SEVENTEENTH ANNUAL YEAR BOOK— PART VII 423 



preferred stockholders of the Langdon-Boyd Company were paid off. 



In the early stages of the promotion, the farmers had accepted the 

 whole proposition without question. But ugly rumors as to the true 

 value of the plant had begun to float around, and at one of the meetings 

 of the board, the question was raised as to what the plant was really 

 worth. Boyd then produced a person by the name of R. A. Hall, of 

 Grand Rapids, Iowa. Hall claimed to be an efficiency expert. He was 

 employed to value the plant. The report which he turned in was one 

 of the neatest bits of typewriting I have ever seen in my life, and his 

 figures placed the value of the plant up to $140,345.62! Two real estate 

 men of La Crosse and a mechanical engineer or two also corroborated 

 Mr. Boyd's original valuation. In this way the farmers were silenced, 

 the deal was officially approved, and everything went thru. And in 

 this way, something like $100,000 of the farmers' money was lost thru 

 false valuation. In contemplating this transaction, I am tempted to 

 ask: Where are the Wallingfords of yesterday? 



The board then proceeded to elect Andy Boyd as manager of the 

 new plant. Boyd selected a man named C E. De Moss as superin- 

 tendent, and the two of them undertook to carry on the business for 

 the farmers which Boyd was not able to make pay under his own own- 

 ership. 



Now where did the money go? 



Of the $265,000 which was raised thru the sale of stock, $122,914.39 

 was paid to the Langdon-Boyd Company. Promoter Price received 

 $37,814.52. It was also found necessary the first year to spend $11,314.20 

 in additions and improvements in order to make the plant work at all. 



(Within ten months after the plant was started, Boyd and De Moss 

 had permitted over 277,300 pounds of meat to spoil in the cooling room. 

 In one lot alone there was $40,000 worth of meat. I do not see how 

 any man attending to his business at a packing plant should not have 

 been aware that his temperatures were wrong, and that the money of 

 the farmers was getting away. From this cause and from other ir- 

 regularities in management and mistakes in purchases of live stock, and 

 in re-sales of live stock at times when the plant could not handle the 

 supply, the Boyd management had lost, by the end of the year 1915, 

 $71,602.34 in operating expenses. In this waj% $243,645.56 of the farmers' 

 money vanished. Now, if collections on stockholders' notes had been 

 good, the plant would have had a little more than $21,000 working capi- 

 tal; but collections did not come in as fast as the management might 

 hope, and the company was forced to operate on practically no working 

 capital of its own, and upon a maximum loan of $15,000 which it could 

 secure from the National Bank of La Crosse. In 1916, the plant was 

 forced to spend $11,154.17 in improvements, and, despite the careful 

 management of Manager D. H. Baker, who was placed in charge, the 

 plant lost $3,263.52 in the operating period of November 1, 1915, to 

 December 31, 1916. In this way do we account for $258,063.15 of the 

 farmers' money. It may be well to draw the curtain at this particular 

 point. 



