PART VII 



Proceedings of the Fourteenth Annual Meeting 



of the Corn Belt Meat Producers' Association 



Held in Des Moines December 11-12, 1917 



ADDRESS OF PRESIDENT SYKES. 



The past year has been one of unprecedented activity on the part of 

 your association. It will be remembered that at the time of our last 

 annual meeting the Iowa legislature was in session, and during the 

 period that followed the meeting, we made a vigorous effort to secure 

 the passage of a number of important measures affecting your inter- 

 ests. Among them was a bill requiring the railroads to attach a bunk 

 car or sleeper to all trains carrying ten or more stockmen; the Torrens 

 land title bill; the stock yards bill, and others. After considerable op- 

 position on the part of the railroads, and much unnecessary delay by 

 the house committee on railroads, to whom the bill had been referred, 

 we succeeded in getting the bunk car bill before the house for considera- 

 tion, and it was passed by an almost unanimous vote. But I am sorry 

 to say that it fared very differently in the senate. There the railroads 

 did a very smooth, diplomatic job, by having the bill called up in the 

 senate committee when its friends were mostly absent; and, without 

 giving the association any opportunity to be heard, a vote was taken 

 and the bill killed by indefinite postponement, thus ending its consid- 

 eration in the thirty-seventh general assembly. 



The stock yards bill required the railroads to furnish adequate 

 facilities for yarding, loading and watering live stock at local shipping 

 points, and provided that upon the complaint of five or more shippers, 

 filed with the State Railroad Commission, averring the inadequacy of 

 their local yards to accommodate the shippers, it is the duty of said 

 Railroad Commission to visit the yards conjplained of and make inves- 

 tigation, and order in on their owti motion all needed improvements or 

 repairs. I am pleased to report to you that after much unnecessary de- 

 lay and sparring back and forth, this bill was passed by both houses 

 and signed by the governor, and is now in force. So the members will 

 please take notice, and, if the facilities at your local stock yards are 

 not sufficient to accommodate the shippers, write the officers of this 

 association and they will advise you how to proceed to obtain relief. 



In regard to the Torrens land title bill, the members of the legisla- 

 ture were so divided as to the sort of measure that should be passed 



