TWELFTH ANNUAL YEAR BOOK— PART IV 121 



In this case you have a striking example of the value of organiza- 

 tion to the farmers. Here you have the railroads demanding a general 

 advance in rates on your commodities of ten per cent, which it is esti- 

 mated would have cost the Iowa farmers over one million dollars annu- 

 ally in increased freight bills. And as individual producers you are 

 absolutely helpless to prevent these advances, although you must pay 

 them if put into effect. The matter is sprung on you unexpectedly. 

 You are only given thirty days' notice until the advances go into effect; 

 you stand in awe, and wonder where they are going to hit you next, 

 and who there is to look after the interests of the men who till the 

 soil and who are the bone and sinew of the state. But just at this junc- 

 ture the executive committee of your association decide that they will 

 not permit this increased burden to be placed upon the Iowa farmers 

 without a protest. So they confer with the long, lean, lank son of a 

 Methodist minister, as he styles himself, who is wearing the scars of 

 many battles fought in your behalf with the same opposing forces, and 

 instruct him to get busy; and from that time on there was something 

 doing. And it remained for Clifford Thorne, the matchless, indefati- 

 gable representative of the Meat Producers' Association, to show to the 

 Interstate Commerce Commission that the rates we are now paying are 

 highly remunerative, and that the railroads were in a very prosperous 

 condition and not entitled to the unjust advances they were asking for. 

 In this case you have a forceful illustration of the value of being 

 organized and ready at any and all times to put up a vigorous fight 

 for your rights: in this one case you are saved more money than it 

 would cost to maintain your organization for years to come. 



The most important legislation enacted through the direct efforts of 

 your association during the past winter was the passage of a Commerce 

 Counsel bill, which provides for a Commerce Counsel to represent the 

 people of the state before either the state Railroad Commission or the 

 Interstate Commerce Commission, in all questions of rate disputes, or 

 any other matter that might come before those tribunals for adjustment. 

 As usual, the railroads were much opposed to this bill, but they did 

 most of their work through their lieutenants in the Iowa senate, and it 

 seems difficult to understand why farmers will vote for men for state 

 senators whose whole sympathies are in accord with the great corpora- 

 tion interests, and who work and vote against the men who elected 

 them. Haply, these men are being retired one by one, and if the work 

 of "cleaning house" continues, it will only be a few years until there 

 will be a class of men in the Iowa senate that will listen to the voice of 

 the people rather than that of the corporations. 



I want to congratulate you on the kind of men that are being select- 

 ed as representatives in the lower house, and if you will get busy and 

 select some good, strong men for the state senate in the districts where 

 you have corporation senators at present, and get out and do some work 

 for them, you can have in the next general assembly the same class 

 of men in the senate you now have in the house. 



If you want to know who your senator represents, look up his rec- 

 ord on anti-railroad and corporative measures, and see how he voted. 



