101 



The officers receive no regular salaries. They are paid per day for the 

 actual days they work, as follows: National board president, $25.00; 

 executive committee, $10.00; directors' meetings, expenses only. Terminal 

 boards- -president, $15.00; executive committee and directors, $10.00. 



The boards of directors meet at least four times a year, and as often as 

 is necessary. When the national board of directors meet they have a repre- 

 sentative from every one of the terminal associations having commission 

 houses in operation. At present there is just one. The one at East St. Louis 

 is the only one that has been organized so far. Chicago is next, then 

 Buffalo, Indianapolis and Cleveland, then perhaps Kansas City. 



Now, then, each terminal association sends a representative to the national 

 board, and when the amount of stock handled by a terminal association is 

 sufficient that representative becomes a member of the national board, and 

 the different boards are tied up closely with each other. The national board 

 knows what the terminal association is doing, and the terminal association 

 knows what the national board wants it to do. The national board on 

 November 11, as soon as the report was ratified, appointed a board of 

 directors for the East St. Louis commission house. This board of directors 

 is composed of three men from Illinois, three from Missouri and one from 

 Iowa. 



WHAT THE RECORDS SHOW. 



We started on the second day of January. We sat there all day and 

 did not get a hoof. We were a little bit disappointed. It did not look very 

 good for us. The second day we got ten carloads. It looked a little better. 

 By the end of the week we stood twelfth place among fifty companies doing 

 business at the yards. It seemed that all of the shipping associations over 

 the country had the same feeling. They did not want to be there the first 

 day; they wanted us to get started. They did not want us to practice on 

 them; they wanted us to practice on the other fellow, and they all thought, 

 naturally, we would get a good many on the first day get things straight- 

 ened out, and on the second day we would be ready to handle theirs. 



We handled the thing as satisfactorily the first day as we handled it 

 last week. We got our manager and our head hog salesman from the Denver 

 yards. We did not dare to take them all out of the yards there, because we 

 did not know what kind of propaganda might be picked up and worked 

 against us. There is more propaganda gotten up against this thing than 

 anything that has started, unless it is the U. S. Grain Growers. They have 

 had their share of trouble along with the rest. 



We stood twelfth among fifty companies at the end of the first week; at 

 the end of the third week we got up to fourth place. We felt pretty good, 

 but when we got up there we were among pretty fast company. It is just 

 like in a horse race. It isn't much trouble to pass the bunch, but when you 

 get up towards the front you have got to go some. I had estimated that 

 in three months we would be in second place and in six months we would be 

 in first place. Last Friday, at the end of our seventh week, we stood first 

 over all the other fifty. 



Now this success is not due to the supreme intelligence of this board of 

 directors or anything of that kind. You men could have done just as much 

 as we did under the same circumstances and conditions, but the credit is 

 due to the confidence that the people out in the country had in their own 

 people running their own business. They felt that they are the men to take 

 hold of this commission proposition and put it over and they were willing 

 to back them up, and the success of this thing is due to the confidence that 

 the people had in them. They were willing to stand back of it. And the 

 success is also due to the fact that it is organized on a solid foundation and 

 along the right lines, or it never could have been so successful in such a 

 short time. 



As I say, we have had a world of trouble down there, but we have gotten 

 by it. We have had a lot of propaganda to fight. I could go on and talk 

 about that for quite a while, but I am inclined to think, from some of the 

 meetings that 1 have been to, that the people want to ask questions, and I 



