PROCEEDINGS CORN BELT MEAT PRODUCERS' ASSN. 519 



What is the precedent that is wrong? Suppose we concede that it is 

 not a guarantee. Shall you adopt a rule that compels a commission, if 

 it observes the law, to make rates sufficient to produce a fixed rate of 

 return regardless of changing commercial conditions affecting other in- 

 dustries? You can not fly in the face of the laws of commerce and so- 

 ciety that affect all the rest of us. 



These resolutions were unanimously approved by the Corn Belt Meat 

 Producers' Association on that occasion. I believe that was the first 

 declaration by any men or body of men on that subject in the state of 

 Iowa. We did not stop there. We secured like action from a dozen 

 other groups. Months before that we wrote the resolution condemning 

 the law adopted at the National Shippers' Congress. Last January the 

 agricultural interests in national convention, in the National Agriculture 

 Conference, adopted resolutions of the same tenor. A friend of mine, 

 Mr. Fullbright of Texas, succeeded in getting the National Industrial 

 Traffic League, through their legislative committee to adopt a resolution 

 condemning the same law. 



I believe that it takes time for sentiment to crystallize on a new 

 issue, but finally the time is ripe; and believe that favorable action will 

 b3 taken by congress in the near future. I believe the Corn Belt Meat 

 Producers' Association, which I am now addressing, deserves the credit 

 for taking the lead in. this movement which has finally spread throughout 

 the nation. No men, no body of men, to my knoweldge, in the home state 

 of the senior senator from Iowa took this stand before you led the way. 



On that date you collectively made three prophecies and chanced your 

 judgment. Those three prophecies have come true. You stated that the 

 enactment of that law would be followed inevitably by a large and burden- 

 some advance in freight rates. That came in due season. On August 26 

 of the same year came the largest advance in the history of the country. 

 Second, you said this would also inspire and inevitably cause a heavy 

 advance in wages, and this came at about the same time when all the 

 rest of us had reduced our prices. Third, you said it would constitute a 

 dangerous precedent. 



This same thought — a paternalistic guarantee — of getting the whole of 

 us to give something to a few of us, is rapidly permeating most of the 

 industries of the nation. Each group seems to feel its own colossal im- 

 portance to the rest of society and demands government help. Today, 

 the ocean shipping industry is making the same demand. A few months 

 ago, a large group of farmers were interested in the same thing. What 

 will be the outcome of it all? Can we lift ourselves by our own boot- 

 straps? Shall we all work for the government and get our livelihood 

 from the government? Shall we all become past-masters of the gentle 

 art of sucking the public teat? The doctrines of governmental paternal- 

 ism have been fostered by the railroads as by no other industry in this 

 nation. 



Your three prophecies made in February, 1920, have been justified. 

 They have been found true. Tonight I am going to make a fourth proph- 

 ecy. It is that Section 15-a will be repealed in the near future. 



Today there is another proposition being considered which has been 

 proposed by the junior senator from Iowa, to which I am equally opposed. 



