REPORT OF IOWA FARM BUREAU FEDERATION 377 



Case Still Further Postponed I 



We suggested a rule that each kind of stock should be carried at its 

 own weight and rate. The commission said that would be a very good 

 rule if we could find the weight at the country station, and we couldn't 

 adopt that. So they told us to apply practically the highest charge which 

 would accrue on any kind of stock in the car if that car were moved in 

 straight carloads. We thought that would run about two, or three, or 

 four million dollars a year to the shippers of the country, and the order 

 was to become effective August 19. Somehow the carriers didn't like it, 

 and they came with a petition to have it reargued or reheard. The com- 

 mission said, "We will consider that and give you an answer October 

 19. Meanwhile we will postpone the effective date." About the fifth 

 of October they said they would have the case reargued. We kept work- 

 ing along hoping to get results, and finally they said they would set 

 it for January 19, and now it is postponed to February 1. 



Discriminatory Rates in the South 



I want to tell you something about the livestock down in the southeast. 

 Here in Iowa you have had a mileage scale for thirty-four years, but the 

 railroads didn't do business that way down there. They made the rates 

 low at competitive points and high elsewhere. Where a railroad com- 

 peted with them a low rate was in effect, and all points between gotj 

 a high rate. Those rates were established in 1891 and had not been 

 changed except for the general increases since that time. In 1915-16 the 

 Interstate Commerce Commission began to press the carriers to get 

 rates on some kind of reasonable basis, and they have been working on 

 that since. 



About the first of last year the carriers filed some tariffs proposing 

 rates on livestock which purported to comply with the decisions of the 

 commission. We made an examination of these proposed tariffs and 

 found that they represented increases running from 45 to 95 per cent. 

 County Farm Bureaus, State Farm Bureaus, state commissions, livestock 

 exchanges, individual shippers, the American Farm Bureaus, all went 

 to Washington with their protests. We got those tariffs postponed; had 

 a hearing on it at Louisville on September 12. We got a provision of 

 a two-for-one rule which we had never had in the South. We got a pro- 

 vision on minimum weights that was low, 16,000 on hogs, and in addition 

 we got a set of rates which iron out the inequalities, and we defeated 

 the increases they were after. 



One thing more on that: It was the unanimous testimony of all the 

 people who worked together in that case, and we had representatives 

 of the packers, of the livestock exchanges, the state commissions, and 

 of the various state organizations, it was the unanimous testimony of 

 all those people that it was the work of the Farm Bureau that put the 

 thing over. 



Problems of Freight Car Distribution 

 The thing that stands out largest in the minds of the people this year 

 is the matter of car service. I don't need to tell you that we had a car 

 shortage. People asked where the cars were. Every state seemed to 



