378 TWENTY-THIRD ANNUAL YEAR BOOK— PART V 



be obsessed with the idea that some one else had its cars. The com- 

 plaints came from the Dakotas, from Illinois, from Iowa, Ohio and from 

 Nebraska. You people loaded your cars and they went east. The people 

 of Illinois load their cars and they go east. The people of Nebraska 

 •load cars and they go east. Sometimes as much as 70 per cent of the 

 business is east-bound, and nothing to bring it back. On October 1 the 

 figures showed that box cars on some of the lines in the eastern sections 

 were 80 per cent in excess of cars owned, while in this section they were 

 13 per cent less than the cars owned. Somebody down there had the 

 cars, and one of the things we did was to press the American Railway 

 Association and the Interstate Commerce Commission to get those cars 

 back home where they belong. 



The peak of car ownership came in April, 1920, with approximately 

 2,300,000 cars. We have today 76,000 less cars in the country than there 

 were at that time. Actually less cars with more business to handle. 

 Further, if you put it on the basis of serviceable cars, the latest figures 

 indicate that we are about 212,000 cars short of what we were two and 

 one-half years ago. 



In January, 1922, we were loading about 650,000 to 700,000 cars a week. 

 For about ten weeks last fall we were loading in excess of 950,000 

 cars a week. Another thing: The average weight per car fell off a ton 

 in a year. Now, a ton doesn't look very large but when you multiply 

 it by a million cars a week, you will see that we are using a lot more 

 cars than we ought to. 



Will Push Marketing Projects This Year 

 Marketing is our big problem for next year. Marketing is the farmer's 

 critical problem. This whole thing of transportation can be solved in 

 one of two ways. Farm prices and transportation costs are out of joint. 

 If we can get farm prices up, or transportation costs down, put them 

 in better relationship, then we have got the answer. The transportation 

 department is working on one end in getting transportation costs down, 

 while our marketing activities are getting the farmer's prices up. We 

 don't propose to take any chances by only working one end. Further, 

 our transportation work is trying to dovetail into the marketing work at 

 every possible angle. 



It is only fair that we should do this. If we try to get cars for a co- 

 operative livestock shippers' association, isn't it only fair that the ship- 

 ping association should patronize the Producers' Company at the terminal 

 market? We have written a letter to co-operators in which we say: 

 "We have gotten you these cars — do you intend to ship to the Pro- 

 ducers?" We are waiting to see what the results will be. Play fair, 

 that's the thought. 



ECONOMIC AND POLITICAL CO-OPERATION 

 BY SENATOR BROOKHART 



I think if there was any incident in my life that distinctly started me 

 on the road to the United States Senate it occurred in this room three 

 years ago at the State Farm Bureau convention. I came down here to 



