THIRTEENTH ANNUAL YEAR BOOK— PART IV 213 



stands for a great many matters which it is not necessary to discuss, but 

 in any of which I am sure you are interested. 



The American National Live Stock Association has a large individual 

 membership. We comprise in our membership all the important live 

 stock organizations of the west, numbering something over seventy-five. 

 We get our great strength from these different organizations. We have 

 only two individual members in Iowa. I have not come down here for 

 the purpose of importuning you to join our association as individual 

 members, although I should like very much to see you do so. As a mat- 

 ter of fact, I never appeal to anyone to join our association, because 

 there are enough public-spirited men throughout the United States to sup- 

 port it, and we find we are growing in strength year by year. The Corn 

 Belt Meat Producers' Association has been a member for seven or eight 

 years, and we have valued your membership very highly. As a matter of 

 fact, I have spoken of your association with a great deal of pride in 

 various state meetings, and I am not flattering you when I say that you 

 have the best and strongest organization of its kind in this country. It 

 is a great credit to the men who organized and have carried it on. 



I must say frankly to you, however, that the support you have given 

 us — at least financially — has not amounted to very much. Before I left 

 my office in Denver, I made a memorandum as to what the Corn Belt Meat 

 Producers' Association had paid us. You continued in pretty good member- 

 ship as a paying member until 1908; since then you paid nothing until De- 

 cember of last year, and then for some reason you sent us $25. This is a 

 pretty meager contribution for an organization of your prominence to make 

 to a national association. I think if I was a member of the Corn Belt 

 Meat Producers' Association, I would feel rather ashamed of that rec- 

 ord. If our organization is worth anything to you, and you feel that 

 you wish to be continued as a member, I think we are entitled to much 

 more liberal support. We don't allow any organization to come in for 

 less than $50 annual dues, and I don't think we have any organizations 

 of any consequence on our books that pay less than $100, and they run 

 from that up to $1,500 annually. The Texas association pays us $1,500, 

 the Wyoming association $750, the Arizona association $500. The Mon- 

 tana association has been paying us $600. 



With this statement I am going to thank you for your kind attention, 

 and express the hope that when our national association meets again 

 next year in Denver, some of you will come out and have Iowa repre- 

 sented. I forgot to mention that at none of our last few annual meet- 

 ings has anyone represented your association. You can't make a na- 

 tional association very strong unless some of you take a little interest 

 in it. If you think you are big enough to get along yourselves, that 

 is your business; I am not urging you to come in; but if you want to 

 avail yourselves of our services and help your fellow stockmen every- 

 where, come in and help us do it. 



