516 TWENTY-THIRD ANNUAL YEAR BOOK— PART VII 



Second, you have for the first time in the history of the United 

 States enacted packer legislation seeking to control and regulate cer- 

 tain activities of the packing industry — another epoch-making event m 

 American industry. 



Third, you have helped in securing the first general reduction in 

 freight rates that has ever been made in the history of American railroad- 

 ing, a reduction aggregating $400,000,000 in amount. 



Fourth, you helped to secure the reopening of the Pittsburgh plus 

 case before the Federal Trade Commission, that involves the whole struc- 

 ture of prices on steel, which is one of the basic commodities in our 

 industrial life. 



Fifth, you have witnessed the organization of an agricultural bloc in 

 congress that has challenged the attention of the whole nation to the 

 problems and needs of agriculture such as never existed before. 



Sixth, you have helped in obtaining funds for the gathering of news 

 concerning the agricultural industry in all parts of the world, such as 

 other forms of business have obtained in the past. 



Seventh, you helped to defeat the sales tax. 



Eighth, you are now crystallizing the great co-operative and credit 

 agencies which will aid the farmers in selling their products collectively 

 in a more sane and businesslike way. 



This is a day of organization. That is the great lesson that you must 

 learn as a result of the experiences of the past few years. If it is right 

 for those men who sell your grain to unite and fix the prices they shall 

 charge for that service (and they have been sustained by the supreme 

 court of the United States, by the way), if it is right for those who sell 

 your live stock to do likewise in a certain degree, if it is right for the 

 great steel companies to unite in one large company handling 50 per cent 

 of the steel of the nation, if it is right for the railroads of America to 

 unite in one great institution representing 90 per cent of the railroad 

 mileage of the nation, then it is right for the farmers of America to 

 unite in a few powerful institutions which will safeguard their interests. 



The farmers have been trying to speak collectively during the past 

 few years on several important questions. I am going to talk about one 

 somewhat more extensively than I have these few propositions that I 

 have just listed. On February 20, 1920 — almost three years ago — I had 

 the temerity to propose to this association a resolution condemning cer- 

 tain provisions in a railroad measure then being championed by a life- 

 long friend of mine, who at that time chanced to be the senior senator 

 from Iowa, a man of commanding position nationally and the chairman 

 of the senate committee on interstate commerce, probably the highest 

 position on commerce matters in the United States. 



Tonight I shall propose that you adopt a resolution condemning in 

 equally positive and unqualified terms a position taken by the junior 

 senator from Iowa. 



The declaration you made in 1920 was in no uncertain terms. Listen 

 to the closing paragraph concerning certain sections of the Cummins- 

 Esch law. It won't take but just a few moments. I have the resolution 

 here. I believe I will read more than the closing paragraph. I think this 



