148 IOWA DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE 



fed and shipped to Chicago for nearly thirty years, and my char- 

 acter was never impugned when I had a good lot of stock on the 

 market. While I was on the Board we awarded contracts for 

 bacon, receiving bids from the leading packers in Iowa, Chicago, 

 Kansas City and Omaha, and I know what I am talking about. "We 

 awarded contracts for bacon at twelve cents a pound, and I paid 

 for not as good bacon in the City of Des Moines twenty-five cents 

 over the counter. We bought corn-fed beef; we never purchased 

 anything else if we could help it ; never purchased a western steer 

 or a Texan if we knew it. All cattle had to weight 600 pounds 

 dressed, and Texas and Mexican cattle don't weigh that. We were 

 buying that beef at $7 and $8 a hundred, when I was paying 15 

 and 20 cents a pound for beef over the counter in Des Moines. 



We bought for our state institutions every six months from 

 thirty to thirty-two tons of coffee. We paid for the best Santos 

 coffee 12 cents a pound. I bought the same coffee in the city of 

 Des Moines and paid 25 cents — more than double. We bought 

 tea in four, six and eight ton lots at 28 cents a pound, and I bought 

 the same tea from the same merchant in the City of Des Moines, 

 paying 80 cents. So that it is not only in our own produce, but 

 it is in everything else that we buy that there is such a large dif- 

 ference between what the producer receives and what the con- 

 sumer pays. I bought all-wool suits at $7.50, and I was criticized 

 for buying too good articles for the wards of the state. I have no 

 apologies to make. I have seen the identical suits sold in the city 

 of Des Moines and marked $15. 



Now, there is just as much margin between the manufactured 

 article that we purchase and the article that we produce, only we 

 don't know it. You don't know anything about what the cloth 

 on your back costs, or the shoes on your feet. We were buying 

 shoes manufactured in Fort Dodge — as good a shoe as there is 

 made — and still they didn't cost us one-half of what the same shoe 

 sells for in the retail stores. So we meat producers are not alone 

 in selling our own goods at the least possible price that we can be 

 squeezed down to, and paying exorbitant prices for what we have 

 to buy. It is not the packers alone who are making these enormous 

 profits. I don't suppose the butchers purchased meat as low as we 

 did, but I have asked butchers in this city what they paid for car- 

 casses, and they said 9 and 10 cents a pound. We were buying 

 in large quantities for six months at a time, and we were quoted 

 below them, undoubtedly. At the same time, there is too large a 



