76 IOWA DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE, 



perplexed the people occupying — not this region, because nothing but 

 the Indians were here — but this great central valley of ours in its great 

 progress tow'ards Empire, they were first met by the great problem of the 

 market and how to reach the market and how to avoid unjust taxation. 



This question therefore that you bring up to-day is over a hundred 

 years old, as applied to this country. I can remember the first time I 

 came west on a visit as a boy, seeing little packing houses along the 

 Mississippi river, hogs were driven from the interior and delivered to 

 those packing houses at two cents and less a pound. The Mississippi 

 river was the only outlet, and it failed to answer the purpose. Then 

 came the great era of railroad construction and afterwards of railroad 

 consolidation, until finally we have great single corporations controlling 

 the roads from the extreme west to the extreme east. That has bettered 

 the condition, that has helped, that has enabled you to go on and pros- 

 per, and still there is something lacking. The question of transporation 

 is one which we have had to fight all through the west. It is I believe 

 about to reach a satisfactory solution. We cannot deny that we are de- 

 pendent upon these great railroad corporations for everything that is in- 

 volved in civilization. Our very existence has been rendered possible by 

 the railroads of this country. No man in all of this broad country has a 

 higher admiration for railroads as a great civilizing agency than I have 

 I believe that the locomotive engine, as an example of constructive 

 genius and ability comes nearer placing man at the feet of God than al- 

 most any other thing of which we have knowledge. But they are the 

 highways of the public, they are not the private property of any corpora- 

 tion, and therefore I think there has been a universal decision that 

 their taxes, which they levy for transporation, must be controlled in the 

 fair and just interests of all of the people. And I think that question 

 will probably be permanently settled by the present Congress, which is 

 now in session. 



The question which follows transporation of course is one of free, 

 open and competitive markets. There has been an immense amount of 

 discussion, an immense amount of angry crimination and re-crimination 

 on that subject. How far our domestic markets have been controlled un- 

 fairly and improperly, whether or not every man has received the fair 

 and open competition which he is entitled to, in the market; there are 

 all questions that the public mind has been agitated about for a number 

 of years. That question too, if there has been any just cause of com- 

 plaint, I believe also we are just about to have fairly settled. 



But there is a still greater question above all of these and back of 

 al of these, and that is, after our great domestic consumption has been 

 supplied, where shall we place the enormous surplus which we are pro- 

 ducing in this country. This surplus is the thing that has troubled the 

 agricultural interests of the country from time immemorial because the 

 price obtained for the surplus determines practically the price obtained 

 in the domestic market, for the great mass of the production. Some 

 fifteen years ago or so, in the hard times, which we had in Kansas, and 

 which to some extent I think you had in Iowa, they were troubled with 



