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producer represented by his local association at home, and there is where 

 the voting power is. It isn't open so the individual can step in so the few 

 fellows around the terminal market could buy the controlling interest in the 

 stock so that it could be co-operative only in name. It is organized in such 

 a way that after paying the expense of running the business and paying 

 interest on the money invested that any and all profits are pro-rated back 

 on a patronage basis at the end of the year. That, in just a few words, is 

 the plan on which the association is organized. 



Now, I want to tell you a little something of what we have done, just 

 in a few words. We were open for business on the 8th day of last August, 

 and the first week that we were in the yards we became the largest commis- 

 sion firm of the South St. Paul yards. There never has been a day since 

 the day we opened for business that we have not had more business than 

 any other firm in the yards. We handled 442 cars of livestock in August, 

 700 cars in September, 1,100 cars in October, 1,292 cars in November; in 

 December we had a strike that practically closed our yards for a week, we 

 had two holidays and handled 888 cars. In January we came back up to 

 1,260 cars, which was 24.8 per cent of all the business of those yards, with 

 33 other firms competing for the business. That is what the co-operative 

 organization there has done. 



We have had all kinds of propaganda sent out against us. The people 

 that have been engaged in the business there were ready to fight. That was 

 just human nature. We were stepping on their toes a little bit. We were 

 taking hold of a business which they seemed to feel they were preordained 

 to handle. They seemed to think they had an absolute right, that nobody 

 had any right to come in there and say anything about it. I want to tell you 

 some of the things they attempted to do when we went in there. A few days 

 before we opened for business the livestock exchange members got together 

 and said to the speculators and dealers on the market, "If you buy a hoof 

 from these 'outlaws' (as they called us) you cannot again buy from any 

 member of the exchange." Now what was the purpose of an order of that 

 kind? They knew that we were going to have a lot of business to start on 

 and they figured that they could keep the speculator from buying from us. 

 They thought we would be eliminated, be out of business in a week. They 

 gave us "just a week to live" when we started' in there. Fortunately for us, 

 the farmers in the Corn Belt had gotten themselves pretty well organized 

 into farm bureaus and things of that sort, which gave us an organized 

 medium through which we could work. We sent word through all the county 

 agents to the farm bureaus in the cattle feeding country, and to all the 

 feeders we could get in touch with. We said, "On the 8th day of August we 

 are going to open for business. We expect to have a lot of stockers and 

 feeder cattle. We expect to sell them directly to the man that wants to buy 

 them without adding any speculator profit to them." The first day we opened 

 for business we had a buyer there for all the stockers we wanted to sell. He 

 could not get a full load 'from us, so he went to a commission man's office 

 and he said, "I want to buy a few cattle." The commission man said, "You 

 bought from the outlaws this morning, didn't you?" He said, "Yes, I 

 bought some from them." "You can't buy any cattle in this end of the yard." 

 I don't want to tell you what that buyer told him, but he told him where he 

 could go. And he told him he thought he could get all the cattle he wanted 

 from those yards and he didn't have to deal with any member of the livestock 

 exchange. 



That was the beginning, and I want to say to you that there never has 

 been any time when we have suffered for buyers. Within the last three 

 weeks I have had several of the largest speculators in the South St. Paul 

 yards come to me and get right down on their knees in my office, or pretty 

 nearly so, and say, "Won't you let us come down and buy some cattle?" I 

 said, "Yes, sir, we are conducting an open market down there and any time 

 you want to come down and pay more money for these cattle than they are 

 worth to the outside buyer you can buy them." They said, "No, we don't 

 want to come that way. We want the assurance that when we come down 

 there you will let us have some cattle whether there is some outside man 



