502 AGRICULTURAL APPROPRL\TION BILL, 1924. 



get seven or eight copies of the same market paper from commission 

 men. Of course, things of that sort ought to be ehminated. 



Mr. Anderson. It is not the commission men alone who are doing 

 that sort of thing. 



Mr. Morrill. Of course, we happen to be deahng with that par- j^ 



ticular problem. I do not contend that that is the only place where j 



we will find it. 



Mr. Anderson. Will you use the entire appropriation this year? 



Mr. Morrill. Yes, sir; it will be used this 3'ear. We did not use 

 the entire amount last year. We used $174,000 out of the $200,000 

 provided, but this year, on account of all of these things coming up 

 at once, and the necessity of employing a great many temporary 

 people, we will use the whole amount. 



PROCEEDINGS TOUCHING THE PRACTICES OF PACKERS. | 



Mr. Anderson. Have there been any proceedings begun touching 

 the practices of packers ? 



Mr. Morrill. No, sir; there have been no formal proceedings 

 except one. There was a proceeding instituted by the Kansas City 

 Livestock Exchange against Armour & Co. and the Fowler Packing 

 Co., of Kansas City, on account of the fact that Armour & Co. op- 

 erated a yard know^n as the Mistletoe yard at Kansas City, not far 

 from the public yard, where they bought live stock that had been 

 shipped direct to the Fowler Packing Co. at the Mistletoe yard, and 

 not passing through the open yard. The operations in the Mistletoe 

 yard were limited exclusively to hogs, and to persons or shippers 

 out in the country who were in a position to supply the kind and 

 quantity of hogs that the FoM-ler Packing Co. needed for its operations. 

 The Fowler Packing Co. is largely an export slaughtering plant. In 

 that case, it was complained that the maintenance of those yards 

 operated as a depressing influence upon the public stockyard, and, j 



also, that the yard was, in fact, a public stockyard market and that 

 it ought to be brought under Title 3 of the packers and stockyards 

 act. 



We held quite lengthy hearings on that matter at Kansas City. 

 Twelve days were consumed in the presentation of the evidence on 

 both sides. We found that there was no possibility of the two sides 

 getting together informally, because there was a question of principle 

 mvolved, and it was looked upon with a great deal of concern all over 

 the country as involving the question of whether packers might buy 

 direct from the country instead of through the public yards. We 

 fdlmd, in the fii-st place, that the Mistletoe yards were not, in fact, 

 public stockyards, nut simply receiving yards for shipments sent in 

 irom the country yards, where the grading, docking, or pricing took 

 place for the purpose of closing the transactions. The prices at the 

 Mistletoe yard were based upon the prices of the same day in the 

 public stockyards market of Kansas Cit}'^ One of the complaints 

 was that because of tiie fact that the Fowler Packing Co. was owned 

 exclusively by Ai'mour & Co., and, therefore, was merely a depart- 

 ment of Armour & Co., the receipt of those hogs in the Mistletoe yard 

 took that amoimt of hogs out of the pu1)li<' yard and gave the buyers 

 of Armour & Co. a certain power that they should not possess in the 

 public yards. There was not any evidence brought forth to sub- 

 stantiate that. We were unable to find facts in the evidence to 



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