686 IOWA DEPARTMENT OP AGRICULTURE 



to death in one year in one city alone, where in this land of plenty so 

 many of our food products went to waste, as we were. told by these in- 

 terests for the want of a market — to be exact in the words of the meat 

 packers when they force down the price of cattle on foot, "there is no 

 demand for the meat," and 8,000 children starving at the same time in 

 one city. 



I do not believe it is from the want of general prosperity we are 

 suffering as much as it is the unequal distribution of the wealth under 

 a period of a protective tariff, for we all know that it takes the great 

 wealth of these two billionaires in the city of New York to equalize the 

 poverty of the other four million of its people. 



The interests these two billionaires control have built up large cities 

 remote from the point where these food products are produced, making 

 the cost of all food products so high before they reach the point of con- 

 sumption that it has brought about this unnatural condition of affairs that 

 has permitted a part of our population to starve, for before any of these 

 natural foods can be consumed, including our meat products, they must 

 go through the hands of tradesmen, brokers and countless middlemen, 

 thereby doubling and in many cases trebling the cost that the producer 

 gets for it before it reaches the consumer, and every one of the interests 

 levy tribute upon each article consumed in this way before it reaches the 

 consumer, and the agent and representatives of all these interests are all 

 located in the congested centers of population to see that the "last pound 

 of flesh" is taken, and the meat packers represent one of the spokes in the 

 wheel of these billionaires. 



Here in Iowa we cannot burn much Iowa coal, because we have been 

 taught that Illinois, Indiana, Ohio and other eastern coal is so much 

 better for us, in fact the farther away it is located the better it is for 

 us to use, for these interests and the railroads get to make a long haul 

 and the same long haul on all our foodstuffs that the miner consumes in 

 a distant state. Even our meats or nearly all of them must be sent out 

 of the state to be slaughtered, and then reshipped back to us to eat, and 

 our food products that we raise in Iowa, or nearly all, are shipped to 

 a distant state to feed their laboring men that work in these factories 

 which the interests have located without our state, so that the cost of 

 living may be maintained upon its present high level. 



The idea of these interests seems to be that nothing must be con- 

 sumed at the point of production for if it were the cost of living would 

 be reduced and these interests who own and control our railroads have 

 permitted the building of no large cities in Iowa as we all know who 

 have given this matter any thought, that it is the railroads that either 

 build or permit of them being built, and for that reason little or no 

 manufacturing has been permitted in Iowa, for we have been taught by 

 these interests that Iowa was only an agricultural state, when as a 

 matter of fact old Iowa wastes enough every year in her fields, gardens 

 and orchards to not only clothe, but amply feed and keep those 8,000 lit- 

 tle children from starving and freezing every year in the city of New 

 York, if we were only permitted to do it, or if conditions were such that 

 we could get at them to do it, and we would do it any way, if we are not 



