AGRICULTURAL DISCONTENT 



most ardent supporters being the Iowa Farm Bureau, which for some 

 years had been the most powerful state farm bureau in the nation. 7 



The cow-testing program appeared to have been proceeding fairly well 

 as late as 1930; there were sporadic complaints but no organized protests. 

 In part this was because the farmers got something for their condemned 

 cows. For every infected animal slaughtered, the federal government 

 assumed one-third the loss, the state one-third, and the owner the remain- 

 ing third. As time elapsed the farmers began to feel that they were getting 

 less for their animals; many felt that due to the impact of the depression, 

 the state was "paring down its evaluation scale." The packers also were 

 said to be giving less for the salvageable parts of the condemned animals. 



Because of the known opposition in the southeastern part of the state, 

 the authorities seem to have postponed the testing of cows there with the 

 hope "that time would make them less scornful of urban laws and more 

 amenable to general government." 8 Many of these farmers belonged to 

 the Farmers' Union and the Farmers' Protective Association, a body 

 formed to oppose the test. Their objections were based on several grounds: 

 the test was "wholly unreliable; it did not protect the public health; it 

 permitted confiscation in the name of the law; it provided meat packers 

 with millions of pounds of good meat at condemned prices; and it fur- 

 nished salaries to an army of workers at the expense of tax payers." "We 

 appeal to the people of Iowa," pleaded a group of Cedar County farmers, 

 "to help us place upon our statute books a law which will not permit 

 confiscation of our property and establish a test which will be reliable, 

 not a mockery in the name of public health." 



The Iowa authorities took exception to these protests. They said that 

 the test protected human life and in the long run gave the farmers 

 healthier cattle and better prices. The Iowa test was upheld as "the same 

 test that has universal approval. When another test is brought forward, 

 and wide use shows it to be an improvement, we shall adopt it in Iowa." 8 



Protesting farmers fought the compulsory test in two ways: one, by 

 seeking legislation providing for an optional one in place of the com- 



7. Iowa Farm Bureau Messenger (Waterloo), November, 1925; Bureau Farmer 

 (Iowa Edition), May, 1931, p. 9; Iowa Farm Bureau Messenger, January-February, 

 1921; ibid., April, 1922. 



8. Davenport, in Collier's, LXXXIX (February 27, 1932), p. n. 



9. Des Maine s Register, April 15, 1931. 



