TWELFTH ANNUAL YEAR BOOK— PART IV 129 



secure thereby fi-om them a, demand of their respective congressmen in 

 stock raising- states to make a fight for the stock raiser, and the farmers 

 who produce live stock or feedstuffs or both, we are almost certain to lose. 

 It is up to the stock raisers to do it, and to do it requTres a systematic 

 campaign that will arouse public sentiment. 



As the situation is today, the men who voted for these measures are de- 

 fending their course, and there is so little knowledge on the subject that 

 even those who feel certain that congressmen and senators were wrong are 

 not prepared to debate the subject, or not inclined to do so, and the press 

 of the country is largelj^ in the same fix, even the live stock and farm 

 journals. To change this situation requires united and individual efforts or 

 the stockmen and farmers. With it they can succeed; without it they 

 will not. 



Some of these arguments are born of want of knowledge on the part of 

 congressmen and senators, as to the effect these enactments would have. 

 We must of course concede that they are honest about it, and therefore 

 willing to change their views if it is shown that great harm will result to 

 stockmen and farmers. Again an aroused public sentiment controls the 

 actions of those who fear it. No doubt most farmers and many stockmen, 

 and those who in one way or another are interested in the success of the 

 live stock business, like bankers, merchants and commission men and 

 others, do not fully appreciate the danger. To all of these the facts must be 

 presented, so they seeing the danger, will from self-interest use 

 their endeavors to avert the danger by urging their own congressmen ana 

 senators to take up the figlit in congress in behalf of the live stock inter- 

 ests. The means of information is not generally open to any of those I 

 have mentioned, or is difficult to obtain, and so the facts and arguments 

 must be collated, and these associations are the only ones to prepare and 

 put it out. It costs something to do it, but self-preservation demands that 

 it be done, and the cost will be comparatively small. 



Now, having pointed out the reasons urged by our opponents as 

 grounds for supporting these measures, let me point out briefly the an- 

 swers: 



The claim that meats are too high to the consumer can not be remedied 

 by importation of meats free, without changing the system of supplying 

 the retail trade, as proven by the fact that when there is a reduction in the 

 wholesale prices, the retail market prices do not show that they fluctuate 

 with the wholesale price in the carcass. The amount of the tariff is one 

 and one-half cents per pound on fresh meat. At present there is no coun- 

 try from which fresh meats can be brought in quantities worth speaking of, 

 except Argentine, and there can be no doubt that meats laid down in New 

 York for sale would be sold very close to the prevailing price for domestic 

 beef wholesale for the same quality at the time, but enough under to get 

 the trade. No one would expect the packers to give up the whole of the 

 one and one-half cents taken off the tariff. Armour and Swift, and per- 

 haps other packers, are interested largely in the Argentine, and as they 

 have their storage houses and agencies in all eastern cities, they would 

 have an advantage over their competitors in the meat-packing and supply 

 business in the Argentine, so they would most likely supply the trade as 

 against those not having such facilities. Our other large packing houses, 

 Morris & Company, Schwarzchild & Sulzberger, and Cudahy, having their 

 establishments in New York and other eastern cities, and they would, in 

 their own protection, either acquire interests in the Argentine packeries, 

 build their own packeries, there, or buy on consignment the Argentine beef 

 shipped to New York by the Argentine packeries. No man of good common 

 sense would expect that a very material reduction at wholesale would be 

 made, under the wholesale price of American beef. Whatever it would be, 

 there is little reason to expect to find its reflex in the retail price. But if we 

 offer to the big packing interests free Argentine beef, where cattle of 

 good quality are so much cheaper than here ($30 and $40 for steers fattened 

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