107 



got the shipping associations of Minnesota together and formed a sort of a 

 federation to take up some of the problems that the shipper was confronted 

 with at the terminal market. We figured that if we could pass a few laws 

 that would correct some of the evils that the shipper met with at the term- 

 inal market that maybe that would do the job. We did get a few laws enacted 

 for the benefit of the shipper, and it did improve his conditions on that 

 market until the South St. Paul market has been recognized 1 , for the last 

 five or six or seven years, as being the best regulated livestock market in the 

 United States. 



When the Packers' Control Act was passed by Congress last year we had 

 a very peculiar condition arising. At every market in the country excepting 

 South St. Paul the livestock exchanges were fighting the Packers' Control 

 Act. The South St. Paul market was fighting for it. Why? Because up 

 there we had state regulation that was more rigid than anything provided 

 for in the Packers' Control Act, and all of that legislation had been brought 

 about by a little unified action on the part of our shippers in demanding 

 their rights. But we found that with all the laws you would still have 

 questions and' propositions that you could not get away from, that you were 

 paying a big toll and getting a little service at that market, and our shippers 

 made up their minds that it was a difficult matter to work very many 

 miracles for the farmer with legislation. They decided that if they were 

 going to improve their conditions they would have to get together and do 

 some of the work themselves. 



With that in view last April a meeting was called of all our co-operative 

 shipping associations of the state of Minnesota. Something like 150 of them 

 responded with delegates. At that meeting the ground work was laid for 

 what is now known as the Central Co-operative Commission Association. A 

 board of directors composed of farmers was elected. Articles of incorpora- 

 tion were adopted and that board of directors were given authority to 

 establish on the South St. Paul market a co-operative selling agency. 



Why did they want it? We had on that market thirty-five commission 

 firms and twice that many firms of speculators and dealers, with a total of 

 something like one thousand employees to handle the business of selling the 

 farmers' livestock. Think of what a great big, cumbersome, unnecessary, 

 expensive and extravagant organization that was to handle that business. 

 And the worst of it was that our producers found that in many cases they 

 were not getting square treatment when they got there. I am not condemn- 

 ing the commission men. There are some of the best men engagd in the 

 business, some of the best friends I have that are in there. The fact re- 

 mained that conditions grew up around those terminal markets that were 

 built up for the benefit of everybody except the producer in every step of the 

 game, I don't care whether he was buying or whether he was selling, he was 

 paying the bill, he was the goat, and there was nothing there for his benefit. 



Six weeks after that organization meeting in April we had covered the 

 state of Minnesota. Our board of directors had elected Mr. W. A. McKerrow, 

 who unfortunately for us died a short while ago, as general manager. While 

 he was building up the organization to handle the business at the yards 

 I took charge of a group of men and we covered the state of Minnesota, and 

 in six weeks' time we had the promise of enough business to make us twice 

 as large as any other commission firm in the South St. Paul market. With 

 the promise of that business we felt we were justified' in going into the 

 market and employing the best salesmen that could be secured, and that was 

 our next step. 



OBGANIZAT1ON AND BESUI/TS. 



Now to give you a little idea of the success of this thing I would like 

 to go into it in a little more detail. I want to give you in just a brief word 

 or two the plan of organization. It is a little, simple thing, organized on a 

 co-operative basis, twenty-five thousand dollars of capital stock which is sold 

 not to the individual but to the local shipping association. The individual 

 cannot buy the stock. The control therefore is always in the hand's of the 



