PROCEEDINGS CORN BELT MEAT PRODUCERS' ASSN. 543 



those commission men to go back to a more normal condition that 

 existed prior to the rate of $18 a car. 



We have been talking over our troubles here today and yes- 

 terday. I am not going to occupy the floor, but we have talked 

 about the different forces past and gone, fertility of the soil this 

 morning, and other things that came up last night. I believe every 

 one of us who has been here in this meeting has surely been well 

 paid for the time and the trouble expended in coming here, and 

 yet, while my remarks may seem rambling, not expecting to talk 

 at all, I believe that there are many things that we can learn 

 from this. 



I am reminded of all the days that have gone by where all 

 classes of men have been in the same trouble that we have been in. 

 The cattle feeders have been up and down and lots of them are not 

 here at this meeting at all. We have had it something awful in the 

 last two years, and as Sykes says, the fellow who fed a little load 

 of cattle lost a little bit of money and the big men lost more. I 

 know men who lost as high as sixty thousand dollars, and thirty 

 and twenty. 



I must tell a little story on the side, about a friend of mine 

 that went out to California. He had been wanting to go for years 

 and years, and he had never felt he had the money to go. I am 

 not sure but Mr. Sykes was there the same winter. But he -had 

 gone ahead of me, and the second day after we arrived of course 

 we had to go over and see my friend Tommy Black. And we went 

 over and found him nicely situated and I said, "Tommy, how 

 do you enjoy it?" "Why," he says, "I have got the worth of my 

 money before I got here." Gentlemen, we have got the worth of 

 our money before we go there. This meeting is something bigger 

 and greater than our staying up on our home farms. 



A friend of mine, Mr. Bowers, is here, and I am glad to see 

 him. I tried to get two or three more men to come, but they would 

 make this excuse and that excuse. I don't know — possibly it is the 

 little dollars and cents that they spend down here — but they are 

 not here. They ought to be here. All of us fellows who have been 

 here have got the worth of our money, I guess, before we landed in 

 Des Moines. If we didn 't, we will surely get it before we go home. 

 I think it is a wonderful meeting, and- we ought to have a thousand 

 or two thousand people to hear the discussion last night and what 

 has been going on. 



A whole lot of things have been said. Something has been 

 said by our friend over there this morning about fertility of the 



