38 IOWA DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE. 



In the first place, in regard to the rates on meat. I do not 

 think we are getting enough, and we are not getting as much as 

 we would like to have. The point on that is, the Great Western 

 made an open rate; it wasn't any secret rate; made an open 

 rate and a contract for a number of years at 18}^ cents. It was 

 a question whether we would take any business at all or meet 

 that rate. Now, we are all of us human. If you can not make 

 as good a margin on the sale of something you are producing 

 as you think you ought to have, if you can make anything at 

 all, you will say, well, that is better than nothing; I can not 

 afford to keep this stock over for another season, or something 

 like that. That was the position the railroads were in. The rail- 

 road that brought that condition of affairs about is the railroad 

 that is not paying any dividends whatever; it is not paying any 

 interest whatever on a good many of its securities. It is the 

 railroad that cuts the rates and makes competition. That is 

 just what they did for us exactly. 



Mr. Wallace: Isn't it a fact that that deal Mr. Sickney 

 made you follow up actually gave you about 15 per cent more 

 than you were getting beforehand? 



Mr. Delano : No, sir; it cut our rate five cents. The gentle- 

 man stated that a load of a refrigerator was- about eighteen 

 thousand pounds. The average weight in a refrigerator car of 

 meat is about twenty-two thousand to twenty-four thousand 

 pounds, and the packing house product about forty thousand. 

 So that our average on meat is a good deal better than on cattle 

 and hogs. 



I appeal to you to the testimony given by Mr. Stickney, who 

 has been in the railroad business longer than I have, and who 

 in his opinion, argues there is a good deal more money in trans- 

 portation of meat in private refrigerator cars than in the transpor- 

 tation of stock, and that I don't agree with him does not prove 

 that he is not right and that I am. He gives his reasons in full: 

 he gave them for the Interstate Commerce Commission ; they 

 are all printed where you can see them. 



There is one feature of the meat business which makes it 

 cheaper in some respects to handle than the stock business. 

 The Burlington is a big stock road, and we are glad to get all of 

 it we can. But the meat business all originates from one or 

 two points, so that when trains start out from Kansas City or 

 Omaha and goes through to Chicago it is a solid train. On that 



