TWENTIETH ANNUAL YEAR BOOK— PART VII 661 



cars promptly the death loss is heavy. We took 700 double-deck cars 

 from the eastern territory and ran them into Montana. The frost and 

 snow was beginning to fall, and you know what that means. We pun- 

 ished some of the eastern people, and we may have punished some of 

 you gentlemen somewhat — I think perhaps we did. We found the same 

 conditions prevailing in Colorado and Utah and Wyoming — a great short- 

 age of double-decks. It would have been utterly impossible to have 

 moved the great herds of sheep that were available for market from these 

 long-haul districts to the market points in single-decks. If we had under- 

 taken to move them in single-decks the whole country would have been 

 swamped, it was so short of equipment, and so we robbed the eastern 

 territory, we robbed some of the southern regions, the southwestern re- 

 gions, and we ran cars out there as rapidly as possible, with the result 

 that we cleaned the situation up pretty fair — not good. The next thing to 

 be done was to ship cattle from Montana, Dakota, Wyoming and Idaho 

 into Texas and New Mexico. Now, at that season of the year when every- 

 body is shipping stock from the ranges and passes, taking stock cars 

 out of their natural channels and moving them into Texas where they 

 weren't wanted, robbed you gentlemen and everybody else in the terri- 

 tory from having a shuttle train service from the producing fields to the 

 market, and it took a long time to get those cars back into the field of 

 production. 



I only make this explanation, gentlemen, to show you what the rail- 

 road administration tried to do to save the threatened live stock by fur- 

 nishing equipment, and you gentlemen no doubt have had burdens just as 

 serious to carry. I was talking with some gentlemen of your associa- 

 tion this morning, and they explained that they had placed orders for cars 

 a week more or less and then finally didn't get them, and then somebody 

 said that Swift & Company came in and got some live stock and they 

 got cars, and those men were wondering whether the railroad administra- 

 tion was responsible for that condition. I want to answer you as plainly 

 as I know how. The railroad administration in Washington only acts in 

 cases of emergency; they don't have the facts, nor can they intelligently 

 instruct the federal manager or the superintendent in the distributing of 

 cars on any individual railroad. The same men today are operating 

 the railroads that operated them before the government took them over. 

 I think Mr. Sykes is familiar with that. 



And many of you gentlemen; but in cases of emergency, just as I 

 just illustrated, we may take cars arbitrarily from one division or one 

 region to another to help out and clean up where it is possible to do so. 



I might go on and talk about cars and service indefinitely, but I am 

 not going to take up any more of your time on that subject. I want to 

 say as a friend that I think the time is here when you gentlemen should 

 get closer to the packer, both big and little. He is the manufacturer of 

 your product; you are the producer of the greatest commodity under the 

 sun; you are entitled to be kept healthy and make a profit on your in- 

 vestment. That is also true of the packer. If he doesn't make money 

 he won't buy your stock and manufacture it for the retailer who delivers 

 it to the consumer. Everybody throughout the United States is co- 

 operating, getting together, getting information, statistics and facts to 



