192 iOWA DEPARTMENT OP AGRICULTURE^ 



doesn't want anybody to tell him anything about it. The stockman, of 

 course, knows all about his business, and he thinks he knows all about 

 the railroad's business, and he wants to regulate it. When we get in 

 that attitude, our horns stick out and our hair sticks up, and we get 

 a club and go after each other. You never can accomplish anything 

 that way. I want to say that I am no fighter. I think that ninety-nine 

 per cent of these imaginary troubles can be settled and adjusted by 

 getting acquainted with each other. I have been in the railroad business 

 for a good many years (although I am not very old; I don't want any- 

 one to misunderstand me on that), but I have never yet gone into a 

 community or gone before any body of men to discuss a question that 

 was not settled fairly satisfactorily to all interests. Neither side always 

 got just what it wanted; there have to be concessions; but after we 

 get better acquainted with the subject, and know all of the details and 

 the facts on all sides, we have a different opinion about these things. 

 I am interested in the stock business because it means revenue to the 

 interests that I am trying to represent, and also for another reason. 

 My friend Hammill said he came near being a stockman, but I can go 

 him one better. I was born and raised in Texas; my father was in 

 the stock business practically all of his life. He owned a great many 

 thousand head of cattle in his time. I spent nearly four years of my 

 life on a cattle ranch. The first railroad train I ever saw was after 

 having gone with a herd of about 28,000 cattle from down in western 

 Texas. Y/e started below Brownwood, and drove across the plains to 

 Dodge City, and there shipped them. I saw the first time in my life 

 the black smoke of a railroad train, and I took up with it after that, 

 and have been following it ever since. So I am interested in the stock 

 business and the stockman from that viewpoint. I have many very 

 pleasant recollections of my four years' experience with the cowboys. I 

 was the kid of the bunch, but they took pretty good care of me. We 

 had lots of good times. They used to put me on a bucking broncho, 

 and once in a while they would get one that would throw me twenty or 

 thirty feet in the air; and that was lots of fun — for them. It wasn't 

 much for me, but I had just about sense enough to try it again when 

 they would tell me that I was the best rider in the bunch, and the only 

 one that coiild ride it. 



But I am interested in the stock business and the stock transportation; 

 I want to know more about it. I want to know what your needs are. 

 The Rock Island railroad has more mileage than any other railroad in 

 the state of Iowa. Our stock business is not as heavy as the North 

 Western's. I would like to know personally each shipper of live stock 

 in this state, if it were possible. I would like to have you tell me what 

 we should do, in your opinion, to improve our service.- (Voices: Get them 

 in there in time for market. Get us cars when we want them.) 



Those are all very pertinent, and we might quote statistics. I happen 

 to have in mind the fact that in the year 1912 eighty-seven per cent of 

 the stock that we took into the Chicago market went in there on time, 

 and were unloaded on time; thirteen per cent of it was late. It is the 

 thirteen per cent, of course, that should have been on time. We could 



