shipper, and a railroad 

 representative, and for the past eighteen or twenty months I have been 

 in Washington trying to represent the best I could the people of the 

 United States in behalf of the railroad administration. While down 

 there I came in contact with our good friend Mr. Heinemann, meeting 

 him almost daily, and I had the serious misfortune of rooming with him 

 and eating with him during a part of this time, and I want to take this 

 opportunity and chance of telling you that you have no better friend 

 under the sun than Mr. Heinemann. (Applause.) He fought your battles 

 every day and every hour in the day. I don't think there is a man today 

 living that knows more about the rates and the application of the same, 

 and the minimums and the various phases of handling live stock than 

 he does. My work in Washington with the administration was that of 

 trying to give relief to you gentlemen in behalf of the railroad admin- 

 istration. After we had completed a study of the rules which have been 

 published and became effective in the month of December, I was retained 

 by the railroad administration to do just such things as you gentlemen 

 had already complained of, that is, namely, at Chicago we had a very 

 nice family meeting and found you needed help. We held our meeting 

 on a Friday and on Saturday telegraphic instructions were issued to all 

 of the roads in the central west and northwestern regions instructing 

 those gentlemen on individual lines — federal managers particularly — how 

 to schedule their trains, how to save shrinkage and feed, and how they 

 should arrive at the market points with a view of getting into and on the 

 market by 8 a. m. Previous to the time this meeting was called and 

 investigation made, the average was less than 45 per cent of the total 

 receipts unloaded by 8 a. m., leaving 60 per cent to be broke out and 



