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mighty good feeling down in St. Louis. I think the whole thing will spread 

 like wildfire after a while. 



Mr. Fulkerson will speak to us on "Co-operative Live Stock Marketing." 

 Mr. Fulkerson is connected with the Producers Live Stock Shipping Asso- 

 ciation of East St. Louis. Mr. Fulkerson: 



CO-OPERATIVE LIVE STOCK MARKETING. 

 (Joe Fulkerson.) 



MB. CHAIRMAN AND GENTLEMEN: The farmer has realized for a good 

 many years that he has not been getting what he ought to out of his live- 

 stock. He knows that the country shipper is taking too big a toll out of 



the stock that he handles, but outside of a few 

 strenuous kicks nothing has been done, until 

 the idea occurred to somebody to start a co- 

 operative community shipping association. 

 This idea has been so successful and the 

 farmers are so well pleased with it that it 

 has spread all over the country. 



The country shipper has been fighting 

 this because it interferes with his business. 

 Not long ago in my town a farmer was button- 

 holed by a local shipper and a blue-sky man. 

 One said, "Now look here, you are an intelli- 

 gent farmer, what do you want to spend your 

 money paying dues into the farm bureau for? 

 That farm bureau isn't doing you any good. 

 You would better save that fifteen dollars a 

 year and put it into groceries for your family." 

 He looked at the stock buyer and replied, 

 "Now, I'll tell you. Do you remember last 

 week when I brought three old sows into town, 

 took them around to you and you made me an 

 offer on them? I took them over to our ship- 

 ping association and shipped through them 

 and I saved five dollars apiece on them. That 

 is fifteen dollars. That would pay my dues for a year." Then he turned to 

 the blue-sky man and said: "Remember talking to me about a month ago 

 when I was just ready to bite off a good big chunk of your oil stock? A 

 monthly letter of the farm bureau came out and told me all about the blue- 

 sky business, and that monthly letter just stepped right in between you and 

 my farm. Now, I have made up my mind that as long as this old world is 

 such a dangerous place for a farmer to live in fifteen dollars a year is a 

 pretty cheap price to pay for a guardian to look after my business." 



The farmers have realized for some time that this co-operative shipping 

 part of the game is not all of it. They thought, "Now then, if this is such 

 a success and we are getting so many benefits from this why not go a step 

 further and get over into the other side of the game, carrying it just a little 

 bit further and sell our stuff on the market ourselves after we get there with 

 it instead of leaving it all to the commission men?" The commission men 

 said the co-operative shipping association was the finest thing ever, but 

 when you start talking about a livestock commisson assocation that is a 

 different proposition. "You fellows let that alone. You keep away from 

 that and let us handle it." 



It was the desire on the part of the farmers to get into the commission 

 business, carry this thing through and finish the job. They wanted to do 

 something about it, but how were they going to get at it? You can't get 

 a man from Iowa, another man from Missouri and another one from Illinois 

 to get together and form a commission association nearly so easily as you 

 can go into a community and get a bunch of farmers together and in one 

 afternoon organize a shipping organization. They wondered how they could 



Joe Fulkerson. 



