190 IOWA DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE 



Mr. Hammill: There is no question but there is considerable 

 misuse of the stock contract. 



Mr. Wallace : Whose fault is it 1 



Mr. Hammill : The agent is a servant of the shipper, and wants 

 to.be in right with him, and of course he accommodates him to that 

 extent. He is wrong in doing so, but the first wrong is in the re- 

 quest of that consideration. At Clinton we kept a record for quite 

 a while of the number of stockmen that came w^ith each train. My 

 recollection is that we at one time had one stockman accompanying 

 every three cars of stock. We also tried to sort out which was the 

 stockman and which was not. We found at least fifty per cent of 

 the men coming in were net stockmen; they wore collars whiter 

 than mine, and their hands were not any harder. That is one thing 

 that the stockmen must overcome ; you can help us a great deal on 

 that. 



Mr. AVallace: My contention is that your station agent knows 

 very well whether a man is a bona fide stockman or not, and that, 

 as a matter of fact, your station agents are largely responsible for 

 this misuse of the pass. If a merchant or boy around town wants 

 to go in, your station agent knows that fellow, and that he does 

 not belong in the caboose ; and yet he connives at the thing and per- 

 mits the abuse, with the result that the stockman himself is com- 

 pelled to occupy a car which is filthy and overcrowded, and often 

 has no place to sit. Don't your regulations forbid that, and can't 

 your station men absolutely prevent it? There might be excep- 

 tional cases where some neighbor out in the country might go, but 

 in that case he is properly an employe of the stockman. 



Mr. Hammill : Just how far the agent would go to discriminate 

 as to whom to assign to be the legal man to be in charge of the 

 stock is rather a fine point, and if we get any improvement on that 

 it will have to be done by the co-operation of the stockmen. We 

 would guarantee our support from our side of the fence to help 

 you gentlemen do away with that practice. If you folks will bring 

 it up with your stockmen and indicate to them what it means to 

 them, and state that the railroads are Avilling to help on that prop- 

 osition, we will guarantee to do our portion of it with our agents 

 and indicate to them that we want to arrange so that the stockmen 

 can have room to take care of themselves properly, and I am satis- 

 fied we will see quite an improvement. 



