NINETEENTH ANNUAL YEAR BOOK— PART VII 381 



nouncement concerning the advances has yet been made by that depart- 

 ment. In the meantime, the advance charges are in effect, and you are 

 required to pay them. 



We now come to a report of the various conferences and meetings 

 held with the Pood Administration and the packers, in attempting to 

 arrive at an understanding of the application of the thirteen-to-one price 

 ratio on hogs, and the prices which should be paid for hogs under this 

 plan on the Chicago market. The first meeting to consider this very im- 

 portant matter was called by Mr. Hoover, to be held at Washington, be- 

 ginning September 23d. Your president was in attendance at this con- 

 ference, as were also Professor J. M. Evvard, of Ames, and Mr. C. W. 

 Hunt, of Logan, Iowa. Illinois, Indiana, Pennsylvania, Missouri, Kansas, 

 and other states were also represented at this meeting, which lasted for 

 four days. Several interesting and somewhat exciting sessions were held, 

 in an attempt to arrive at a proper solution of the prbolem which seemed 

 a most difficult one, as your representatives were contending for a sim- 

 ple, straight-out application of the thirteen-to-one price on hogs, both corn 

 and hogs to be priced on the Chicago market. 



At the same time Mr. Hoover and other Food Administration offi- 

 cials declared that they could not possibly dispose of pork products at 

 such a high price as these prices would necessitate, and therefore a lower 

 price for live hogs would have to be accepted. Mr. Hoover also held 

 that it never was the intention of the Food Administration to figure the 

 price of both corn and hogs on the Chicago market. And after long and 

 heated discussions over the matter, it was finally agreed that the price 

 of hogs in Chicago for the month of October should be arrived at by 

 figuring the average price of corn at the country station for four months 

 previous to marketing the hogs; and then to multiply this average price 

 per bushel by thirteen, which would fix the price per hundred pounds of 

 live hog at the Chicago market. And in order to get live hogs down to a 

 point where the Food Administration claimed it could dispose of the prod- 

 ucts, an average daily price of $18.50 for packers' droves was agreed to 

 for the month of October. And the conference adjourned. 



After this conference had adjourned, Mr. Hoover called in the packers 

 to agree upon the price that should be paid for the dressed products, and 

 they succeeded in cutting off another fifty cents from the price of live 

 hogs, and the price cutting continued so rapidly that the country soon 

 became panicky, and began to rush their hogs to market in such large 

 numbers that the market became so demoralized that on October 23d and 

 24th the bulk of the hogs sold at Chicago between 14 and 15 cents per 

 pound. -' -s»^ib1 I 



The rapidly declining prices on hogs and the apparent lack of good 

 faith on the part of the packers to keep their agreement in holding up the 

 price of live hogs, caused Mr. Hoover to call a joint conference of repre- 

 sentatives of the swine producers, the packers and the Food Administra- 

 tion, for October 23d, for the purpose of correcting, if possible, the wrong 

 done the swine growers of the country thru the tremendous decline of the 

 market. The Iowa swine growers and feeders were represented by the 



