THIRTEENTH ANNUAL YEAR BOOK— PART IV 123 



taken, and the following increasss, as I understand it, were made in 

 commissicns. On all straight carloads of live stock over the following 

 minimums, an extra charge of 5 cents per hundred is made: 



Cattle 23,000 pounds 



Hogs 17,000 pounds 



Sheep in double-deck cars 22,000 pounds 



Sheep in single-deck cars 12,000 pounds 



Up to these minmium weights, the commissions remain the same as 

 before. 



I have gone into this question quite thoroughly, in order to let the 

 members know the situation, and that the officers did all in their power, 

 with the knowledge they had, to prevent any advance. Had the com- 

 mittee from the exchange acted fairly and kept us informed, instead of 

 putting the thing through on the quiet, as w^as done, we believe all ad- 

 vances could have been defeated. 



SHEEP A>:D nCGS IN DOUBLE-DECK CARS. 



Demand has come from some of our members that the railroad 

 companies should permit them to load both hogs and sheep in the same 

 double-deck car, i. e., one deck with hogs and the other with sheep. At 

 the present time, if w^e load hogs and sheep in both decks, they permit 

 it without extra charge; but if the shipper keeps them separate and loads 

 a deck of each, he is charged the single-deck rate and the single-deck 

 m.inimum is enforced on both hogs and sheep. This matter should be 

 taken up by this organization and corrected, for there is no good reason 

 why a shipper should not be allowed to load a deck of hogs and a deck 

 of sheep in the same car without being penalized. This practice would 

 give the companies more w^eight to haul in one car, and would naturally 

 inure to their benifit. 



SERVICE AND ACCOMMODATION ON STOCK TRAINS, 



Without doubt, the past year has been one of the worst in regard 

 to service and accommodations for the stockmen that we have experi- 

 enced for years, and a flood of complaints and protests has been filed 

 by our members from all parts of the state. Had these complaints been 

 confined to the winter months of 1912, when the snow and cold were 

 so severe, we should not have wondered at them; but the facts are that 

 the shippers have complained of the poor service and accommodations 

 during the entire summer and fall. The shippers' reports filed by our 

 members show that the service was slow and the accommodations for 

 the stockmen very bad in many instances. Especially is this true as 

 to overcrowding of way-cars and their unsanitary condition. It is a 

 very common occurrence to crowd from twenty to thirty men into one 

 of these way-cars. This is certainly overcrowding humanity, and it 

 seems to me that from a humanitarian standpoint the railroads should 

 furnish at least decent accommodations for the shippers, so that they 

 might ride with as much ease and comfort as the animals they are 

 shipping. 



