PROCEEDINGS CORN BEET MEAT PRODUCERS' ASSN. 521 



will have to be made as the needs shall be demonstrated, but the entire 

 law must not be repealed. Let's don't use a shotgun or a blunderbu.3, 

 let's use a modern rifle. We are after big game. 



There has grown up in my life a sort of a habit, a kind of a custom 

 for me to come here with this group of people from the homes and 

 farms scattered over the state of Iowa, annually. I have come out here in 

 order to review the work of the preceding year as counsel for the Corn 

 Belt Association, to take stock of the situation, and to lay plans for the 

 future. We have come together for this purpose practically every year for 

 the past fifteen years except while I was a member of the state railroad 

 commission. This enables you to make an appraisal of the work of the 

 year, to consider whether it was worth while, and whether the positions 

 taken by your representative met with your approval. It enabled me to 

 come in personal contact with you collectively, to learn your viewpoint, 

 your conditions, and to receive your orders. 



Tonight I shall make my last report as attorney for the Corn Belt 

 Meat Producers. I am no longer your attorney. I resigned that position 

 last April, in a letter to Mr. Sykes at the same time when I resigned as 

 counsel for five other organizations. Consequently, I have only a part 

 of a year to report on. However, in the future, I may occasionally make 

 comment on things as they pass by. Tonight I am a free lance and as 

 such I intend to remain the rest of my life. On occasions I may speak 

 my mind, and I purpose to do so whenever occasion may justify. 



Last March I participated as your counsel in an oral argument be- 

 fore the Interstate Commerce Commission, in a case involving the first 

 general reduction of freight rates throughout the United States in the his- 

 tory of American railroads. As an offset to the elaborate showing of the 

 railroads covering several thousands of pages of exhibits, the only analy- 

 sis of the financial condition of the railroads as a whole which was pre- 

 sented in this case by any group of shippers was the one which was 

 financed by this organization in conjunction with three other associations 

 of shippers. I tried very hard to get some help from various organiza- 

 tions. A man is so helpless in these great rate cases with a regular army 

 of statisticians, accountants, financial experts, bankers and lawyers on 

 the other side of the table, concentrating under magnificent leadership 

 all their efforts on the great, basic, underlying issues of the case involv- 

 ing the adequacy of railroad revenues as a whole; and the shippers are 

 split up into innumerable factions and groups, every little organization 

 obsessed with its own needs and giving no attention to the great issue 

 affecting everybody. What is everybody's business is nobody's business. 



The firm of Roberts, Woods & Pettijohn donated the services of Fred 

 W. Pettijohn, who had been chief cost accountant of the United States 

 Railroad Administration during the war. They donated Mr. Pettijohn's 

 services to us free of charge. They even paid his expenses to Washing- 

 ton and his hotel bill while he was there. 



This case resulted in an order reducing rates $300,000,000 dollars an- 

 nually in addition to a reduction of $100,000,000 conceded by the railroads 

 on agricultural products on the first day of the trial. 



The second important proceeding of national consequence during the 

 year related to the convention of our railroads. I wonder how many of 



