107 



Yesterday I was in conference with Mr. Kates, chairman of this 

 meeting, and with several other gentlemen; and I was authorized to say 

 that the outlet so essential to our plans for production and standardizing 

 products will be furnished in part through the earnest efforts of the best 

 people in the City Hall, city officials, who have an earnest desire to for- 

 ward a movement which means wholesome food, brought here and deliv- 

 ered by more direct methods. 



This outlet, together with that to be furnished through the new 

 bureau now under consideration, we believe will ultimately mean a serious 

 reduction in the high cost of living. The furnishing of an adequate and 

 safe outlet should stimulate production and curtail waste and thereby 

 effect this reduction. 



Mrs. Smith: I have such an advertising kind of a mind that when 

 a gentleman presents a fact that I feel ought to be shouted, I want to get 

 up and shout. Last summer we were exactly in the position of these 

 farmers that Mr. Ross told us about. He has not told you just exactly 

 how Serious a need the farmer has with regard to these seeds and fer- 

 tilizers at better rates, owing to the fact that they cannot get them. 

 Many do not want such stuff that the houses that furnish them will con- 

 sider wholesale rates for. That time we were dealing with the problem 

 for ourselves, having gone to a farm of our own which had always been a 

 tenant farm, where the weeds had been grown along with the crops. We 

 had not a bushel of oats, and we had not even any hay then and had to 

 go to the mills, and there we found just what exists all over the country — 

 that the big mills have the farmer by the throat and that is a fact. If 

 there arb any farmers here they will tell you so, and to many of you 

 business men it is a matter too deep for me to explain. Really, the man 

 you like very much, your local miller, perhaps, has nothing to do with it. 

 He is under the dictates of some larger scheme, but in some cases he is 

 a very fair-minded man and discusses it with you, and sometimes puts 

 up a trick as he did with me last summer, when I went to him and asked 

 how much corn was a bushel. He said, "80 cents." I said, ''How much 

 do you want for cracked corn," and he said, "90 cents." Wasn't that 

 kind to me, selling me cracked corn and only charging me ten cents for 

 it? I said, "Just what do you do with the corn meal?" He said, 

 "Nothing." A kind of a red glow went up over his face and he looked at 

 me with a serious eye, I guess saying, "She is a deep one; she certainly 

 gets me into things I didn't know I was going up against." He thought 

 that I thought that the whole corn was there. Some of us do think that. 

 They sell whole corn at 80 cents and sell cracked corn at 90 cents. What 

 do they sell corn meal for? — $1.60 a hundred. 



We have with us Mr. Lardner Howell, of the Girard Trust Company, 

 who is going to speak to us for a few moments on the "Trustee — Landlord 

 and the Farm Bureau." It is interesting to those who own farms to know 



