NINTH ANNUAL YEAR BOOK— PART VII 325 
intelligence, with painstaking care, and with absolute honesty; third, 
there must be no discrimination in railroad transportation by the roads 
between the various classes of products of these dairy products. 
Now, gentlemen, this is a serious proposition and there is no body of 
men so called upon to deal with this proposition as the Wisconsin Dairy- 
men's Association and the Wisconsin Buttermakers' Association. I state 
to you things that I know, and I say a local creamery is charged one 
dollar a hundred to ship its butter to Chicago by express. Now keep that 
in mind; at the same time, from the same place they take one hundred 
pounds of cream to Chicago for 26 cents. The cream is 40 per cent 
butter-fat. Now, under the arrangements, a large proportion of this 
cream that is shipped to Chicago centralizers averages 40 per cent butter- 
fat. It amounts to this, that the Chicago centralizers get their butter 
for 52 cents a hundred for transportation charges, while the Wisconsin 
local creamery pays $1.00 a hundred to get its butter to Chicago. Gentle- 
men, that is not a square deal. In addition to this, the railroads return 
the cream cans free of charge, they do this by shipping as baggage. 
Thus it will be seen that by this action of the railroads the Wisconsin 
local creamery is placed in a position of particular hardship if this thing 
continues. No Chicago centralizer, nor any other centralizer can get out 
of a farmer's cream any more, honestly, than a local co-operative cream- 
ery can get out. Therefore it is to the interest of every Wisconsin farmer 
to stand by the Wisconsin local creamery. He gets all there is in the 
over-run, and everything! The dairy sentiment of our state, the railroad 
commission and all the forces of our state should stand like a solid wall 
in defense of our dairy interest as a part of Wisconsin. Not only should 
they stand as a stone wall, but should be just as aggressive as a mighty 
army seeking to gain what is right and just in these matters. The 
Creamery Buttermakers' Association can do much to bring this matter 
to a right turn." 
The low^ rate enjoyed by the centralizers in the transportation of cream 
can best be shown by again quoting from the report of the Chief of the 
Bureau of Animal Industry for 1907, as follows: 
"Perhaps the most potent factor, however, in restricting the business 
of the small creamery has been the special low rates reported to be 
granted by the railroads to the big creameries. These rates were under- 
stood to be much lower than for any similar commodity, being only about 
one-third of the rate on butter. In Nebraska, in the best territory, the 
gross earnings for hauling cream were but thirteen cents per car mile, 
while the settling basis between railroads for hauling empty cars was 
fifteen cents per car mile." 
This low rate was put into effect at the instance of the president of the 
Beatrice Creamery Company, at a time when conditions in Nebraska 
were at their lowest ebb, and have continued in force ever since, and have 
leen used as a lever to obtain like rates in other territory. Not^vith- 
standing this low rate dairying in the states, where the centralizers have 
a virtual monopoly, has not increased like it has in Minnesota and Wis- 
consin and again let me quote from the report of the Chief of the Bureau 
of Animal Industry: 
