FOURTEENTH ANNUAL YEAR BOOK— PART X. 685 



the major part of the material wealth of this country to build these for- 

 tunes for these few men and their interests, and in so doing has reduced 

 thousands and thousands of good American people to want and beggary, 

 While it is true that we have prospered here in the grain belt under a 

 protective tariff, little of this prosperity came from the cattle business, 

 either as breeders or producers. We as producers have had to deal with, 

 one of these "interests" that has grown rich under a tariff, known as the 

 packing interests, and they appear to have an unsatisfied appetite for 

 all the profits from the entire cattle business in this country, and we 

 are now under free trade in meats. We see them reaching out for more 

 worlds to conquer, in Africa, Mexico and South America. 



Now, breeders, don't form the opinion that I have become a socialist 

 or even a pessimist, for what I have already said and am about to say. 

 I want first to refer you to a congressional report published a little over 

 a year ago in proof of what I say, for if you will examine this report, 

 you W'ill find that over 36 per cent of all the active wealth of America 

 is now in the absolute control of just two men, and these two men with 

 their allied interests and with their interlocking directorates, in the 

 past have been able to dominate corporations in which they are inter- 

 ested, that by their manipulation and at their command, property values 

 go up or down, and fortunes are made or ruined to suit their whims 

 and caprices. 



It seems staggering, but it is none the less true, for this same report 

 shows that these two men control the inconceivable amount of wealth of 

 nearly or quite $40,000,000,000, and that in the control of this incon- 

 ceivable amount of the material wealth of this country they are in a 

 position to practically enslave the other one hundred million of the in- 

 habitants of our once glorious country for any business that they wish to 

 acquire or demolish. They have but to withhold the necessary credit that 

 it requires at times to conduct the business of the concern and the busi- 

 ness is demolished and destitution and w-ant follow in the wake of such 

 action, but the flow of wealth continues into these multi-millionaires' 

 pockets. 



These two billionaires of course live in the city of New York, for no 

 city within the grain belt would tolerate them and statistics show that 

 over one-third of all the inhabitants of that city are forced to receive 

 charity at some time in their lives and that one out of every ten in 

 that city is buried in a pauper's grave; that in this great city year be- 

 fore last over 8,000 little children starved to death for want of food, and 

 that, over 6,000 people froze to death in that city year before last for 

 w-ant of fuel to keep them warm, and that 360,000 people live in that 

 city in cellars and basements in which the rays of the sun never pene- 

 trate. So in discussing this situation, I want you to pardon me if I ask 

 you as producers of cattle and breeders to take a -larger view of life than 

 just the accumulating of immediate money, for I must remind you that 

 our duties to the public good and humanity in general must point to a 

 great wrong that has been committed upon the American people in the 

 distribution of this wealth that has come to us during the past forty 

 years under a protective tariff, that would permit 8,000 children to starve 



