ELEVENTH ANNUAL YEAR BOOK — PART IV. 105 



the executive committee to work out a suitable plan for securing mem- 

 berships and raising funds. The most feasible plan and the one finally- 

 adopted by the committee was the five-year membership pledge, of cer- 

 tificate, in which the member pledged himself to pay to the association a 

 stated amount annually for five years. It was the sense of the committee 

 that there should be an equalization of the dues, at least to some extent, 

 between those members who are commonly called grain farmers and rent- 

 ers and those members who are feeding and shipping live stock and re- 

 ceiving the direct benefits from the work done by the association. So, 

 proceeding on this theory, we decided to ask the stockmen to contribute 

 $5.00 annually and the grain farmers $2.00. It was agreed that the only 

 way this plan could be made a success was for the president, in company 

 with a local officer, to call on the farmers and stockmen personally and 

 solicit their membership pledges. So, accordingly, about the middle of 

 May I started out to try out the new plan, and if possible put the associ- 

 ation on a more permanent basis. 



At the close of the first week's canvass, I was convinced that the plan 

 would prove a success, providing the local men would assist in the work, 

 as where we had gone we found each class of farmers ready to contribute 

 the amounts suggested to carry on the work. The facts are that the farm- 

 ers have come to look on the association as a permanent fixture as well as 

 a decided necessity, and they are willing to help sustain it. 



From the middle of May I have pushed the work whenever I could get 

 the local men to assist me, and the results have been very satisfactory, 

 and I have been able to secure a nice membership. And if the work is 

 properly prosecuted in the future there will be no difficulty in raising 

 funds to maintain the association. In the localities I canvassed under the 

 new plan, I secured ninety per cent of the old members and added about 

 twenty-five per cent new ones. 



Now as to what has been accomplished, I will say that the past year 

 has been a very busy one, and the association has accomplished by far 

 much greater results than in any year of its past history. You will re- 

 member that at the last annual meeting the Interstate case, in which your 

 association was asking for lower rates on live stock to Chicago, was still 

 pending before the Interstate Commerce Commission; and in February a 

 decision was reached and an order issued by the commission ordering the 

 new rates put into effect in May; so, accordingly, on May 16th a new and 

 lower schedule of rates on live stock went into effect over a large por- 

 tion of the state. These reductions were not as great as we had con- 

 tended for, nor as great as we had expected to secure. And there is no 

 doubt in my mind but that the reductions would have been greater had not 

 the Iowa Eailroad Commission, which had previously intervened in the 

 case, deliberately betrayed our interests into the hands of the railroads 

 in the way they did. Notwithstanding these influences that had to be met, 

 the reductions in the state amount to something like $100,000 annually. 

 This is certainly a nice saving to the stockmen, and amply repays them 

 for putting their money into the case and making the three years' fight 

 to win. 



