NINETEENTH ANNUAL YEAR BOOK— PART VII 457 



failure to maintain the price promised, but the hogs marketed during the 

 months of October, November and December have sold for almost exactly 

 the average price for the past ten years, measured by cost of production. 

 There is now a nation-wide demand that hog prices be further depressed, 

 although there is no material reduction in the cost of producing hogs 

 now being marketed or which will be marketed during the next three 

 months. Any further depression in the price of hogs will cause severe 

 financial loss to those who increased their production against their better 

 judgment and in full faith that the government promise would be kept. 

 In view of the shortage of meat products in Europe, there is in our 

 opinion not the slightest question but that all of our hog products would 

 be taken gladly at the price promised by the Food Administration, if such 

 price should be demanded from foreign buyers. We therefore condemn 

 in unmeasured terms any efforts to still further reduce hog prices, and we 

 demand that the government price-fixing committee shall at once an- 

 nounce that the price of hogs on the Chicago market shall not go below 

 $17.50 per hundredweight during the months of February, March, April 

 and May. We base this demand both upon, the rightful claim of the hog 

 producer that the government shall keep faith with him, and upon the re- 

 peated statements of Mr. Hoover and the Food Administration that all our 

 hog products are urgently needed. 



Resolved, That we are unalterably opposed to any further expenditure 

 of government money for the building of merchant ships, and we are 

 equally opposed to government operation of merchant vessels and to a 

 government subsidy to such vessels. We demand that such merchant 

 vessels as are already owned by the government and are not needed for 

 the actual transaction of government business shall be disposed of to 

 private corporations or individuals, and that so far as the government has 

 to do with the operation of merchant ships, it shall see to it that they 

 are operated on a strictly competitive basis. We favor such changes in 

 our laws with regard to shipping as will enable the ship owners of the 

 United States to compete on equal terms with the ship owners of all other 

 countries engaged in traffic between the United States and other nations. 



Resolved, That in view of the large increase in wheat acreage, due 

 to the urgent appeals of the government for such increase and the promise 

 of a definite price, we dem.and that the government take over the 1919 

 wheat crop in the same manner that it took over the 1918 wheat crop, 

 paying the owner of the wheat the government price in full at the time 

 the wheat is marketed. We will regard any scheme for indirect payment 

 conceived for the purpose of demoralizing the prices of other grains and 

 farm products as an evidence of sharp practice and bad faith. 



Resolved, That we call upon the Department of Agriculture, and upon 

 the various state agricultural colleges, to aid in making clear the fact 

 that prices which have prevailed for agricultural products during the past 

 forty years have not equaled the cost of production, if the farmer is allowed 

 fair interest on the money invested in his plant and a wage for himself 

 equal to the wage he must pay his hired hand. This condition can not 

 continue without exhausting the fertility of our land and imperiling 

 our civilization, and its dangers should be clearly pointed out by such 



