PROCEEDINGS CORN BELT MEAT PRODUCERS' ASSN. 523 



sweeping, high-sound generalizations and phrases and then looked for 

 results. 



At the present moment there is maintained in Washington, D. C, by 

 the American Railway Association, what is called the National Bureau of 

 Railway Economics, covering most of a floor of one of the business blocks 

 of that city, working in season and out of season, week after week and 

 month after month — for what purpose? Gathering together the data, 

 amassing the information, so that when it is needed in one of these great 

 cases they are ready to deliver the goods. You haven't one farm organ- 

 ization in America that is attempting to do that on your side of the rail- 

 road question. I include the Corn Belt Association and the American 

 Farm Bureau Federation and all the rest. 



A few months ago there was a trial involving a 10 per cent advance 

 in express rates. Where were you? A lot of you folks are express ship- 

 pers. Where were you? I say, none of you were represented. The ex- 

 press companies were there, most elaborately prepared. 



There are a whole lot of our individual cases that I could discuss that 

 have been handled. I am not going to do that as I have done in the past. 

 This is not the occasion for that. There are a number of farm organiza- 

 tions doing splendid work as to individual cases affecting rates on one 

 commodity in one section of the country and on another commodity in 

 another section, but on these great big questions affecting the whole 

 people you are generally asleep when the contest comes, so far as ade- 

 quate preparation is concerned. You have lacked the funds, and you 

 have got to make up your minds that you must spend them, and then 

 you have got to follow it up and see that these funds are expended so 

 that your representatives do not have to rush in at the last moment 

 against these tremendous odds and try to fight your battles successfully. 



I am not seeking a job. I will not accept it if you offer it to me. It 

 is the most important message I have got to give you as a result of the 

 past fifteen years' connection with you. Prepare to show your side or 

 suffer the consequences and don't whine about it. 



And now, folks, in conclusion, if you will bear with me just a few 

 moments longer. This has been a tempestuous year. Last March, in the 

 closing argument in the general rate reduction case, Mr. Thorn, chief 

 spokesman for all the railroads in the United States, made a bitter per- 

 sonal attack on your attorney. No such personal attack has ever before 

 been made to my knowledge on any lawyer on either side of any of these 

 cases during the past fifteen years. He described me as an unsafe, 

 unreliable guide, not entitled to the confidence of the commission. He 

 was general counsel there for all the railroads — chief counsel for all of 

 the railroads in the nation. 



Sixty days later I was described by a spokesman for certain farmer 

 and laboring interests of Iowa as a Wall street crook and a railroad tool. 

 This charge in one form or another was published over and over again, 

 not among the editorials very much, but in the news columns of many 

 of the largest dailies in the state. The claim was stated and repeated 

 over and over again in numerous dailies and farm journals that I had 

 endorsed the Cummins-Esch act, which had been responsible for the in- 

 crease in freight rates, and that I favored the ship subsidy bill. 



