NINETEENTH ANNUAL YEAR BOOK— PART VII 441 



Harris. He perhaps ships as much stock over the Iowa railroads 

 as anyone here. 



Mr. Eisele : I have three things to present. I will touch on 

 shipping in stock cattle. I shipped six loads of cattle last August 

 from Kansas City to Grinnell, Iowa, over the Milwaukee and the 

 Minneapolis and St. Louis. They arrived at Grinnell in thirty- 

 four hours, were unloaded and fed at Oskaloosa, and were fed $7 

 worth a car. It has been the same way over other roads. I have 

 shipped from Dakota. 



Many of us are old men. We are allowed a pass to Chicago 

 to ride with our cattle, and I believe the courts have decided that 

 we must ride with our cattle to get a return pass. It seems that 

 we must ride in the caboose. I have been in those cabooses when 

 there were thirty others trying to ride to Chicago. I would will- 

 ingly have bought a ticket, but in buying my ticket I annulled my 

 transportation home. I have seen men sleep on flat cars when 

 they could not get in the caboose, especially on the Rock Island. 

 It may not be so bad on some other roads, but it is so on the Rock 

 Island. 



Now, about the service. I do not think our service was worse 

 last year than it was the year before. You were handicapped last 

 winter a year ago on account of snow. But I think our service 

 has been about the same for the last three years, only that the 

 time has been lengthened out about eighteen months ago from 

 six to twelve hours. 



Now we come to the loading proposition. As long as the war 

 was on, we didn't say anything. But it seems to be a matter of 

 fact that whatever the dispatcher — whose name is "Jack" — says, 

 goes. If you ask the agent when you can get a car, he will say : 

 "We will take it up with Jack." Jack won't let you know until it 

 is almost too late, and then we work that afternoon and night to 

 get the cattle in the stock yards. I believe this is a fact all over 

 Iowa where there is no night operator ; there is no way of know- 

 ing during the night when the train is going to come. 



One cold night last winter my son and I went down and loaded 

 two cars of cattle for Chicago. It was 20 below zero, and I let 

 my boy go home, as I was going with the cars to Chicago. Thinks 

 I, how am I going to find out when the train is coming? And I 

 walked that track until 7 o'clock the next morning, waiting for the 

 train. I was like the fellow who had the bear by the tail ; he dare 



