110 



Here is another interesting fact that very few people realize. When we 

 opened for business we had available $12,000, and we have never touched a 

 nickel of it from the day we opened our doors. After we bought the office 

 supplies, the supplies to start, we had $12,000 left available, and we have 

 never touched a nickel of it. The commission man has always operated his 

 business on the other fellow's capital. If he can be sure of a reasonable 

 flow of live stock all the time he doesn't need a nickel's worth of capital. 



Our daily bank balance for the first twenty days of January averaged 

 $127,400 and was never at any time below $60,000. Practically all of it 

 money that was paid in for live stock sold by us that we had issued checks 

 out against. Do you see how it is possible for the commission man to have a 

 little side line here, and everyone who is in the speculating business, who 

 buy and sell your cattle and speculate on them? We could have safely taken 

 $60,000 of that money and invested in stuff that we could turn over in two or 

 three days' time. That is the best of the commission business that the 

 average fellow has never thought of. He never has realized that he was 

 not only furnishing the commission man his business, but that he was fur- 

 nishing the capital to operate it on. That is what we have shown absolutely 

 in the conduct of our business. 



STOCKERS AND FEEDERS. 



Now, with reference to the stocker and feeder cattle. We get lots of 

 that, of course. We try to sell every hoof of that directly from the man 

 that ships them into our yards to the feeder from the corn belt that wants 

 to buy them. If we cannot do that today we place a valuation on them at 

 just what we figure they will bring. We will turn them into our department 

 known as the stocker and feeder department. The man that operates that 

 department takes them in there at every nickel he thinks he can get out of 

 them. It is comparable with the way the speculator does his business, with 

 this exception, that we figure on handling that business on a cost basis and 

 he figures on handling it so as to make all he can out of it. That department 

 we have operated for the last six months. Up to date we have lost a little 

 bit of money on it, but that is just as the books stand at present. Possibly 

 another month or six weeks it may wo.rk out a little bit the other way. It 

 has been our plan to operate that department absolutely on a cost basis, not 

 making a profit on it, but giving the outside man who wanted to buy these 

 cattle the benefit of eliminating the speculator profit, and giving the man 

 who brought the cattle the benefit of the speculator profit, or his share 

 of the speculator profit. That, gentlemen, will mean a good many hundred 

 thousand dollars a year, and all of the stocker and feeder cattle what go 

 through that market could be handled in that manner. 



THE HOG MARKET. 



There are a few other things that are of interest. Take the hog market, 

 for instance. We are developing at South St. Paul one of the largest hog 

 markets in the country. There are many days when we have more hogs on 

 the South St. Paul market than we have at the Chicago market. Producers 

 have come in there and said: "Well, we can't ship to you, because it is 

 impossible for a man to give the service when he has so many hogs to sell." 

 Our hog salesman has handled as high as 7,000 hogs a day. A week ago 

 yesterday we had 7,200 hogs in our last run out of 20,000 on the market. My 

 answer to those fellows has been this: "Do you realize that a packer buyer 

 has to do his work just as carefully as a salesman? Do you realize that it 

 isn't uncommon for a packer buyer to walk into the market and buy 10,000 

 or 12,000 hogs a day, one buyer alone? If you get a salesman that has as 

 much brains as the packer buyer, there is no reason why he can't sell just 

 as many hogs as one packer buyer can buy." Then they say: "Well, he 

 doesn't have the time to spend on them. He don't sell them as high, because 

 he doesn't have time to spend on them." Did you ever stop to think that 

 when one man had all the hogs on the market to sell and there were five 

 buyers trying to buy them, that the salesman had the point of advantage; 



