GENERAL FARM PROGRAM 813 



The Chairman. The next witness will be Mr. C. B. Heinemann, 

 president of the National Independent Meat Packers Association. 

 We are glad to hear you, Mr. Heinemaim. 



STATEMENT OF C. B. HEINEMANN, PRESIDENT, NATIONAL 

 INDEPENDENT MEAT PACKERS ASSOCIAIION 



Mr. Heinemann. Mr. Chairman and gentlemen of the committee^ 

 my name is C. B. Heinemann, of Washington, D. C. I am appearing 

 here on behalf of the National Independent Meat Packers Association, 

 of which I am president. This is a D. C. nonprofit corporation or- 

 ganized in the District in August 1942. Washington is our head- 

 quarters. 



Our membership, composed of individuals, firms, and corporations^ 

 is found in eveiy State of the Union. We have at present over 700 

 members. Many of them have been and some continue to be pro- 

 ducers and/or feeders of livestock. 



NIMPA, as the association is generally known in the industry, came 

 into being during World War II at a time when the small packers were 

 threatened with extinction because of the rules and regulations im- 

 posed upon the industry. During our existence we have had to fight 

 constantly to survive and to continue to do business in the truly 

 American way, as a group of independent operators. 



I have been with the organization since its formation. Vhtually all 

 my life has been in the livestock industry, as my mother's family has 

 been for nine generations. As a boy I lived in the country, raising 

 and feeding livestock, with vacation periods in the range country with 

 my kin. My father also bought and shipped livestock to rnarket, 

 then a most hazardous financial gamble. 



Since 1903 I have worked with the world's largest handler and feeder 

 of livestock, with packers, with the market agencies, with stockyard 

 markets, and now with a packer association. I do not speak of this 

 boastingly, but merely to let you know that I can and do speak with 

 some knowledge of this industry. 



In appearing in opposition to the Brannan program, I do not wish 

 to be hypercritical when I borrow from our general counsel this 

 sentence in his report on the proposed program: 



I regard this %vhole program as un-American, undemocratic, preferential, and 

 vicious * * * in spite of the fact that meat packers would probably benefit 

 from certain features of the plan which would encourage production, * * * 

 provided the farmer is wJiiing * * * to give up his freedom and bend his 

 knee to Federal regimentation. 



I speak only about the effect of this program on the livestock and 

 meat industry. Others will cover other phases of it. 



In this country we have always boasted that our form of Govern- 

 ment and under our Constitution all are to be accorded equal treat- 

 ment. One of our primary objections is that this program will not 

 only differentiate and discriminate between classes, plus the fact 

 that it will then divide the agi-icultural group into two separate 

 groups— those who would be protected and those who must fight 

 without Government protection. 



This same Department of Ao-riculture in 1922 published the result 

 of a study under the title "Food Control During Forty-six Centuries." 

 This takes you back to the fifth dynasty in Egypt, or about 2830 B. C, 



