TWENTY-FIRST ANNUAL YEAR BOOK— PART VII 531 



fluenced by the receipts of that particular grade and to what extent 

 cattle prices as a whole move together for all grades. 



To be used in connection with those figures as to receipts of cattle, 

 certain information was thought desirable from the packers to throw more 

 light on the situation in the yards as to the buying and selling, and also 

 as furnishing a basis for conclusions as to what were the packers' results 

 in handling certain grades of cattle. The matter of getting this informa- 

 tion was taken up with one or two of the packing firms separately, and 

 was afterwards taken up thru the Institute of American Packers at the 

 suggestion of the packer representatives, in order that it might be ob- 

 tained from more sources and be more representative. A schedule of the 

 desired information was made out and sent to Mr. Dudley, of the institute, 

 who took up the task of finding out whether the packers would be willing 

 to give the information in the form desired or in a fairly similar form. 

 These negotiations dragged along for some time, and resulted in one or 

 two conferences that brought no results; the packers were inclined to 

 doubt whether the information could be obtained in such a manner as to 

 be useful, and were perhaps suspicious of the use that it might be intended 

 to make of it. Finally, with the transfer of Mr. Dudley to New York, the 

 attempt to settle the matter in this way was given up and it was decided 

 to approach it from another direction. 



During the various conferences in other places, the representatives of 

 the packers had rather insisted that this was a matter to come before a 

 representative joint committee of packers and producers, and expressed 

 the desire that it be held up until after the appointment by the president 

 of the American Farm Bureau Federation of a producers' committee to 

 sit with a committee representing the packing interests — the producer 

 members of the former producers-packers joint committee having made 

 the recommendation that this matter should be turned over to the Farm 

 Bureau. 



But after some discussion among the officers of the Corn Belt Asso- 

 ciation and the heads of the Iowa Farm Bureau, the conclusion was 

 reached that there was little good to come from such a joint committee 

 of packers and producers unless the latter had some assurance from the 

 former that they could get such information as to the packing end of the 

 industry as would enable them to sit in a joint conference with all the 

 information needed to back up their contentions — that there was little to 

 be gained where they had to accept the statements of the other side 

 without some means of checking them up. It was also thought that if 

 any good was to come from such an attempt that the work of such a 

 joint committee must be carried on in much different fashion than was 

 that of the former joint committee. That the time for "let's get together, 

 boys, and talk things over in a friendly way, and learn what fine fel- 

 lows we are and how interested we are in you" type of conference was 

 past; that what is needed is more of a meeting of technical experts — men 

 who know the industry in all of its aspects, and who can meet with some- 

 thing like an equality of organized information and tactical situation; 

 that the relations between producers and packers are industrial and eco- 

 nomic and not social, and that they should be considered exclusively from 

 the industrial and economic aspects. 



